This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
When accusations tear your group apart
It has happened — accusations are made, everyone is in denial, staff are caught off guard, patients are cancelling, nobody knows how to respond. The media gets involved, the circle widens, someone is arrested. Pause.
Fast forward. Business resumes as usual on the surface, justice is underway … but there is an undercurrent of … sadness? Anger? Secrecy? Have the “survivors” become a different kind of “victim”? Underneath the surface, your team has been roughed up a bit — and that is likely to show up in changed productivity, absenteeism, attitudes and diminishing trust.
Group stress is common in post-traumatic situations, and is no less common in a closed circle environment, like your clinic staff, or your OR staff, or your physical therapists.
Is it true? Are there truly wolves in sheep’s clothing among us?
Who is in charge here? Who is going to step in and help us with this difficult time? Who can we, as a closed group, turn to for help?
Did we somehow contribute to this problem – whether knowingly or unknowingly? Are we responsible – personally or collectively?
Do we have any power to stop this from happening again?
The group that moves successfully beyond being torn apart is a group that successfully works their way through these and other issues. Individual counseling can only go so far to mediate a collective trauma. What is needed is not “don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t talk, don’t speculate.” What is needed is to ask the hard questions, as a closed group, with a facilitator trained in post-traumatic recovery. What is needed is to talk through the discouragement, the depression, the lack of faith in humanity, the lack of confidence in management and the pathway for hope in the future.
Granted, it is important for individuals to acknowledge the need for help, debriefing and direction, and contact EAPs when they are available. But policies that encourage employees to talk in whispers are not policies that successfully address these survivors.
And how ironic: Our success is based on the survivors. Shouldn’t we give them a little more care?