EMERGENCY PSYCHOLOGY

According to the directives of the Réseau National d'Aide Psychologique d'Urgence (RNAPU), emergency psychology corresponds to immediate and post-immediate psycho-social and spiritual support. It covers the entirety of measures aiming at welcoming, surrounding and orienting victims, members of their close circles, witnesses as well as members from the intervention forces involved in a potentially traumatizing event and its consequences.

Psycho-social and spiritual support depends on the idea that the involved people are not sick, that their reactions are natural and useful. In this sense, it aims to mobilize the resources of people most affected, then that of their close circle or socio-professional networks.

Emergency psycho-social support

Emergency psycho-social support contains assistance services provided by the care givers and peers during or immediately after a potentially traumatizing event.

It consists of emotional, material, logistic and practical support.

It is completed by appropriate measures of emergency psychosocial support.

Emergency psychological support

Psychological support specialists accompany and support the victims and their relatives after a potentially traumatizing critical event. This form of help aims to welcome and surround the people involved and to stimulate their resources as well as those of their close circle at both social and professional levels.

Emergency spiritual support

Professionals trained in emergency spiritual support welcome, surround and offer care specific to the people involved in a critical event, on the level of their beliefs, personal creed, existential and spiritual questions, as well as any rituals requested by the victims.