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Confronting unfixable suffering: the lived experience of police officers

University of British Columbia

Study participants were asked to relate stories about their lived experience of being police officers. Critical defining moments related to the definition and experience of self as police officer were identified in the transcripts of these interviews, summarized and then organized into groupings based on commonalities and differences. The most pervasive and powerful grouping of critical defining moments was summarized and described as "being confronted by unfixable suffering". Results were presented on three levels: (1) story account and core idea, (2) distillation, refinement and reflection of concepts, (3) interpretation. Other groupings of critical defining moments were reported as ancillary findings and recommended as areas for future research. The construct of "unfixable suffering" was developed using existential concepts of suffering. These were loneliness, angst, ambiguity and "thrownness". Embedding the concept of "unfixable suffering" in the context of existentialist ideology presented an opportunity to explore and understand both "what" it is and "how" police officers might approach this condition of human life. It was suggested that the nature of human freedom allows any person the opportunity to transcend the experience of suffering by engaging in a dynamic, personal search for the concrete meaning of suffering within the context of each person's unique life. As contexts to approach the meaning of "unfixable suffering", this construct was discussed as trauma and as the universal myth of "the hero's journey", the pattern of which was compared to cross-cultural healing practices and the pattern of deep psychotherapeutic work described by Jung. The quest for meaning and repair of the disempowerment and disconnection resulting from the experience of suffering in both individual and group counselling contexts were discussed as implications for counselling theory and practice.

Thesis/Dissertation

application/pdf

2009-04-28

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/7649

Counselling Psychology

University of British Columbia

UBCV

DSpace