Changing the face of Abu Ghraib through mental health intervention: U.S. Army mental health team conducts debriefing with military policemen and Iraqi detainees.
Author: Smith MH, Brady PJ.
Source:
Military medicine, 171(12), 1163-1166.
A critical incident stress debriefing (CISD) was conducted with two U.S. Army
military police officers (MPs) and 11 Iraqi detainees who experienced the
untimely death of a detainee. The CISD was conducted by a psychiatrist and a
psychologist, who used the seven-step debriefing model created by Jeffrey
Mitchell in 1983. A primary goal of CISD is to diminish the impact of a traumatic
event and ultimately to prevent the onset of post-traumatic stress disorder. An
unexpected finding was that the debriefing provided an opportunity for the MPs
and detainees to clear preconceived notions about each other, enhancing mutual
collaboration. The purpose of this article is to describe how a mental health
team used a CISD as an intervention in treating MPs and detainees who experienced
a common tragic event.