Survival Mentality - The Psychol - Nancy Zarse

Topic Subtopic
Science Neuroscience & Psychology
Survival Mentality
The Psychology of Staying Alive
Course Guidebook
Professor Nancy Zarse

The Chicago School of Professional Psychology
4840 Westfields Boulevard | Suite 500 | Chantilly, Virginia | 20151‑2299
[phone] 1.800.832.2412 | [fax] 703.378.3819 | [web] www.thegreatcourses.com
LEADERSHIP
PAUL SUIJK President & CEO
BRUCE G. WILLIS Chief Financial Officer
JOSEPH PECKL SVP, Marketing
JASON SMIGEL VP, Product Development
CALE PRITCHETT VP, Marketing
MARK LEONARD VP, Technology Services
DEBRA STORMS VP, General Counsel
KEVIN MANZEL Sr. Director, Content Development
ANDREAS BURGSTALLER Sr. Director, Brand Marketing & Innovation
KEVIN BARNHILL Director of Creative
GAIL GLEESON Director, Business Operations & Planning
PRODUCTION TEAM
OCTAVIA VANNALL Producer
VICTORIA CHIN Content Developers
MICHELLE PELLATT
ABBY INGHAM LULL Associate Producer
BRIAN SCHUMACHER Graphic Artist
OWEN YOUNG Managing Editor
ART JARUPHAIBOON Editors
KRISTEN WESTPHAL
CHARLES GRAHAM Assistant Editor
GORDON HALL IV Audio Engineers
EDDIE HARTNESS
VALERIE WELCH Camera Operator & Production Assistant
JIM M. ALLEN Director
PUBLICATIONS TEAM
FARHAD HOSSAIN Publications Manager
MARTIN STEGER Copyeditor
K ATHRYN DAGLEY Graphic Designer
JESSICA MULLINS Proofreader
ERIK A ROBERTS Publications Assistant
JEN ROSENBERG Fact-Checker
WILLIAM DOMANSKI Transcript Editor & Fact-Checker
Copyright © The Teaching Company, 2020

Printed in the United States of America
This book is in copyright. All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved
above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of The Teaching Company.
Nancy Zarse, PsyD
Professor of Forensic Psychology
The Chicago School of Professional Psychology
Nancy Zarse is a Professor of

Forensic Psychology at The
Chicago School of Professional
Psychology, where she also
received her PsyD. She is the
lead faculty for such classes as
Violence and Risk Assessment,
Psychology of Terrorism, and
Hostage Negotiation. She also
developed a course on Israel,
focusing on terrorism, trauma,
and resilience, culminating in a
10-day study abroad trip, which
she has led for eight years.
Professor Zarse specializes in the prevention, identification, assessment,

and management of risk of violence. She serves as an industry expert
on violence prevention for global corporations, national companies,
and school districts. Professor Zarse worked as a consultant to the FBI’s
Countering Violent Extremism program with secret clearance. She
operated as one of three experts on a team awarded a sizable grant for
countering violent extremism by the Department of Homeland Security.
She is a member of the FBI’s Terrorism Liaison Officer Committee
(law enforcement counterterrorism) and was appointed Sector Chief of
Academia for the FBI’s InfraGard (private sector counterterrorism).
Professor Zarse worked as a forensic psychologist at several high-profile

prisons, with previous positions including chief psychologist at two
federal prisons and director of inmate administration at the United
States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, the maximum security
i
PROFESSOR BIOGRAPHY
military prison. Her responsibilities included performing psychological

evaluations, assessing risk of violence, providing individual and group
therapy, leading hostage negotiation teams, providing staff training, and
conducting violation hearings for maximum security military prisoners.
Professor Zarse consults with and provides training to law enforcement

agencies—such as the FBI, Los Alamos National Laboratory, US Army
Military Police, police departments, and crisis negotiation associations—
as well as schools, law firms, corporations, and legal agencies. She also sits
on the board of directors for the Illinois Crisis Negotiators Association.
Professor Zarse presents at national and international forums on assessing
risk of violence, mental illness, terrorism, school and workplace violence,
survival mindset, PTSD, dealing with trauma, resilience, hostage
negotiation, interdisciplinary collaboration, suicide risk assessment, and
stress management.
Professor Zarse has published articles on such topics as hostage

negotiation, work stress, police values, police-citizen interactions,
offenders, and political assassinations. She has provided expert
commentary in media interviews, including on CNN, NBC, ABC,
CBS, and Fox as well as in Forbes magazine, The Washington Post, and
the Chicago Tribune. She also has been featured in documentaries, such
as White Supremacy: Going Under, and in the E! Investigates episodes
“Kidnapping of Jaycee Dugard” and “Crime on Campus.”
From The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, Professor Zarse

twice received both the Distinguished Faculty Award for Excellence in
Teaching and the Distinguished Faculty Award for Excellence in Public
Service, in addition to the Distinguished Alumni Award. She was also
twice selected as a Carnegie Scholar.
ii
Table of Contents
Introduction
Professor Biography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i
Disclaimer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iv
Course Scope. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Guides
1 What It Means to Survive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2 Developing an Internal Locus of Control . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3 Listening to Your Instincts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4 Listening to Your Intuitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
5 Managing Your Emotions under Threat . . . . . . . . . . . 26
6 How Everyday Experience Prepares You for Crisis . . . . . . 34
7 Making Decisions under Pressure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
8 Developing Situational Awareness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
9 Perseverance toward a Positive Outcome . . . . . . . . . . . 56
10 Protective Factors That Increase Your Odds . . . . . . . . . 62
11 Resilience in the Aftermath of Trauma . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
12 We Survive Together: The Power of Community . . . . . . 73
Supplementary Material
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
iii
DISCLAIMER
This series of lectures contains graphic descriptions and images of violence, which may be
disturbing and may not be suitable for minors or other audiences.
This series of lectures is intended to increase your understanding of the emotional and
social lives of children and/or adults and is for educational purposes only. It is not a
substitute for, nor does it replace, professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment of
mental health conditions.
These lectures are not designed for use as medical references to diagnose, treat, or prevent
medical or mental health illnesses or trauma, and neither The Teaching Company nor
the lecturer is responsible for your use of this educational material or its consequences.
Furthermore, participating in this course does not create a doctor-patient or therapist-
client relationship. The information contained in these lectures is not intended to dictate
what constitutes reasonable, appropriate, or best care for any given mental health issue and
does not take into account the unique circumstances that define the health issues of any
individual. If you have questions about the diagnosis, treatment, or prevention of a medical
condition or mental illness, you should consult your personal physician or a mental health
professional. The opinions and positions provided in these lectures reflect the opinions and
positions of the relevant lecturer and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or positions of
The Teaching Company or its affiliates.
The Teaching Company expressly DISCLAIMS LIABILITY for any DIRECT,

INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR
LOST PROFITS that result directly or indirectly from the use of these lectures. In states
that do not allow some or all of the above limitations of liability, liability shall be limited to
the greatest extent allowed by law.
iv
SURVIVAL MENTALITY
The Psychology of Staying Alive
When faced with an unexpected critical situation, how would you

react? Do you have the skills and the knowledge to keep your wits
about you, take stock of the situation, and make wise choices? Many
emergency preparedness courses focus on physical preparations you can
make to increase your chances of survival, but the truth is that mental
preparedness is far more critical when your life in on the line.
In this course, you will discover the mental and psychological skills that
are key for surviving critical situations of all types, from interpersonal
violence to natural disasters. You will learn from the real-life stories of
pilots, emergency personnel, law enforcement, and everyday citizens who
have persevered through life-threatening events.
The course starts with a look at the fundamental mental attribute

necessary for survival and well-being: an internal locus of control. With
an internal locus of control, you are able to discern which elements
of your situation are within your control and act confidently to assess
and address those variables. With an internal locus of control covered,
the course moves on to the variety of feelings and impulses that arise
when you are faced with an unexpected crisis. The course explores the
important similarities and differences between instinct, intuition, and
emotions, and it examines how you can recognize and leverage each
impulse to manage its effects and use it to your advantage.
While a number of innate tools help in a survival situation, some of your

best mental assets are not innate; they must be established and cultivated
through practice. The next lectures look at the importance of training
and habituation when it comes to physical readiness, decision-making,
and situational awareness. You will learn to recognize which experiences
you have in everyday life that may be uniquely preparing you for a
1
COURSE SCOPE
critical situation without your realizing it. Knowing and strengthening

these skills—and consciously acquiring and practicing new ones—can
drastically increase your odds of survival.
The course then turns to the personality characteristics that you can
develop to help ensure your safety and wellness not just during an
incident but well beyond it. Lectures explore the traits of perseverance and
resilience and look at psychological protective factors that you can put in
place. Finally, the course looks at the all-important role of community.
As John Donne said, “No man is an island.” People suffer together and
endure together. When it comes to survival, people are each other’s
best hope.
2
LECTURE 1
CLICK TO GO BACK TO
What It Means
THE TABLE OF CONTENTS
to Survive
S u rvival is encountering and living through a

critical incident. A critical incident is one which
disrupts your psychological homeostasis. In a
critical incident, your usual coping methods
fail. The critical incident causes distress and
often dysfunction. It is sudden and unexpected.
It disrupts your sense of control as well as your
beliefs, your values, and your basic assumptions.
A critical incident involves a damaging life
threat, with an emotional trigger or physical loss.
The key takeaway of this lecture is that surviving

a critical incident means successfully navigating
both the elements of the incident itself and the
elements that you as an individual bring to the
situation: your psychological strengths and your
unique body of experiences.
3
What It Means to Survive Lecture 1
Types of Critical Incidents

Not every critical incident has the same impact. The effect of a critical
incident depends on a number of factors: the actual event, its intensity,
its duration, and its level of unexpectedness. It also depends on primary
and secondary victimization, the mental health of the victim, and their
previous experiences.
The actual event is key. For instance, was it a car accident, a house fire,
or an officer-involved shooting? With regard to intensity, was it a tornado
that suddenly appeared, without advance warning, or was it slowly rising
flood water? Regarding duration, how long did the incident last? Was it
an explosion that lasted seconds, or were you trapped for a week in the
rubble of an earthquake? Finally, did you expect it?
Primary and secondary victimization are also pieces of the critical

incident puzzle. Primary victimization is when the event happens directly
to you. Secondary victimization occurs when you observe it. Both can
have a powerful effect, but the extent of that effect can vary based on
whether you were directly involved or witnessed it.
An enormous part of the impact of a critical incident depends on your

mental health and your prior experiences. Mental health encompasses
your attitude, your level of functioning prior to the incident—known as
pre-morbid functioning—and your typical reactions. For instance, is your
attitude typically positive or negative? Do you have an attitude that you’re
going to fight and win, or do you tend to give up in the face of adversity?
Your attitude is crucial to your initial response because if you tend to be

positive, to dig in and fight, and to believe in your ability to overcome
obstacles, then you are more likely to respond to the critical incident with
that same attitude.
Previous experiences are your cumulative body of experiences. This

especially means any specific personal training (like sports or fitness
routines) and any relevant professional training, such as police or military
experience.
4
Heat
All of these critical incident factors, both external and internal, are present
in every survival situation. The movie Heat provides a great example.
Heat stars Al Pacino as the head of the homicide/robbery unit of the Los
Angeles Police Department and Robert De Niro as the head of a high-
powered robbery crew. The movie accurately portrays criminal thinking
patterns. It is based on a true story of a Hollywood bank robbery and the
subsequent shootout between the bank robbers and the police.
In one scene, Robert De Niro’s crew is robbing a bank. It is a well-

executed robbery, using the threat of violence rather than actual violence.
Their strategy is to intimidate people into submission. During the
robbery, Al Pacino’s detective unit receives a tip about the crime. The
police immediately rush to the bank, hoping to arrest the criminals at the
bank to minimize collateral damage.
As the police arrive, most of the criminals are already in the getaway
vehicle, with the last robber walking toward the car. The criminals are
heavily armed, as are the police. The police observe the robbers exiting
the bank and proceed with their intent to arrest the criminals but readjust
to the urban setting. Al Pacino’s character advises the officers to pay
attention to lines of fire and avoid hurting innocent bystanders with stray
bullets. The criminal spots the police and immediately opens fire.
For the responding police, this was a critical incident: unexpected,

sudden, and life-threatening. They planned to arrest the bank robbers
inside the bank, which carried far less risk to all involved, and to do so
without gunfire. They never intended for the gun battle to unfold on the
busy streets of a major city.
The intensity was high, as were the stakes with so many innocent lives in
danger. With regard to duration, the incident raged through the streets
and surrounding blocks as the criminals refused to surrender and the
police actively pursued them. And it was unexpected because the police
hoped to make a quiet arrest in the bank.
5
This critical incident represents a perfect storm of factors: It was life-

threatening, sudden, intense, of prolonged duration, and unexpected.
Additionally, it was not just a critical incident for the police. Neither the
customers of the bank nor the bystanders on the street expected a life-
threatening situation to unfold around them. It was a critical incident for
them as well
In this critical incident, primary and secondary victimization occurred

simultaneously: Police were directly fired on while also experiencing
fellow police officers being injured and killed by their side. It also
occurred simultaneously for the bank employees and bystanders, who
were dealing at the very least with secondary victimization and with the
real potential for primary victimization.
As for the psychological issues at play, the police brought a number of

mental strengths with them as a result of their role and their motivation.
Law enforcement personnel by nature tend to have a strong confidence in
their ability to maintain control in dangerous situations. This is known as
the internal locus of control. The police in this situation also had a strong
sense of motivation to protect their lives and the lives of their fellow
officers and the civilian bystanders.
They also brought with them a profound level of training and previous
experience. The years on the job, the extent of weapons and tactics
training, and previous encounters with armed subjects all impacted the
readiness, accuracy, and strategies of the responding officers. This allowed
them to respond to the crime in progress, to prevent collateral damage to
bystanders, to fire while being fired on, and to run yet maintain accurate
aim via controlled breathing. It also allowed the officers to anticipate the
next move, to seek protective cover, and to make rapid decisions with life-
and-death consequences.
6
Exercises
1 With this lecture’s description of what makes for a critical incident in mind,
research some recent survival stories in your area. As you proceed with the
course, try to identify which psychological strategies were used by survivors
during the incident.
2 While this course’s definition of survival is tied to a life-threatening

incident, many of the psychological strengths covered are also applicable
to stressful but non-critical situations. Identify an aspect or experience
in your life that you find particularly stressful and difficult to overcome.
What elements of the situation do you find particularly threatening?
Understanding why an incident triggers a stress response is the first step for
choosing an appropriate psychological tool to address it.
7
LECTURE 2
Developing an Internal
Locus of Control
S h ortly after 3:30 pm on January 15, 2009,

news began to break about an emergency
aircraft landing on the Hudson River. US
Airways Flight 1549, with 155 people aboard,
experienced a double engine failure not long
after takeoff from LaGuardia Airport. When
the news cameras arrived on the scene, the
plane had started sinking slowly into the river
as passengers lined the wings to evacuate. There
were injuries, but no fatalities.
The plane landed safely in that river thanks

to the actions of one man: Captain Chesley
Sullenberger III, known more commonly as Sully.
This lecture uses his actions as a lens to examine
the subject of an internal locus of control.
8
Developing an Internal Locus of Control Lecture 2
The Event
The double engine failure was completely novel; not only was there no
emergency protocol on which to rely, this kind of scenario had never
even been envisioned for training purposes. Faced with the unforeseen,
Captain Sully immediately realized that he “had to apply [his] own
training, experience, and judgment to this emergency.” The event lasted
only 208 seconds, which is about three and a half minutes.
Because of extreme time

pressures and the high
stakes of the 155 lives
AN EMERGENCY LANDING
onboard, Sully needed Sully differentiated between calling the
to set clear priorities. He event a landing and calling it a crash.
also realized that in this When speaking on it later, he referred to
instance stress was highly the event “an emergency landing” rather
debilitating, so he had to
manage his emotions.
than “a crash.”
Additionally, he asked his
copilot for ideas, showing
that he was open to
suggestions.
When he determined that

he could not safely make it
to any of the surrounding
airports, Sully decided
to take advantage of the
largest unencumbered
landing strip in sight:
the river. He notified
Air Traffic Control of
his intent, and he then
focused his attention on CAPTAIN CHESLEY SULLENBERGER III
the matter at hand.
9
An Internal Locus of Control

Throughout his thought process during the ordeal, Sully embodied an
internal locus of control. In general terms, locus of control refers to your
attitude or what you believe about the connection between your behavior
and the ensuing consequences. There are two types: internal locus of
control and external locus of control. With an internal locus of control,
you believe that a great deal of what happens in your life flows from your
own actions, whereas with an external locus of control, you assume that
what happens to you is the result of luck, fate, or other people’s actions.
VARIABILITY
Your sense of locus of control isn’t binary or absolute. All people fall somewhere
on a spectrum. Researchers determine an individual’s locus of control based on
how strongly they agree with these statements:
1) I have little control over the things that happen to me.

2) There is really no way I can solve some of the problems I have.
3) There is little I can do to change many of the important things in my life.
4) I often feel helpless in dealing with the problems of life.
5) Sometimes I feel I’m being pushed around in life.
6) What happens to me in the future mostly depends on me.
7) I can do just about anything I really set my mind to do.
Researchers have found that variability exists within individuals. A person might
feel he or she has more control in some situations than in others, but people
tend to lean one way or the other fairly consistently in their approach to things.
10
An internal locus of control is about your ability, or perceived ability,

to control your reaction to a situation and to control the environment
around that situation. In contrast, with an external locus of control, you
feel controlled by the situation and controlled by the environment.
Sully had a deep and abiding sense of the importance of expending extra
effort to overcome challenges. And he took his responsibilities seriously.
He firmly believed that success flowed directly from his actions, both in
the moment and in preparation for it.
Coping Strategies
Your locus of control impacts your choice of coping strategies. Those with
an internal locus of control actively seek solutions to their problems, while
those with an external locus of control use more indirect coping efforts
like relying solely on emotional support. Emotional support has value, but
there is a need for active coping mechanisms in many circumstances.
One of the ways that people with an internal locus of control succeed
in coping effectively is by varying their coping strategies based on the
unique situation at hand. In other words, people with an internal locus of
control adapt: They choose, from a robust repertoire of coping strategies,
a particular approach to the unique problem at the particular time.
For instance, in Captain Sully’s emergency landing event, he skipped “the

problem-identification phase” and went “directly into problem-solving
mode,” according the pilot. It is not always advisable to skip the problem-
identification step when faced with a crisis, but it absolutely was in this
case. He was purposefully adapting to the situation at hand, showing
an internal locus of control. Additionally, he acknowledged the stress,
and then deliberately compartmentalized it so as to accomplish the tasks
necessary to land the plane without benefit of a runway.
11
Human Capital
Sully’s attitude was that the success of his emergency landing was a team
effort. This is another characteristic of people with an internal locus
of control. Though an internal locus of control seems primarily self-
sufficient, engagement with others is actually a critical element.
Interestingly enough, there is even evidence to suggest that those with

an internal locus of control tend to socialize more, thereby accumulating
a store of human capital on which they draw in times of need. This
human capital acts as an indirect psychological insurance policy against
future harm.
Sully spent a great deal of time throughout his career examining aviation
accidents to uncover what went wrong. He found a higher accident rate
among captains who were arrogant, autocratic, and solo-acting, so he
firmly believed that a captain’s attitude was reflected in accident rates. On
the other hand, Sully speaks often about the “importance of team—that
the team, as a whole, fails or succeeds.” Throughout his career, Sully
operated as part of a team, rather than as a domineering, superior, all-
knowing figure.
Learning
Learning is another element of an internal locus of control that can be
indispensable in a survival situation. If you think that your success and
failures are the result of your own actions, you are more likely to take
responsibility for equipping yourself with the knowledge needed to succeed.
Sully spent decades building up a supply of survival training. He learned to

fly as a teenager. He had been fascinated with planes as a toddler, learned
that Lindbergh’s flight across the Atlantic required intense preparation
rather than luck, and he fell in love with flying in his very first flight at the
age of 11. By 16, he convinced his father to permit flying lessons.
12
In addition to flying and taking correspondence courses, Sully began

what became a lifetime interest: studying aviation disasters. His goal was
not to blame but to learn.
By the time of the Miracle on the Hudson, Sully had accumulated almost
20,000 hours of flying time. As such, he did not so much rise to the
occasion as fall back on his lowest level of training and experience. His
training was extensive: military service in the US Air Force, harrowingly
close calls in the air, assignment to the Air Force Mishap Investigation
Board, and years as a commercial pilot.
Conclusion
Sully and his actions show several elements of an internal locus of control.
He assumed that he had the power to control the situation and made
conscious decisions to do so, both in advance and during the moment.
Thanks to his previous preparation, he was able to act reflexively at the
time of the double engine failure: He managed his emotions, he ran
through his options, he compared this incident to other accidents he had
reviewed, he sought input from his copilot, and he relied on decades of
flying experience as well as on the experience of his team.
People with an internal locus of control recognize the important role of

other people in their success or failure, but they keep their locus of control
within themselves. There is an important distinction between what you
do have control over and what you do not. You do not have control over
what others do or how they react to what you do. You do have control of
what you do, regardless of what others do or how they respond. Thus,
when you acknowledge that you cannot change what others do but that
you can control what you do, that represents an internal locus of control.
13
Exercises
1 Consider your locus of control. When you encounter a challenge, do you
look for external factors beyond your influence, or do you focus on your
own capabilities and powers to influence the situation?
2 Identify someone in your life who routinely exhibits an internal locus of

control. Pay attention to how he or she reacts to challenges and see what
lessons you can draw from that behavior.
3 An internal locus of control is something that can be practiced and

developed. Use the small challenges that you encounter in your day to
mindfully establish an internal locus of control so that it is well-developed
and accessible if you should find yourself in a critical situation.
14
LECTURE 3
Listening to
Your Instincts
I stincts are the subject of this lecture. Instincts

n
and survival are inseparable because instincts
are related to either individual survival or the
survival of the species. These are tools that people
are given innately to help them make it from
one day to the next and from one generation to
the next.
15
Listening to Your Instincts Lecture 3
Acting on Instincts
People tend to second-guess. They doubt, investigate, weigh variables, and
assess consequences. These are all important activities, and they increase
efficiency and accuracy. Instincts are there to help people survive, but
acting on every instinct you have can waste time and energy, both of
which are critical to survival.
In order for the instinct-assessment loop to work to your advantage, you

have to be open to the instinct in the first place. However, people tend
to close themselves off to instinct in different ways. For example, sensory
experiences like seeing or smelling something trigger instinctive responses,
and those responses alert people that something needs to be investigated.
More and more, though, people are doing things that distract their senses
from the environment. Walking around with headphones serves as an
example: Loud music can drown out other noises.
People also often close themselves off to the senses because of a false
sense of security, which is common and dangerous. Media consumption
doesn’t help matters. All too often, people rely on TV shows and movies
to determine what might be dangerous, but it’s possible to forget that TV
and movies are entertainment.
Individuals can also develop a false sense of safety in the way they
interpret and talk about human behavior. For instance, after an incident
of workplace violence, it is common for people to say the event was
unpredictable. However, signs were often there: The person may have
expressed a grievance, made threats, began accumulating weapons,
developed a plan of attack, and moved toward the violent intent.
Even when people are aware and do acknowledge their instincts, they
can go astray in their assessment of the situation. This can happen
in a few ways. Often, individuals worry about the consequences of
acting, especially social consequences. A person might sense someone is
dangerous but suppress it to avoid looking rude or seeming insubordinate.
16
Another way people can go astray is not taking context into consideration
to accurately assess the situation. For instance, a man with a rifle on the
street may be alarming in some areas but may be normal during hunting
season in a rural area.
Distinguishing Instincts
You need to be able to distinguish instinct from other impulses and
feelings you might have.
Instincts are impulses encoded into people’s bodies evolutionarily to help

the species survive. They often manifest as strong, almost overwhelming
urges or drives. A baby crying is instinctive behavior. A mother’s physical
urge to comfort the crying baby is instinct. Sexual desires can often be
traced to instinct, as can desires to retaliate against injustice.
Some of these instincts are emotions, which are called primary emotions.
The most common ones are fear, sadness, happiness, and anger. These
happen as direct responses to an external experience.
Not all emotions are instinctive. There are also secondary emotions, and
these are feelings that stem not from an experience directly but from
thoughts or reactions to the experience. There are dozens of secondary
emotions, including worry, shame, gratitude, pride, resentment, hope,
excitement, and guilt. They may be triggered by an instinct, but
secondary emotions are learned.
For example, the primary emotion of fear occurs in the face of danger,
and it links to pain or death. This allows you to differentiate it from
worry or anxiety. Worry is a secondary response and often serves
some secondary gain, but it’s not in response to a direct threat. It’s not
instinctive, and it’s not fear. Fear can surface quite unexpectantly in the
middle of an otherwise uneventful day.
17
When you feel true fear, your body is

telling you that you’re in danger. Listen INSTINCTIVE FEAR
to it without question, debate, logic, True instinctive fear is always
or ego. Fear will get your attention if the result of something that
necessary. Look at fear as a gift, and is happening right now, and
heed the warning.
it always needs and deserves
your attention.
Exercises
1 The next time you find yourself in an unfamiliar environment, pay
attention to how your instincts are operating. What do you notice about
your senses? Which ones do you pay attention to most? When your senses
are stimulated by something new or unexpected, what is the sympathetic
response in your body? How do you assess whether that response is
indicating a true threat?
2 Examine your habits and see which ones may be interfering with your
ability to take advantage of your instincts. Do you often wear earbuds while
walking through populated areas? Do you get absorbed in a book or on
your phone while you are on the train? Noticing and breaking these habits
can give you a critical advantage during a threatening situation by allowing
your instincts to do their job.
18
LECTURE 4
Listening to
Your Intuitions
I tuition gets a bad rap. It tends to be

n
undervalued and dismissed, especially because
intuition is not easily explainable. However,
intuition is a real thing, and it is incredibly
powerful if you understand what it is and how to
use it.
19
Listening to Your Intuitions Lecture 4
The Meaning of Intuition

Intuition is a very physical phenomenon, and in that way, it resembles
instinct. Both instinct and intuition can be at play in the same situation,
and often the words are used interchangeably. But they actually mean
different things.
An instinct is a physical impulse that every human being has simply

because they are human beings. It is part of their bodies, and it often
shows up as a sensation or urge that happens without conscious thought.
An intuition is also an impulse, and it also occurs without conscious

thought or choice. However, people are not born with intuitions like they
are born with instincts. Intuitions are the result of all of the experiences
that a person has encountered over the course of his or her life. The mind
and body distill this knowledge and experience into a coherent set of
expectations about how the world operates, and these expectations settle
deeply into the subcortical region of the brain—that is, the region that
acts without conscious thought.
INTUITION AT WORK
The people who face critical
situations all the time—law
enforcement personnel,
for instance—pay careful
attention to intuition and take
it very seriously. In fact, police
training involves helping
officers hone their intuition.
20
The Role of Intuition

When something is seriously out of step with your set of expectations, you
have an immediate subcortical reaction to it. The same reaction occurs if
something is profoundly aligned with those expectations, even if you can’t
explain it. That’s intuition.
Nobody’s intuition is the same as anyone else’s because nobody’s

experiences are exactly the same as anyone else’s. Instincts are universal,
but intuitions are individual. That means that you bring your own unique
intuitive power to every situation that you are in.
This power gives you immediate, subcortical access to the reservoir of

knowledge and experience that your brain has collected and absorbed over
your lifetime, provided you are willing to listen to it.
Intuition is something that can be developed and refined. The greater the
variety of experiences you have and the more you pay attention when you
have them, the more refined and sophisticated your intuition becomes.
Example 1 of Intuition
This lecture now turns to two examples involving the same Chicago
police officer: one in which the intuition was present but ignored, and
another in which the intuition was present and acted on.
In the first example, Kurt, the police officer, responded to a call of shots
fired that came across the radio. Multiple officers arrived on the scene,
looking for information. In addition to the police, a group of people
milled about in front of the house. Kurt recognized the house from prior
calls involving drug and gang activity.
21
As Kurt scanned the scene, he recognized that one individual looked

like “he was thinking about something.” That person turned and ran
into the house, but the police couldn’t follow because the people on the
porch blocked their way. Later, the man came back out, but Kurt let him
pass, as did the other police. He walked away. A few minutes later, they
heard gunshots.
On reflection, Kurt realized that he allowed himself to be influenced by

the other police at the scene. Because they didn’t respond, he questioned
his intuitions, and he didn’t respond. Kurt was relatively inexperienced at
this point in his career.
Example 2 of Intuition
Contrast this example with another involving Kurt. In this example, he
had more years on the job and more confidence in his intuition. Kurt and
his partner had been flagged down for a person with a gun. The officers
noticed two people hanging out between parked cars, one of whom
matched the description of the person with the gun. Kurt asked one man to
put his hands on the hood of the squad car, while his partner instructed the
other to put his hands on the trunk of the car. This served to separate the
two and minimize risk to the police. When the guy in front leaned over to
put his hands on the trunk, his shirt raised up and Kurt observed a pistol.
Immediately and reflexively, Kurt said, “Gun.” He tried to secure the

pistol, but the man was faster, punching Kurt in the face and breaking
his nose. Kurt had a decision to make: He could either shoot the man or
rush him and tackle him despite the fact that the man was still armed. He
decided on the latter.
He rushed at the man, bear-hugging him and bringing him to the

ground. After a few minutes of struggle between the two, Kurt’s partner
was able to help bring the subject under control. The man had been
in possession of the pistol the whole time, but fortunately, no shots
were fired.
22
Kurt’s intuition and his willingness to listen to it helped him in this

case. When Kurt first saw the pistol, his mouth drew attention to the
danger, and his hand reached to disarm the subject without any conscious
thought. His subcortical reaction was to get the gun in his possession,
and his body acted on it before his mind could even formulate the
thought. It is a great example of well-honed intuition developed by
experience and training.
Kurt’s intuition was so fine-tuned by this point that it was even able to
override his instinct. When Kurt failed to secure the pistol and while he
was still reeling from a broken nose, he decided to run toward the armed
man instead of shooting him or seeking cover. His instinct might have
told him to take cover from the threat, but his intuition told him to run
toward it. Kurt’s hope was that if he were shot, the close distance would
make the bullet hit his chest and therefore his bulletproof vest. Running
would have exposed his back, head, or neck. He described the chest as
“the least bad option.”
A State of Arousal
Ask yourself if you have ever experienced this during a time of stress:
Time slows, your vision narrows, and everything falls away except what’s
happening to you. Your senses focus on what the most important thing is
right at that moment, and they disregard everything else around you. The
world seems to stand still. This is known as a very high state of arousal.
Arousal is your state of awareness and subsequent readiness for action.

If you are conscious, you are experiencing some level of arousal. It may
be a low level of arousal, in which you’re not particularly focused on
anything or emotionally engaged. If something gets your attention and
engages you, your level of arousal will rise. If something strongly gets
your attention, like being punched in the face by an armed assailant,
then you might experience a hyper level of arousal, which Kurt did in
the previous example.
23
For every situation, there is an optimal level of arousal. At that level,

your focus and attention are appropriate and in tune with the task at
hand. Having full and appropriate engagement with your situation is
crucial during a critical incident. If the level of arousal doesn’t match the
intensity of the situation, it can lead to poor decision-making or paralysis.
Primary and Secondary Arousal

There are two types of arousal: primary and secondary. Primary arousal
flows from the demands of the situation and your readiness to encounter
it. Secondary arousal, in contrast, flows from your doubts and concerns
about the incident. Primary arousal is about the incident itself, and
secondary arousal is about your reaction to the incident.
When you’re faced with a critical incident, it’s often your intuition or
instinct that prompts a change in arousal. You notice something is wrong
and needs your attention, and your primary arousal system kicks in. It
sharpens your focus and your senses, allowing you to assess your situation.
If you achieve the optimal arousal level for the given situation, you find
yourself intently focused on the task at hand, easily able to maintain your
attention.
However, if secondary arousal kicks in too strongly, your feelings about

the incident may take over and create a level of arousal that is either too
low or too high to effectively address the situation. Your survival might be
in danger.
Level of arousal is something you can regulate, if you know what to look
for. One highly effective strategy to bring down your level of arousal is
with targeted breathing exercises. When your level of arousal becomes
very high, your body lets you know. One of the sure signs is an increased
heart rate. As your heart races, your breathing becomes fast and shallow.
The pace of your breathing is strongly physically correlated to the pace of
your heartbeat.
24
When faced with danger, there is an instinctive stress response wherein

your shoulders collapse, your head goes down, and your diaphragm
is sucked in, all of which help to protect your body. With breathing
exercises, you can teach yourself to keep your head up, slow your
breathing, and breathe in and out in a measured way. Medics on the scene
of a deadly car accident try to get victims going into shock to do this very
thing: take deep breaths to slow breathing and the heart rate.
Exercises
1 The next time you have an impulsive reaction to something, see if you can
identify whether it’s the result of instinct or intuition. Is this a reaction
that most people would have based on a hardwired biological response, or
is this a response that comes from your unique conditioning based on life
experiences?
2 Pay attention to how you respond to your intuitions. Do you act on them
without questioning? Do you discount them immediately? Neither is a
helpful response. See if you can establish a habit of noticing your intuitions,
taking them seriously, and assessing them before choosing an action.
25
LECTURE 5
Managing Your Emotions

under Threat
A c ritical piece of survival in a life-threatening

situation is managing your emotions. You
need to stay calm despite the threat or danger.
As with any other skill, the only way to
hone managing your emotions is with effort
over time.
26
Managing Your Emotions under Threat Lecture 5
Strategies
There are a number of things you can do to manage your emotions. One
strategy is to control your breathing. Snipers, for instance, rely heavily on
regulating their breathing because they know that breathing can alter the
accuracy of their shots.
As controlled breathing slows your heartrate, your level of arousal evens

out, and your ability to assess and judge accurately increases. Once
you’ve established an optimal level of arousal, you are able to notice
your emotional reactions as they happen, acknowledge them, and
determine whether or not they serve to your advantage in dealing with the
critical event.
It is also important to not let the primary emotion of fear turn into a
secondary emotion like panic or despair. Another technique is to embody
an internal locus of control, both in your approach to a situation and in
your outward appearance.
Tricky Emotions
Studies consistently show that emotions influence judgment as well as
decision-making. This is especially true in situations inherently embedded
with intensity, such as emergencies. Regardless of the intrusion of
ambiguity, chaos, denial, and dread which characterize a crisis, decisions
must be made, often quickly and in rapid succession. The life-threatening
nature of disasters and the narrow window of time in which to act further
challenges the ability to maintain composure.
Some emotions alert people to real danger. Some of them convince people
of imaginary danger. They impact hormonal responses in immediate and
powerful ways. The emotional response might play out in myriad ways
during a crisis, especially one with prolonged circumstances.
27
Melissa’s Background
One example of emotions at work comes from the story of Melissa, who
had to be rescued in Houston during Hurricane Harvey. Hurricane
Harvey produced massive flooding which devastated homes and
businesses alike, displaced thousands and thousands of people, and caused
the death of more than 100 people.
Melissa’s story began long before even the warning of the impending
hurricane. As is the case with every survivor, Melissa brought her lifetime
to bear, including prior experiences with mighty storms.
Raised in a military family, Melissa moved often in her childhood, in

accord with her father’s Air Force postings. Melissa was a young child
when Hurricane Camille hit Biloxi, Mississippi. Neither her home nor
the military base suffered much damage, so Melissa recalls the adventure
of it all. The storm completely destroyed their church, but the immediate
impact on her family was minimal, and her life went on.
This event highlights the intensely personal nature of disasters. For the
state of Mississippi, Hurricane Camille was devastating, but for Melissa, it
might have been forgotten altogether if not for the next storm.
The next storm, Typhoon Pamela, struck when Melissa lived on Guam.
Melissa formed vivid memories of the storm hitting the Air Force base,
then moving out into the ocean before turning back and smashing the Air
Force base again. The damage was extensive.
A week after the typhoon hit, the first commercial flight left the island.
Melissa’s parents charged their credit cards to the max to secure tickets for
the children to fly to Texas to stay with extended family.
28
Hurricane Harvey
Before the later event of Hurricane Harvey, the forecasters predicted the
storm along with significant flooding. Melissa had plans to join a social
gathering on a Friday, but decided not to go for fear of getting stuck
there. By Saturday morning, the water filled the street and creeped into
their yard.
Melissa must have felt some sense of foreboding, as evidenced by her

concern for her daughter, visiting her boyfriend in France. Though
Melissa asserts that she thought the storm would avoid Houston, she
instructed her daughter to come home immediately. By Saturday evening,
the rain had returned, and the water rose higher and higher, eventually
lapping onto the front porch of Melissa and her family’s home. Tension
mounted. On Sunday, the rain kept coming.
When a solid layer of water covered the garage floor, they cut the power.
Relieved that the water was not in the house, she and her kids played a
card game while her husband paced. When the rain stopped and the water
receded a bit, they turned the power back on and charged their phones.
They still couldn’t leave the house because the water lingered in the street.
The rain returned with a vengeance and the water inched ever higher.
First, to the edge of the pool. Then back in the garage. Then to the top of
the concrete step in the garage. Suddenly, Melissa remembered the pilot
light in the fireplace and felt an inexplicable certainty that they had to
turn off the gas, but a gas key was unavailable.
Emotion Dictating Action

Melissa’s husband, Phil, did not share her concern, but Melissa remained
resolute. This is an example of emotion dictating action. Earlier in her
life, right after her mother died, Melissa heard an explosion outside her
house and went to look. She saw a fire in the middle of the street, one she
couldn’t make sense of.
29
As Melissa stood behind her dad, she noticed her friend Susan outside.
Melissa describes the horror that happened next. Then, Susan’s dad
came outside and screamed. His son was on fire, and this horror became
embedded in Melissa’s psyche. Melissa was as a result certain that during
Hurricane Harvey, it was necessary to turn the gas off. It marked the
highest level of agitation that Melissa experienced during the entire ordeal.
Melissa’s husband trudged through water up to his chest to get a gas key.
When they returned to their house, they knew the water would pour
into the house when they opened the door, but they had no choice. After
turning off the gas in the fireplace and with water coming in the house,
Melissa knew they needed to move upstairs. They rearranged things onto
higher shelves and moved themselves, their dog, and their most valuable
items upstairs.
They resorted to candles and flashlights. By this time, they had shut
down the power again. Melissa’s daughter Piper was beginning to fret, but
Melissa reassured her.
Later in the Ordeal

By the morning, Melissa knew they had to figure out what to do.
Neighbors texted each other that they heard that locals, known as the
Cajun Army, had mobilized and were arranging rescues. Melissa drew
comfort from the fact that the whole neighborhood communicated what
they knew.
Melissa and her family dedicated themselves to planning a way out,

despite knowing they couldn’t get out and friends couldn’t get in.
Suddenly, they heard banging at the door. A stranger asked if they
wanted to get out; Melissa replied if she could have 10 minutes to grab
some items. Then she paused and looked at Phil, whose skeptical look
penetrated the fog. She realized they needed to get out.
30
Part of the family climbed aboard a paddle board while the rest jumped
in a kayak. A woman pulled them out of the neighborhood, sloshing
through water up to her chest. As Melissa boated past the junior high
school, she looked down at herself and realized she was wearing only
shorts and a sports bra. She made a joke about that, and then realized that
if she was joking, the crisis was passing and she was returning to being
herself.
AFTERMATH OF HURRICANE HARVEY
Melissa’s Emotional Journey

Melissa brought her instincts to the situation and her intuitions as an
experienced survivor of strong storms. She also brought a deep emotional
history tied to her childhood, her family, and some incredibly painful past
experiences. All of these things made it difficult at times for Melissa to
achieve an optimal level of arousal and sustain it throughout the crisis.
31
As the incident was first unfolding, Melissa had an intuition that the
situation was critical: She wanted her daughter with her because her
experience had taught her that family survives disaster together, so her
intuition was telling her that something big was coming. At the same
time, a long history with storms had perhaps dulled her fear response.
When the water finally began to rise quickly and steadily, Melissa’s primal
fear kicked in. As a result, her level of arousal rose, and she began acting.
However, what had been fear soon turned into the secondary emotions of
panic and anxiety over fire. This was not because of any direct threat of
fire in her immediate experience but because of an incredibly intense and
horrific past experience.
However, she regained control because she knew she needed to comfort
her daughter Piper, who was distressed. Melissa intuitively knew that
remaining calm, putting things in perspective, and maintaining an
internal locus of control would set her daughter at ease and help them all
keep an optimal level of arousal to do what needed to be done. In fact, she
may have managed her emotions a little too well at the end. She lost the
edge of her fear, so that when help arrived, she didn’t initially realize the
urgency of getting out.
Melissa’s story reveals both the importance and difficulty of managing

your emotions during a critical incident, especially one that unfolds
over a long stretch of time. It’s not easy. There are many issues at play,
and maintaining the proper balance of composure and arousal requires
constant adjustments.
Many of the psychological strengths that Melissa exhibited in her

response to her situation stemmed from her prior experiences in similar
crises. The more experience you have with critical situations, even
simulated ones, the more measured and manageable your emotional
responses become.
32
Exercises
1 Emotions can be both a blessing and a curse when it comes to survival.
The difference lies in how you manage them. The next time you feel a
strong emotion in response to a stimulus, think about what elements of
the emotional response are primary (in response to instinct) and which are
secondary (additional emotions in response to the primary emotions).
2 Once you have established a way to recognize the difference between

primary and secondary emotions, practice recognizing and leveraging your
primary emotions while managing the effects of your secondary emotions to
moderate your physical response and improve your decision-making.
33
LECTURE 6
How Everyday Experience

Prepares You for Crisis
T h is lecture looks at the value of previous training

and experience. Police and military training
programs, which always include classroom
lectures and hands-on field training, are
uniquely suited to prepare people for responding
to a dangerous situation. However, everyone else
also has training and experiences that they can
bring to bear in a critical incident. In essence,
your everyday life is practice for crisis: For the
most part, how you live your life dictates how
you will respond in a crisis.
34
How Everyday Experience Prepares You for Crisis Lecture 6
FIREFIGHTER TRAINING
Phil’s Background
The internal locus of control is an important component in deploying
skills and experiences. The survival story of a man named Phil shows
how powerful this combination of internal locus of control plus previous
training and experience can be.
Phil was a college student and captain of the swim team at a major
university. As a competitive swimmer at the collegiate level, Phil learned
to control and manage his breathing to improve his speed in a race.
This was pivotal to what comes next but so too was the totality of Phil’s
experiences up to that point in his life.
Phil grew up in a large family, where he learned to expect the unexpected

and to think quickly on his feet. He remembers his father, an attorney,
grilling the children at the dinner table, such that Phil absorbed an ability
to articulate his position and to do so calmly. With his brothers, he
learned to defend himself and hold his own. And he watched his mother
take care of her family.
35
The Incident
On the morning in question, Phil and his mother were talking in the
kitchen of their home in a well-to-do suburb of Chicago. Suddenly, a
woman walked in and pointed a gun at them. She was not wearing pants
but instead, had a garbage bag wrapped around her waist. She told them
she had been raped and was scared.
Phil talked with her, attempting to calm her down and make sense of
the situation. His mother, used to entertaining friends of her children,
instinctively wanted to help, so she offered the woman a pair of shorts
from the laundry basket on a chair. The woman had two guns in her
hands. She held on to one but placed the other on the counter to pull up
the shorts. Without fanfare, Phil reached across the counter and smoothly
pocketed the second gun. When the woman insisted that he give it back
to her, Phil calmly but firmly said, “I think we have enough guns.”
Phil knew they were being held hostage but felt confident he could handle
the situation. Then they heard sirens in the neighborhood, which seemed
to increase the agitation of the woman. She grew increasingly unstable.
Additionally, Phil and his mom became frightened of what would happen
when his siblings started coming home from school. Phil used this
possibility to their advantage and managed to talk the woman into letting
his mom leave the house to keep everyone else away.
After his mother left and the situation continued to deteriorate, Phil
slowly realized he was not going to be able to talk his way out of this. In
a curious twist of fate, just the previous evening, Phil had been practicing
disarming an armed assailant with his brother, who was a new police
officer.
On top of that, Phil was an athlete, in great shape, and used to fighting
with his brothers, so he decided to make a move and grab the gun. When
she heard a noise and looked outside, Phil lunged. At that same moment,
Phil saw a flash, so he rolled into the pantry.
36
He intuitively lodged his foot against the door to prevent her from
chasing him, a move he had learned from years of playing chase with his
brothers. While waiting for her next move, he began to feel a tightening
in his chest. Phil realized he had been shot.
After the Gunshot

Based on the rapidly building pressure in his chest, Phil knew it was
bad and that he needed medical attention right away. Then Phil felt the
weight of the gun in his pocket. He burst from the pantry in a defensive
stance reminiscent of a SWAT move, but the woman wasn’t in the
kitchen. He stumbled out of the house and collapsed on the driveway.
Phil was shot in the chest, and it was very serious. He knew he was
gasping for breath, so he controlled his breathing, just like he did during
swim meets. As a police officer ran to his side, he said, “I’m a swimmer.”
The police officer immediately grasped the significance of Phil’s

statement and his identity as a swimmer. As the officer ran off to get an
ambulance, a bystander in a peach shirt wandered over to Phil. The man
was a doctor, but Phil didn’t know that yet. The only thing Phil said
was again, “I’m a swimmer.” The man immediately played that back to
Phil, saying, “Hey Swimmer, keep breathing; hey Swimmer, stay with
me.” Being a swimmer was part of Phil’s identity, and it connected to his
internal locus of control, which the doctor realized.
When the ambulance arrived, the doctor passed Phil along by saying,
“He’s a swimmer.” And when they arrived at the hospital, Phil was
again described as a swimmer. His identity as a swimmer was relayed to
each link in the medical chain. Each link realized the significance and
reinforced it, to which Phil responded positively.
Phil’s condition was so dire that a chaplain was called to administer

last rites. However, Phil waved the chaplain away. He didn’t want last
rites because he wasn’t giving up. Phil’s overarching thought was that he
37
had to hold on until someone said, “You can let go. We got this.” In the
emergency room, Phil describes a nurse who leaned over him and said,
“Hey Swimmer, we got this, you can let go now.” Phil recalls that he did.
Phil’s Response
Phil exhibited elements of an internal locus of control. He held
firm to the sense that he was in control, and he continued to make
conscious decisions right up to the moment he was told to let go on the
operating table.
Once he was shot, he responded with his reflexes: He resorted to the

defensive moves he used in fighting with his brothers, he relied on the
regulated breathing of a swimmer, and he was determined to do his part
until he passed the baton to the emergency room doctor as if they were
part of a relay team in a swim meet. Through each step in the ordeal, Phil
leveraged his life’s experiences as a springboard to survival.
Deliberate Training
In Phil’s story, Phil took advantage of random training and experience.
There is also value in deliberate preparation. A useful concept here is
that of KSAs: knowledge, skills, and abilities. They can be applied the
psychological act of survival.
In terms of formal training for any kind of survival, the training should
be as realistic as possible. The exact form of the emergency is less
important than the focus and nature of the drill. The training should
imitate life as it will unfold in that emergency. However, training can
have its dangers, too. Drills can be overly structured and rigid.
38
The goal in emergency training is to create scenarios that simulate the

heightened level of physiological arousal in a true emergency. At first,
trainees simply want to be prepared—that is, to grow accustomed to
the sensations of stress and arousal. Then, trainees want to repeat the
exercises until they build muscle memory that will kick in automatically
under pressure. At that level, people’s bodies react on autopilot, which
allows people the space to absorb the data, to process it, and to make
sound decisions.
Failure to prepare for the effects of extreme stress makes it less likely a
person will develop the knowledge, skills, and abilities to persevere in an
emergency. People need the knowledge, both intellectual and experiential,
of the effects of stress. People need the skills to manage that pressure.
And they need the ability to act in the face of that strain. The best way to
develop KSAs is to practice.
Practice also promotes perseverance, another critical element of survival.

Only through practice can you learn to push yourself through discomfort,
through the desire to give up.
Conclusion
Experiences can and do prepare people to survive, sometimes intentionally
and sometimes incidentally. This means that everyone already has an
enormous amount of skills necessary for a survival situation.
For example, perhaps you sing or play the flute and have a control of
breathing much like Phil’s. Perhaps you were a high school athlete and
understand the role of practice and perseverance. Perhaps you grew up in
an urban area and have an acute sense of how to navigate close spaces, or
maybe you grew up in a rural area and have a strong set of outdoor skills.
Whatever your experiences have been, you have developed skills that you
can leverage in a crisis.
39
It is also good news that skills can be developed deliberately, and you can
work to improve your training in very targeted ways. Physical agility and
endurance are always a plus in a survival situation, and the inner fortitude
that it takes to develop these is good practice for dealing with stress
and discomfort in a survival situation. Additionally, you can and must
participate actively and thoughtfully in emergency preparedness drills in
your workplace, school, and home.
Exercises
1 Your life experiences to date have uniquely prepared you for surviving
a critical situation in ways you may not realize. Look back on your
experiences and catalogue the skills that you have acquired incidentally that
may be useful in a survival situation. Knowing those skills in advance can
help you access them when you need them.
2 Intentional skill development for survival can be just as important as the

skills you have developed through your normal life experiences. Assess your
experiences and see where there may be gaps in your preparedness. Do you
need to work on physical conditioning? Have you developed and practiced
response plans to potential incidents? Broadening your skill base is the best
way to be prepared for a wide variety of threatening situations.
40
LECTURE 7
Making Decisions
under Pressure
P e ople make decisions constantly. Sometimes

they’re good, sometimes they’re bad, and
sometimes they make no sense at all. However,
rarely are they life-or-death, unlike the type of
decision-making covered in this course. These
are decisions that you don’t want to get wrong.
This lecture looks at how you can go about
making rapid and accurate decisions in stressful
situations when the stakes couldn’t be any
higher.
41
Making Decisions under Pressure Lecture 7
Brian’s Story
Brian, a deputy police chief and supervisor of a regional SWAT team,
understands the challenges of making decisions during intense and
potentially fatal situations. In 2015, in a midwestern suburb during a
snowstorm, a woman on the run from her ex-boyfriend ran out of places
to flee. The ex-boyfriend located her at her mother’s house where she
was hiding. A heated exchange in the driveway ended with him forcing
her, at gunpoint, into the house. Her mother, who had observed the
exchange in the driveway, called the police. While on the phone with the
dispatcher, the mother heard her daughter screaming and then the sound
of a gunshot.
This was clearly a critical incident for the woman and her mother, and
the stage was set for it to be a critical incident for the responders as well.
Immediately dispatched to the scene, the responding officers approached
the house.
As the first officer entered the house, the suspect shot him in the neck,
and he collapsed to the floor. The accompanying officer could not see the
subject so didn’t know if it was safe to enter. The second officer started
trying to rescue the shot officer. He also instantly notified dispatch, then
managed to drag the other officer to the street. An ambulance rushed him
to the hospital.
The arriving police set up a perimeter and notified command that the
subject remained in the house, armed, with a hostage, and that he shot a
police officer. Command requested SWAT. Brian received the call while
watching his youngest son play in a basketball game. He was a member of
the SWAT command team, and so without delay, he rushed, as quickly as
the storm allowed, to the scene.
42
The Situation
The SWAT team conducted the debrief with the officers at the scene,
so Brian was able to hear directly from the partner about what had
transpired. Then, they put a plan into place. First, they set up a
reactionary team tasked with breaching the house if the hostage’s life was
in danger. Meanwhile, they attempted to make contact with the subject
and establish negotiations.
The subject wanted his girlfriend back. She obviously did not share his
sentiments. Based on the dialogue with the negotiator, the subject had
no immediate demands. Mostly, he just talked. He had retreated into a
finished basement with interior stairs. At the bottom of the stairs, he had
closed the door and pushed a couch in front of it, barricading his position.
From a command perspective, the problem was that because of the
barricade, there was no way to extricate the hostage faster than he could
hurt her.
At some point, the subject called dispatch and admitted that he planned
to kill the woman. Now this was Dispatch he was talking to, not the
Command team on the ground. The command team was unaware of the
subject’s intent.
43
Negotiations
The SWAT team surveyed the exterior of the house and examined the
window well. Unfortunately, it was too small to permit a rescue attempt.
Their attempts to discover a way to rescue her with good odds were
stymied. They needed to enhance their position, so they decided to
introduce the hostage negotiation throw phone. In general terms, a throw
phone is a dedicated line between the hostage taker and the hostage
negotiator.
Around this time, the subject mentioned that he knew a police officer.
The team researched the man and discovered he worked as a sheriff’s
deputy. They immediately initiated contact and transported him to the
scene. The deputy admitted they knew each other years ago but were not
friends, yet the subject held on to the relationship.
The negotiators debated whether to allow the deputy to talk to the

subject. For the most part, negotiators avoid the use of third-party
intermediaries (a.k.a. TPIs) in hostage negotiations, preferring to rely
on trained negotiators. However, the command team decided to put the
deputy on the phone, and it seemed to work.
Despite the risk of using a TPI, it can be a good strategy. In order for
TPIs to be effective, they need to possess credibility with the hostage
taker and not be part of the original problem. In this instance, the
subject had raised the idea of talking to this guy, so the subject was
obviously receptive to it. The deputy and the subject developed good
communication, which allowed the deputy to introduce the notion of the
throw phone. Although initially reluctant, the subject agreed.
44
Taking Action
Meanwhile, the SWAT team devised a plan. They wanted to give the
phone to the subject in the garage and asked him to get it, then bring
it back inside the house so they could continue talking. The deputy
convinced him over time.
The SWAT team moved the phone into the garage, positioning it just
so, with teams outside the garage covering it. As the subject climbed the
stairs, he gave the phone he was talking on to the victim, who talked as
events unfolded. She described that the subject had a gun aimed at her,
then mentioned another gun on the floor by the kitchen door. The police
realized this was from the cop who was shot and grew apprehensive at the
prospect of additional fire power at the subject’s disposal.
The phone on the garage floor had hidden cameras so police could see
the kitchen door and the legs of the subject and the hostage. The subject
instructed the woman to get the phone. As she bent down to pick it
up, she removed herself from the line of sight between the officers and
the subject. The subject raised his gun toward the victim and three
officers fired: a sniper and two SWAT members. The offender dropped
to the ground while the hostage screamed and ran. The team moved
up instantaneously, and the medics rushed in with the ambulance. The
victim was unharmed.
Natural Decision-Making and Frameworks

Brian and the way his SWAT team handled this critical incident is a great
example of decision-making during a crisis. Brian was trained in and used
very specific, standardized decision-making techniques. He also exhibited
strong natural decision-making, which is the type of decision-making that
adapts to respond to the particular needs of a unique situation.
45
While rushing to the scene and navigating the snow, Brian started
formulating a plan. He knew they had an officer down so needed to
conduct an officer rescue. He thought the officer collapsed on the front
lawn, so he began to design a plan involving an armored car and the
team. By the time he arrived, the officer had been rescued, so the focus
shifted to the rescue of the hostage.
In this moment, Brian exhibited strong natural decision-making,

taking into account the unique variables of the situation. The term
natural makes it sounds easy, but doing this kind of decision-making
well depends on a deep foundation of experience and knowledge. The
groundwork has to be laid first. In the case of Brian, he had been on the
job for 21 years at the time of the incident. The range and depth of his
prior assignments served him well in his leadership role.
During his extensive training through his career, Brian learned the value
of the framework: how to do things, why to do things, and the steps to
take. In the framework of hostage situations like Brian was involved in,
the guiding framework is the life priority policy. This policy says that the
safety of the hostage takes precedent over everything else.
We can see in Brian’s example how closely the life priority policy was
followed. They initially assessed whether they could reach the window,
breach it, and successfully rescue the hostage. They concluded that they
could not without significant risk to the hostage, so they scrubbed that
plan. They assessed whether they could shoot the subject through a
window but concluded it carried too much risk to the hostage, so they
scratched that idea as well.
In the final moments of this incident, they weighed the potential risk of
getting the subject to the phone in the garage against possible danger for
the hostage. They concluded there was no increased risk to the hostage, so
they implemented the plan.
46
Natural decision-making as a concept originated in the military and the

civilian emergency response field, where people commonly had to act
without sufficient time to weigh all possible courses of action. It is that
very pressure and immediacy that defines natural decision-making. Most
people do not confront these conditions on a regular basis, but this is
absolutely what you will face during a critical instance.
Recognition-Primed Decision-Making
A related concept is recognition-primed decision-making. This requires
the accumulation of a comprehensive warehouse of knowledge and
experience. In a crisis, amidst the frenzy of activity and confusion, it is
vital. During disasters, decisions require an instantaneous grasp of the
correct response.
There are several strategies for employing recognition-primed decision-

making in a stressful environment. One of these is pattern making.
Pattern making consists of a process of assessing, classifying, and
integrating the available information to make the best decision possible.
Essentially, you perform a rapid feasibility study in your mind, and then
you constantly modify that feasibility study as new information becomes
available.
Story building offers another tactic. Here, you assemble a narrative, which
enables you to construct a plausible explanation for what’s unfolding
before you. Another approach is pre-playing. This is where you conduct a
mental evaluation to check for holes in your theory.
Some key recommendations apply to recognition primed decision-

making. First, you need to assess the situation as soon as possible with
whatever information you have at hand.
Second, you need to satisfice, not optimize. That means you cannot wait
to gather additional information to reach the perfect deduction. You need
to make do and make the most of what you know.
47
Third, construct your narrative carefully. Form a tale that fits the pieces
you see, then review it. While building your story, avoid the landmine
of biases which can undermine your assessments. One bias that everyone
suffers from is confirmation bias. This occurs when you look for and
apply and recall only that information that conforms to your preconceived
notions of things.
Another pitfall is the availability heuristic, which states that people tend
to give more importance to information that is more memorable, whether
or not that information actually carries more significance. This explains
why people are more afraid of plane crashes than car crashes.
Also be wary of the primacy effect, which consists of a tendency to leap to

judgment after gathering comparatively modest information.
The fourth key recommendation for recognition-primed decision-making

is to revise the plan with incoming data. Embedded in this step is the
willingness to accept the incoming data, especially if attached to the
expertise of another.
Fifth, utilize your knowledge, skills, and abilities. Rely on your expertise,
which permits an intuitive grasp of the situation.
Finally, recognition-primed decision-making requires continuous

learning, repetition, and the opportunity for application in realistic
settings prior to the emergency.
Conclusion
One final element that lies at the heart of all strong decision-making is
the willingness to learn from mistakes. Keep in mind, though, that at the
heart of learning from mistakes is the freedom to make mistakes. Almost
every success story is peppered with the mistakes that preceded attaining
the pinnacle of success.
48
Even in a life-or-death situation, admitting and learning from your

mistakes is undeniably important. Mistakes will happen, even when it
seems like you can’t afford them. But if you recognize the importance of
acknowledging and confronting those mistakes quickly and honestly, the
lessons you learn from them may be the key to your survival.
Exercises
1 Sound decision-making starts with the ability to accurately assess your
situation. Bias can and does interfere with this ability. Pay attention to your
decision-making in everyday life and identify how common forms of bias
influence your decisions. Look especially for confirmation bias, availability
bias, correlation bias, and the primacy effect.
2 Do you allow yourself the psychological safety to make mistakes and learn
from them? Consider your reaction to a mistake you have made in the past.
How willing are you to look honestly at your decision-making during that
situation and learn lessons from it? Creating the psychological space for
honest and nonjudgmental self-assessment is a critical step.
49
LECTURE 8
Developing
Situational Awareness
T h e US Marines first coined the term situational

awareness. It refers to your knowledge and
understanding of your current situation to make
a timely, relevant, and accurate assessment of
the conditions in your area to facilitate decision-
making. It means that you continuously gather
intelligence so you can respond at any given
moment.
50
Developing Situational Awareness Lecture 8
The OODA Loop

Acting proactively can mean the difference between life and death in a
survival situation. However, most emergencies are unexpected, so it takes
some intentional skill development to build your situational awareness.
The quicker you recognize that you’re in danger, the quicker you can
respond to remove yourself from the danger.
One helpful way to conceptualize situational awareness is via the

OODA loop. The acronym stands for observe, orient, decide, and act.
It was developed by US Air Force colonel John Boyd, who studied the
effectiveness of fighter pilots.
Observing
The first step is to observe. Your senses are the critical link between
your environment and your internal locus of control, so this is a critical
step to practice. It is very easy to lose focus and occupy your senses with
something other than your surroundings, but that makes you vulnerable.
You need to consciously apply yourself to engaging your senses with your
environment and with your interactions. Keep in mind that 80 to 90
percent of communication occurs nonverbally, so pay attention to body
language, facial expressions, tone, gestures, and proximity. Your goal is
to move from being a passive participant in your environment to being a
keen observer of it.
It sounds like a lot of initial effort, and it is, but if you practice it enough,
it eventually becomes second nature. Here are some questions that can
help you complete a sensory inventory when entering a new area:
ww Where am I?
ww What does it look like?
51
ww Who’s here?
ww What do they look like?
ww What am I feeling?
ww What’s happening around me?
Orienting
Once you accurately observe your surroundings and take stock of the
stimuli entering your senses, the next stage is to orient yourself. In this
step, you bring your history and experience to bear to synthesize the
meaning of what your senses have told you and to assess your situation.
Intuition plays a role, but so does logical assessment. The orienting

phase is a good time to check your instincts or intuitions against reality.
Remember, those impulses might alert you to something being off, but
that doesn’t necessarily mean you are in danger.
Deciding
During the next step, you decide what to do about your observation and
subsequent scrutiny. Deciding, however, is not the same as acting. For
instance, a person might think he needs to go on a diet, but that decision
doesn’t necessarily alter what he continues to eat.
Note how late in the process decision-making occurs. Before you can even
formulate an informed decision, you need to take a full sensory account
of where you are and orient yourself in your current situation. That is
decision-making in the context of situational awareness.
52
As a way to consider decision-making, think of the decisions you make on

a daily basis. How many of them are based in situational awareness? For
instance, you probably follow this process when you decide what to wear
in the morning. You gather stimuli from your senses: what it feels like
when you open the door, what it looks like outside, and what you hear
on the weather report. Then you orient yourself: You assess the clothes
you own, what you plan on doing that day, how much and when you’ll
be outside, and so on. Only then do you decide what to wear, and that’s a
good thing.
If you don’t choose your clothes with

situational awareness, you might find
GIVE IT TIME
yourself regretting your wardrobe Operating in a framework of
decisions more often than not. In situational awareness may
retrospect, the difference between a seem overwhelming at first,
good decision and a bad decision often but it really does get easier
comes down to whether or not it was
made in the context of situational
and faster with time. Being
awareness. The trick is to do so observant becomes second
deliberately and consistently. nature eventually. And
orienting yourself will become
more natural with experience.
Acting
The final step occurs when you act on your decision. Your ability to
act on your decisions can be influenced by your emotional state, level
of arousal, and a multitude of other factors. In a stressful situation, it is
critical that you regulate your emotions and arousal so that the channel
between your decision-making and your ability to act remains open.
It’s also important to note that once you act, you will inevitably change
the situation in some way, so the OODA loop starts all over again.
Situational awareness is not static nor is it a one-time thing. It’s fluid,
interactive, and an ongoing process.
53
The OODA Loop in Action

The OODA loop can be applied to a time this course’s instructor,
Nancy Zarse, was being followed while walking her dog in her Chicago
neighborhood. First, she observed that a man was behind her. Her dog
seemed nervous about the situation. Second, she had to orient to him and
do so within the context of her particular situation and environment.
When she did so, she realized that the man seemed to be pacing himself
with her, moving neither faster nor slower than her. This in and of itself
was odd. He seemed to have no apparent destination, which was odder
still at 11:00 pm.
Professor Zarse next had to decide what to do: whether to take the
situation seriously or disregard her intuition, dismissing it as the product
of an overactive imagination. She also had to decide which precautionary
measures she would take. And finally, she had to act.
She decided to cut into a passageway that ran alongside her apartment.
The man followed, but he was uncertain because he wasn’t familiar with
the area. Professor Zarse burst out onto her street, moved rapidly into the
overhang of her building, and ducked down with her arms around her
dog. She hoped that the spot’s large bushes would provide cover, and she
did not want to open the door because she knew it squeaked and could
give away their position. Additionally, the lock was broken, so he could
potentially gain access to her building.
The man came through the passageway and walked to the main sidewalk,
and then he stopped, listening for sounds that would reveal her position.
Eventually, he walked away, luckily in the other direction. When
Professor Zarse no longer heard his footsteps, she and her dog entered the
building. She collapsed on the floor once they were in her apartment.
54
Given that the man gave chase when she darted into the passageway,
Professor Zarse is confident that she accurately assessed the situation and
that she was in jeopardy. Whether he had a physical or sexual assault in
mind does not matter. The important factor is that Professor Zarse was in
danger, and the OODA loop served as a powerful survival tool.
Exercises
1 The OODA loop is an easy and important thing to practice in non-critical
situations to be better prepared in critical situations. The next time you find
yourself in an unexpected situation that requires an active response from
you, intentionally follow the OODA protocol: observe, orient, decide, and
act. As you practice it, this technique will become second nature.
2 Recall how Professor Zarse’s knowledge of her neighborhood, built through

situational awareness in nonthreatening situations, played a key role in her
survival situation. Make a point to notice your surroundings when you enter
an environment. Even a quick intentional scan can equip you with a wealth
of information you can use if you need to.
55
LECTURE 9
Perseverance toward
a Positive Outcome
O e universal trait of survivors is that they never

n
give up. They simply decide to keep going.
This lecture looks at how people’s psychological

potential to persevere functions with other
factors during and after a critical incident. This
often ends up being the difference between those
who survive and those who do not.
56
Perseverance toward a Positive Outcome Lecture 9
Controlling Attention
Surviving a critical incident requires being able to maintain effort and
interest despite setbacks and stagnation. It is necessary to continue
focusing throughout an incident, sometimes for a long stretch of time.
This, in turn, requires the skill of controlling attention.
Successful control of attention involves the mastery of three dimensions:

intensity, duration, and flexibility. Intensity is about whether you can
concentrate hard enough, while duration refers to whether you can
concentrate long enough. Flexibility is about whether you can shift your
attention when necessary. All three are pivotal. Attentional control also
involves identifying the appropriate breadth and direction of attention.
Prior experience in athletics can be an invaluable advantage in a survival

situation. It provides the clear physical benefits of endurance and agility
as well as specialized skills like speed or controlled breathing. It also
provides significant psychological strengths like internal locus of control
and the ability to sustain your attention on a given task.
Many performance-
related activities can
develop the same
thing. For example,
playing a musical
instrument requires
the same control over
attention, as does
arguing a case in front
of a jury.
57
Managing Emotions
Your attention can be easily swayed by your emotion and arousal level, so
managing your emotions is also an important component in perseverance.
When you’re overly aroused, your emotions can easily distract you from
what’s important to survive. On the other hand, emotions can be a
necessary motivator, too.
You don’t have a choice over whether or not you feel emotions, but
you do have a choice over how you manage and use your emotions in
any situation. Much of that comes down to attitude. A positive mental
attitude is critical to surviving a life-threatening situation. In the face of
danger, you need to be able to marshal will power, resolve, and strength.
Mental Conditioning
How people live in their daily lives determines how they act in a
survival situation. Therefore, it is necessary to build a positive mental
attitude before encountering a critical event. You can do this through
mental conditioning. Mental conditioning prepares you cognitively and
emotionally to encounter extreme stress. This approach relies on the mind
as an adaptive tool that can be a life-saving asset.
In her book The Unthinkable, Amanda Ripley examines the natural

progression people go through in a disaster, which she calls the survival
arc. In the first phase, that of disbelief, people experience great difficulty
accepting that the disaster really is occurring. Disbelief and denial sound
like a liability, but they can also serve a productive function by shielding
people to the magnitude of the disaster. This in turn allows people to
remain focused on the manageable chunks of information and action that
foster survival.
During the second phase, people shift to deliberation. By this time,

people accept that a horrible event is unfolding, but they are not sure
yet how to react. In this stage, people need to make decisions, manage
58
emotions, and to capitalize on the body’s gifts during extreme stress while
also countering the negative effects of stress. They must also contend with
whoever else is around.
A huge element impacting deliberation is fear, which infuses every

stage of the survival arc. In this regard, conditioning can be important.
Preparation helps to counter the physiological arousal in your body as well
as the potential incapacitating fear. The more you prepare, the greater the
likelihood that you respond automatically.
It is easy to become stuck in the deliberation phase, but the more you’ve
trained a variety of simulated or non-life-threatening stressful events, the
more you will be mentally conditioned to encounter them in a critical
situation.
Conditioning also prepares you to practice the appropriate emotional

responses to a situation. One huge risk during the deliberation stage
is that fear can turn into panic, but by conditioning yourself through
controlled exposure to situations that stimulate fear, you learn to
recognize and manage the symptoms of panic. For instance, you learn
that a feeling of helplessness does not equate to actual helplessness.
Self-Confidence and Self-Talk

In addition to helping you manage the negative effects of stress like
potential panic, mental conditioning also allows you to practice a positive
outlook. In your everyday interactions and experiences, it helps to make
a conscious decision to listen to your self-talk and silence the voice that
squashes your sense of competence and purpose.
Instead, practice being gentle with yourself, responding with the same
compassion that you would extend to a good friend. This deepens your
internal locus of control and helps to instill a crucial component of
perseverance: self-confidence.
59
Confidence is not to be confused with arrogance. Confidence results from

an accurate assessment of your abilities to handle a situation or a problem,
an appreciation rooted in your education, training, and experience.
Typically, confidence rests quietly on a person, without fanfare.
Arrogance, on the other hand, conveys a sense of superiority.
One powerful approach in correcting self-talk and developing a healthy

sense of confidence is cognitive restructuring. Cognitive restructuring
relates to understanding the impact of your thoughts on your behaviors.
The goal is to identify and reverse thinking errors, such as all-or-nothing
thinking that focuses solely on the extremes and the use of the word
should to emotionally berate yourself. All-or-nothing thinking stands in
the way of cognitive flexibility, which allows you to think outside the
box and to imagine solutions that might not seem obvious at first blush.
Meanwhile, the word should is almost a sure indicator that negative self-
talk is getting in your way, so be wary of it.
Action
The deliberation stage can be the most dangerous part of the survival
arc because without the aforementioned psychological strengths in place,
people can become paralyzed and unable to move on to the final stage of
the arc: action.
Acting is where perseverance is truly tested. Usually, surviving a critical

incident isn’t just the result of one action. It involves multiple actions,
which occur over time, in changing circumstances, and with evolving
challenges. It takes commitment.
Commitment enables you to persevere despite the pressure, even if it is

life-threatening. And it gets at the heart of who you are because it involves
your most deeply held motivations. The reasons you fight to survive are
the reasons you live in the first place: your loved ones and the people
who rely on you. It’s no accident that law enforcement and military
60
communities are trained to see each other as family. In addition to their

commitment to the community and the country, they have a deep and
enduring commitment to each other.
Even if you have all of the other mental tools to survive, an internal locus
of control, intuitions, experience, and emotional management, these
factors will mean nothing if you don’t know what you’re fighting for.
Almost always, people fight for their relationships, which are key.
Exercises
1 This lecture shows that perseverance is not a characteristic that people
are just born with. It is a combination of skills that can be developed and
practiced. Choose two of the skills related to perseverance, like emotional
management and attention control, and intentionally practice them daily.
Each skill that is internalized and strengthened will add to your ability to
persevere in a critical situation.
2 Assess your self-talk. Pay careful (but nonjudgmental) attention to the way
that you speak to yourself about yourself. Consciously counter negative
self-talk with positive self-talk to condition yourself toward positive self-
assessment.
61
LECTURE 10
Protective Factors That

Increase Your Odds
I t’s easy to think of a survival story as a defined

incident, with a beginning, a middle, and an
end. However, survival starts long before the
critical incident, continues for an extended period
of time, and lasts long after the seeming end of the
crisis. This lecture focuses on the protective factors
people bring to a critical incident that help them
survive it.
62
Protective Factors That Increase Your Odds Lecture 10
Orit’s Story
A woman named Orit offers a strong example of survival and protective
factors. Orit lives in Israel, where she personally deals with the danger
of incoming rocket fire from the Gaza Strip. She works as a professor at
Sapir College, the largest public college in Israel. Located in the southern
part of Israel, in a town called Sderot, Sapir sits about a mile from the
Gaza border.
In Sderot, due to the proximity to Gaza, citizens have only 15 seconds

from the sound of the alarm to the impact of the rocket, so they rush
furiously for bomb shelters. The problem, though, is that no such option
exists on campus, so students and faculty alike huddle under tables, aware
of the inadequacy of their cover while longing powerfully for safety.
Aside from being a professor, another of Orit’s roles is that of social

worker. Trained as a mental health professional, Orit knows about the
psychological reaction to danger and recognizes the signs of distress and
dysfunction. Orit struggles at times to manage her emotions, as do her
students. Nevertheless, Orit must adapt in the face of extreme stress.
During times of intense conflict, the sirens blare repeatedly during

academic sessions. Forced to balance personal fear with academic rigor,
Orit often resumes the lecture after ensuring basic well-being of her class.
Protective Factors
Orit demonstrates a number of protective factors and exemplifies
resilience. These are personal attributes that people carry into a critical
incident and that they carry out when they leave the critical incident.
Protective factors are those elements that help to insulate against stress
and trauma. They include individual strengths like high IQ, an easygoing
personality, community involvement, a sense of spirituality, a robust social
support network, and strong mental health.
63
Another trait that serves people well in the face of an emergency seems to
be the ability to adapt. Because critical incidents tend to be sudden and
unexpected, with disruption to homeostasis and usual coping styles, it
stands to reason that the capacity to recalibrate is very helpful.
Orit embodies the characteristic of adaptation. She has managed to

navigate the frightening conditions in which she lives and works, and she
even decided to make a professional study of the situation. She publishes
articles on trauma, presents at international conferences, and served as
national chairperson of the Israeli National Council for Social Work.
This willingness of Orit to engage with other people about the trauma
she has experienced shows that she also possesses another important
protective factor: community engagement. Research shows prosocial
involvement helps to buffer people against stress and hard times. The
term prosocial means being involved in productive activities that help
others, such as volunteering at a homeless shelter, coaching a little league
team, or mentoring a young colleague. This characteristic is a protective
factor in times of stress or danger because communities can be a powerful
motivator during critical incidents.
Spirituality and religious beliefs also constitute protective factors. This

factor often depends on where people stand on the issue of faith. Around
66 percent of people worldwide identify as part of a religious group,
meaning roughly two-thirds of people turn to their faith in times of need.
The faithful believe that God plays an active role in their lives, that God
helps during struggles, and that their faith sustains them.
Another protective factor is social support. The more robust the support
network, the greater variability it offers in the face of a variety of
stressors. From her vantage point as both a clinician and a researcher,
Orit highlights the importance of relationships, including community,
as a protective factor against stress and a coping mechanism in dealing
with adverse conditions. She emphasizes the importance of developing
relationships before the crisis and learning about specifics of personal lives
and details of the community in advance.
64
Strong mental health is an additional protective factor. This refers to

people who understand the importance of mental health, who take it
seriously, and who seek treatment when they need it. Mental health
treatment helps build an internal locus of control. It helps people to define
psychological challenges and strategize ways of coping with them.
Building Protective Factors

Most of these protective factors can be developed. Your basic IQ is static,
but you can improve the extent of your knowledge. All of the rest of the
protective factors are things you can work on to build up your survival
strengths. Perhaps you don’t have the most easygoing personality. That’s
OK: You can work on it.
Adaptability is also something that can be learned and practiced. There

are plenty of situations that occur practically every day that provide the
chance to practice adaptation.
65
Think about how you react when things don’t turn out the way you
thought they would or when things change unexpectedly. If you see it
as a setback, try instead to see it as a challenge that prepares you to be a
creative and flexible thinker when things become tough.
Regarding community engagement: If you are active here, then you

already have a really important protective factor in place. If you don’t,
perhaps this lesson will give you an additional reason to do so. Everyone
needs others, especially when facing challenges. Forging strong ties to
your community makes both you and your community stronger.
In addition to participation in your community, your personal social ties

are vitally important protective factors. Look at the relationships you do
have with a new sense of value. This is your net—the people who will
catch you when you fall and watch your back when you need it most.
Maintain these relationships and invest in them.
Finally, take your mental health seriously. If you’re struggling, seek help.
You’ll learn something about yourself in the process, and what you learn
may very well help to save your life one day.
Exercises
1 Using the indicators in this lesson, make a list of the psychological
protective factors that you already possess and those that you think you
might need to develop. Adaptability can be the most critical protective
factor in a survival situation. Is that a factor that you already possess, or is it
one that you should work on developing?
2 Community engagement is a protective factor that is often overlooked in

people’s busy and isolated lives. Where do you stand on the community
engagement spectrum? How can you find ways to increase your ties to your
community and develop relationships that may help sustain you during
times of crisis?
66
LECTURE 11
Resilience in the
Aftermath of Trauma
R e silience is the ability to maintain a relatively

stable, healthy level of functioning after being
exposed to a highly disruptive event. The
pioneering stress researcher Hans Selye put it
this way: “It’s not what happens to you that
matters. It’s how you react to it.” Critical
incidents have a low probability but high
potential for damage. Metaphorically, they
make people stumble and fall, but resilience is
about not staying down.
67
Resilience in the Aftermath of Trauma Lecture 11
The Characteristics of Resilience

Resilience consists of three characteristics: general resourcefulness,
sturdiness, and flexibility. General resourcefulness is an attribute of
people with an internal locus of control. They see a problem and they seek
a solution. This opens them up to creativity and learning, which in turn
expands the breadth of their knowledge and experience. It ensures that
they have a variety of coping mechanisms at their disposal.
Sturdiness in a psychological sense means that a person is strong when put

under stress. Sturdy individuals seem to regard the critical incident as less
disturbing, and they feel more confidence while in the survival situation.
This protects them during the incident and leads to greater resilience after
the incident.
Flexibility applies to how you cope in the aftermath of the incident

because you don’t know how the incident is going to affect you in the long
run. You need to be flexible enough to figure out which coping strategies
are working for you and which are not.
Will’s Story
This lecture now turns to the survival story of a firefighter named Will.
On the night in question, his department responded to call about a
suicide attempt. During the response, a man with a rifle shot Will in
the leg and arm, hitting major arteries. The shooter also shot another
individual. Will’s condition was dire, but he survived, enduring more
than 20 surgeries.
Will has some vivid memories of being shot the first time, watching the
perpetrator shoot another victim, and the perpetrator walking toward him,
but that’s when his memory fades. Video surveillance exists of the events
of that night. Will was invited to view the tapes, but he chose not to do so,
and he continues to choose not to view them. As he explains, “My mental
and emotional status is really good; I don’t want to trigger anything.”
68
The extent of Will’s injuries and subsequent surgeries borders on

the unreal, yet he exhibits a remarkable spirit. His story is the very
embodiment of resilience.
Tony’s Story
The survival story of Tony very nearly didn’t turn out as well as Will’s.
Tony, a police officer, responded to a call of a subject who had barricaded
himself inside a house with his family. The police department had dealt
with him previously, and they knew the subject was an avid huntsman
and that he made his own ammunition.
When he arrived on the scene, Tony observed the subject come out of
the house with a crossbow. The subject aimed the weapon at the officers,
including Tony. The subject screamed a number of threats. A police
officer had run out of his car and slipped, and the subject fixated on the
vulnerable man and approached him.
Tony shot until the subject stopped moving. Then, the officers immediately
reassessed. When the time came, Tony was the one to administer first aid
to the subject. Although alive when they treated him, the subject died at
the hospital.
The investigation of the shooting cleared Tony, and he returned to work.

But over time, he noticed that he grew easily agitated, drank too much,
engaged in meaningless sex, and avoided talking to friends or family.
These were desperate efforts to avoid dealing with the fact that he took
a life.
One night, with too much alcohol in his system, Tony found himself
staring down the barrel of his gun, yet it scared him. He admitted that
he was barely hanging on and that matters needed to change. Resilience
comes in many forms. Sometimes, it doesn’t come until the last possible
second. For Tony, that moment was his turning point from despair to
healing.
69
The moment prompted Tony to examine his life. Finally, he understood

that he needed to talk to someone, and in time, he realized he had
control. Tony now acknowledges that had he not talked with a
professional, he might not be here today.
Tony did not associate the heavy drinking, promiscuity, and suicidal
thoughts with the shooting. This is not at all uncommon. It’s clear in
retrospect, but Tony was living it, trying desperately to keep his finger
in that metaphorical dam. Tony, along with many police officers,
underestimated the power of his emotional reaction to a legitimate use
of force.
The Two Incidents, Compared

A comparison of Will and Tony’s stories is a helpful way to look at
resilience. Both Will and Tony were faced with a violent and unexpected
critical incident, but resilience seems to have kicked in more easily for
Will than for Tony.
It can be extremely challenging and require a great deal of resilience to

overcome physical injuries, especially to the extent that Will suffered. But
physical injuries are defined: You have a team of professionals working
to get you healthy, and your support network knows what’s going on and
how to be there for you.
Psychological trauma, on the other hand, is more hidden. Sometimes, the

person going through it is not even sure it’s there. There might be shifts
in behaviors or responses that don’t seem related to the trauma at all, and
they can surface days, weeks, or months after the incident. Family and
friends might not be aware of what’s happening.
Will also experienced the insulating factor of memory loss, and he had
the protective factor of a tight-knit community in the form of his fire
department. His family helped, too: He takes comfort in still being a dad
and still being in a relationship with his wife.
70
He faced a huge challenge of trying to exceed expectations when told in

stark terms that he would never fight fires again. This was a devastating
blow, though he says, “There are a lot of negatives but a lot of positives,
too.” That shows the flexibility at the heart of Will’s resilience, and it
displays some significant optimism, which is a central component of
resilience.
Optimism works best when mingled with a dose of authenticity, but still,
optimists have an internal locus of control, believing in the power of their
own efforts to impact their circumstances. Furthermore, optimists aren’t
as inclined to give up as easily. If you can find a way to tap into optimism
as a strategy for resilience, you may do much more than just survive the
results of trauma. You may, in fact, thrive. This is a phenomenon known
as post-traumatic growth. Characteristics of post-traumatic growth
include self-reliance, compassion, and wisdom.
HUMOR
Humor can seem out of place in a traumatic situation, but it can be a critical
survival mechanism. Though it is usually a social phenomenon, humor also
works when you’re dealing with something on your own.
The movie The Martian provides an excellent example of this. In the movie,
accidentally abandoned on Mars and without sufficient supplies to sustain him
until a rescue mission could be mounted, Matt Damon’s character initially felt
hopeless. But as his coping strategies and internal locus of control kicked in, he
turned to humor to motivate himself. For instance, he competed with famous
astronauts in his mind, and he conceptualized himself as a space pirate.
71
Conclusion
Resilience can be fostered and practiced well in advance of any critical
situation, and the more you develop it, the more successful you will be
in many areas of your life. You can build on your strengths, enhance the
qualities you already possess, and work toward augmenting the traits
you lack.
Do so deliberately. The next time you face a challenge, big or small,

identify the factors you already possess and purposely use them. Then,
figure out which characteristics you might be missing and work to
build them.
Remember that your life serves as the training ground for surviving a
calamity. People don’t just rise to the challenge. They revert to their
lowest level of training and preparation. It’s important to build in advance
the resilience that will sustain you.
Exercises
1 Optimism is a critical component of resilience, and it is something that can
be practiced daily. How likely are you to choose optimism over pessimism
when thinking about the future? As often as possible, intentionally frame
your outlook optimistically until it becomes second nature to do so. This
will take practice.
2 Smile. Now and as often as possible. It is a potent physical strategy for

increasing your psychological well-being and improving your outlook and
resilience.
72
LECTURE 12
We Survive Together:
The Power of Community
S u rvival is often thought of in individual terms,

but communities and even nations survive
critical incidents, too. As an example of that,
this lecture focuses on Great Britain in 1940.
As World War II intensified in Europe, France
was falling to Nazi forces, leaving Great Britain
completely exposed to German invasion.
73
We Survive Together: The Power of Community Lecture 12
Winston Churchill Sets the Stage

The country was led by a newly elected prime minister, Winston
Churchill, who had to decide whether to appease Adolf Hitler and
negotiate a peace treaty or defy the German advance. Defiance meant
placing Great Britain in the position of defending itself in what would
surely be a terrifying, deadly, and costly assault. Churchill had to
convince the British people that the possibility of high civilian casualties,
even failure, was worth it.
Churchill laid out his case to the British House of Commons on May 13,
1940. He had been prime minister for only three days. In his speech, he
spoke bluntly about the situation and what lay ahead, saying that the aim
must be “Victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without
victory there is no survival.”
In the weeks that followed, the situation went from very bad to even
worse. France was certain to fall soon, and Britain was destined to be
Hitler’s next target. Yet Churchill was in no way willing to entertain the
idea of failure. The consequences, in his mind, were too great.
On June 4, he addressed Parliament again, again acknowledging the

difficult upcoming situation but saying, “If nothing is neglected, and if
the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove
ourselves once more able to defend our island home.”
Churchill’s Strength
In his speeches, Churchill displayed an internal locus of control. He set a
policy: to wage war against tyranny. And he identifies the goal, which was
victory. These were defined objectives that communicated to the British
people that they had the control to choose their next actions and thereby
to determine their ultimate goals. He instilled optimism, too.
74
Churchill also pointed out the various ways that the fighting might
happen: on the seas, in the air, on the beaches, and in the streets. He
warned that they needed to prepare themselves for “every kind of novel
stratagem and every kind of brutal and treacherous maneuver.” The leader
was very clearly pointing out the need for both careful preparation and
wide-ranging flexibility.
Churchill, during these two speeches, primed the British people to survive
by identifying and engaging their collective protective factors. This was
months before the Battle of Britain. Germany wouldn’t launch its formal
offensive on Britain until September.
The prime minister performed a mental feasibility study, taking into

consideration all he knew about Hitler, what happened when countries
capitulated by opting
for appeasement, and
what life would entail
living under the Nazi
flag. Then, empowered
by his vision, Churchill
set the course,
confident that he
could steer the British
people through what
lay ahead. This, too, is
an important variable
for survival: Studies
consistently show that
performance under
stress is enhanced when
people think they can
handle it.
WINSTON CHURCHILL
75
Armed with his plan, his confidence, and his positive mental attitude,
Churchill demonstrated leadership under pressure. Research regularly
identifies leadership as a pivotal component of resilience. As John
Maxwell noted, leaders become great not because of their power but
because of their power to empower others. Churchill empowered the
British people.
The German Attack

What came next was nothing short of horrific. When Germany was
unable to defeat the British Royal Air Force in an extended air offensive,
they launched what has become known as the Blitz, a systematic bombing
of British land targets that lasted day and night for eight months.
The German military leaders wanted to destroy the industrial and

military capabilities of Britain as well as the will and the spirit of its
people. That did not happen. In fact, the opposite happened. The Blitz
was ineffective at weakening Britain’s military capacity, and the British
people emerged from it stronger, more resolved, more dedicated, and more
unified. This was resilience and post-traumatic growth on a national level.
LONDON BLITZ
76
Factors for Survival

A helpful resource for understanding the British response is the work
of Orna Braun-Lewensohn and Shifra Sagy, two researchers in Israel
who have studied coping mechanisms and protective factors in Israel
during the war with Gaza. The experience of those who lived in Israel
during the conflict has much in common with the experience of British
citizens during the Blitz in facing a life-threatening, long-lasting, and
unpredictable crisis.
The researchers found that a sense of community is crucial both as a

protective factor going into a crisis and as a coping mechanism during a
crisis. This sense of community is more often found in smaller towns than
larger cities, but a sense of community can and does appear as a coping
mechanism even in communities where the ties might not have been
strongly in place before the crisis.
The Israeli study identified several qualities that lead to a strong

community, each of which is evident in Churchill’s efforts. The first
is a sense of coherence, referring to one’s ability to accurately perceive
one’s relation to the world and events, and the extent to which they are
manageable. Churchill’s early speeches in 1940 provided a clear and
resonating sense of coherence for the British people.
Leadership is another community factor that surfaced in the Israeli

study. If a community has a leader who reflects both their struggles and
their strengths, that leader can be a very effective unifying force within
the community and even across a nation. According to one Gallup poll,
Churchill had a nationwide approval rating of 88 percent in July of 1940,
shortly before the Battle of Britain. By October of that year, at the very
height of the Blitz, Churchill’s approval rating had risen to 89 percent.
His approval rating rose at the most intense moment of the crisis.
The British war response shows two other factors that the researchers
identify as community resilience indicators: preparedness and
relationships. As Britain entered World War II, several civilian
organizations sprang up across the country. One was the Home Guard,
77
a civilian militia designed to support the troops in case of invasion.

Two others were the Air Raid Precautions service and the Auxiliary Fire
Service.
These civilian defense organizations were extremely robust during the

crisis of 1940, and they served important purposes. First, they prepared
the citizens mentally and physically for the hardships of war. They also
instilled in each of the volunteers an internal locus of control, and they
created new networks of relationships.
Ways to Prepare
This lecture next looks at some next steps that you might take to give
yourself a psychological advantage if you find yourself in a critical
incident. As you look to enhance your ability and confidence to survive a
critical incident, remember that people rarely rise to the occasion. More
often, they fall to their lowest level of preparation and forethought. This
means that you need to prepare, even mentally, to survive.
It is impossible to overemphasize the power of an internal locus of control.

Take control of what you do have control over, and do so consciously.
Along those lines, pay attention to your self-talk. With an external locus
of control, if you think you can’t, you won’t. But with an internal locus of
control, if you think you can, you will.
Remember, too, the critical role that managing emotions plays in a crisis.
Emotion impairs reason, so an important step is practicing ways to
manage your emotions. Expect not be good at first, so practice. Take deep
breaths to slow your heart rate and reduce the tension in your body.
Grit is important as well. Angela Duckworth’s research consistently

demonstrates that passion and perseverance distinguish success. Grit
combines hard work with a sense of direction and the capacity to both
endure and learn from failure. A deep-seated goal motivates those
with grit.
78
Also keep resilience in mind. Resilience is healthy adaptation in the face

of significant adversity. It can be seen at the individual, the societal, and
the national level. At the individual level, it’s about attitude, flexibility,
and optimism, among other factors. At the societal level, it’s about
community resources and support. And at the national level, it’s about
leadership, preparedness, and community relationships.
Exercises
1 Think about what makes your community unique and valuable. What
elements should be invested in, protected, and promoted to create a strong
support network in times of crisis? How can you contribute to the culture
of your community in a way that forms personal bonds and communal
compassion?
2 Return to the stories of survival that you collected in Lecture 1’s first
exercise. Apply what you’ve learned in this course. What psychological
strengths were exhibited during the incident and after? How did
preparedness, either intentional or incidental, contribute to the positive
outcome? Could you have survived the situation? What can you learn and
practice to set yourself up for success during a similar incident?
79
Bibliography
Ajduković, D., S. Kimhi, and M. Lahad, eds. Resiliency: Enhancing
Coping with Crisis and Terrorism. Amsterdam: IOS Press, 2015. This book
focuses on what makes both individuals and communities resilient when
they encounter events such as disasters, violence, and terrorism. This book
expands the concept of resilience to apply not just to crisis but to recovery.
Bergvik, S., T. Sørlie, and R. Wynn. “Coronary Patients Who Returned

to Work Had Stronger Internal Locus of Control Beliefs than Those
Who Did Not Return to Work. British Journal of Health Psychology 17,
no. 3 (2012): 596–608. This article shows the power of an internal locus
of control even regarding your health, including recovery from major
medical issues. The concept, so critical to the psychology of survival,
generalizes to the rest of your life.
Best, S., A. Artwohl, and E. Kirschman. “Critical Incidents.” In

Handbook of Police Psychology, edited by J. Kitaeff. Hoboken: Taylor
& Francis, 2011. The chapter focuses on various elements of critical
incidents for police officers. It was written with law enforcement in mind
but applies to all critical incidents, including important information on
the definition and characteristics of a critical incident.
Bonanno, G., and A. Mancini. “The Human Capacity to Thrive in the

Face of Potential Trauma.” Pediatrics 121, no. 2 (2008): 369–375. This
article highlights the power of resilience as well as variables that promote
it. It shows that trauma need not equal long-term emotional damage and
delineates key components of resilience.
Braun-Lewensohn, O., and S. Sagy. “Community Resilience and Sense

of Coherence as Protective Factors in Explaining Stress Reactions:
Comparing Cities and Rural Communities during Missiles Attacks.”
Community Mental Health Journal 50 (2014): 229–234. This article
emphasizes the importance of support and a sense of community to
counter stress reactions to critical incidents, which has significance for
those tasked with emergency preparedness.
80
Bibliography
Buddelmeyer, H., and N. Powdthavee. “Can Having Internal Locus of

Control Insure against Negative Shocks? Psychological Evidence from
Panel Data.” Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 122 (2016):
88–109. This article demonstrates the power of an internal locus of
control in combatting negative life events. It shows both the protective
and reactive power of an internal locus of control.
Calhoun, F., & S. Weston. Contemporary Threat Management: A Practical

Guide for Identifying, Assessing, and Managing Individuals of Violent Intent.
An excellent resource for those tasked with identifying and preventing
intended violence. This book shines a spotlight on the stages a subject
follows when moving towards violence as well as the need to anchor
assessments in behavior rather than demographic details.
De Becker, G. The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from

Violence. Boston: Little, Brown, 1997. The author provides examples of
dangerous situations individuals may face, including domestic abuse and
violence in the workplace, and offers advice on protecting oneself. The
key to protection is learning how to trust and act on our own instincts in
these dangerous situations. This is a wonderful resource highlighting the
value of fear in survival.
Dorn, M., S. Shepherd, S. Satterly, and C. Dorn. Staying Alive: How to

Act Fast and Survive Deadly Encounters. Hauppauge, New York: Barron’s
Educational Series, 2014. The book focuses on events that result in mass
casualties. It demonstrates the need to act fast in the face of an emergency
and provides strategies for survival.
Duckworth, A. Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance. New York,

NY: Scribner, 2016. The author establishes that the secret to outstanding
achievement is not just talent but a blend of passion and persistence she
calls grit. This is a must-read with profound relevance for survival as
well as equal relevance for how you live your everyday life and achieve
your goals.
81
Bibliography
Dutton, M., and R. Greene. “Resilience and Crime Victimization.”

Journal of Traumatic Stress 23, no. 2: 215–222. The authors discuss
resilience as defined by protective factors, the process of adaptation, and
positive outcomes following an exposure to adverse events.
Grant, A. Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success. New
York, NY: Penguin Books, 2013. The author demonstrates that success
relies not just on passion, hard work, talent, and luck but also on how
we interact with others. This is an excellent resource, providing ample
and provocativ, support for the power of decency and consideration in
dealings with others as well as for the value of relationships.
Gow, K., and M. J. Celinski, eds. Mass Trauma: Impact and Recovery
Issues. Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science Publishers, Inc., 2011. The authors
detail stories of mass trauma from around the world and provide their
opinion of the best way to assist communities during and after these
traumas. This article highlights the value of resilience in recovering from
trauma as well as the power of community resources in the process.
Grossman, D. On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War

and Society. Open Road Media, 2014. The author, Lieutenant Colonel
Dave Grossman, is a retired US Army Ranger, former paratrooper, and
psychology professor at West Point. He explains the psychological toll
killing takes on soldiers and also explains the psychological cost to the
rest of society. The book drives home the need to take better care of those
dedicated to the service and protection of others.
Grossman, D., and L. W. Christensen. On Combat: The Psychology

and Physiology of Deadly Conflict in War and in Peace. PPCT Research
Publications. The authors detail what occurs within the human body
under the stress of a fight and reviews new research on ways to prevent
this arousal in order to stay in the fight and survive. This book has
particular relevance for military and law enforcement, though the nature
of stress and its effects on the mind and body generalizes to all high-stress
events.
82
Bibliography
Moix, B. “Matters of Faith, Religion, Conflict, and Conflict Resolution.”

In The Handbook of Conflict Resolution: Theory and Practice, edited by M.
Deutsch, P. Coleman, and E. Marcus. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley
& Sons, Inc., 2006. The author discusses the Lord’s Resistance Army
(LRA), a rebel movement originally welcomed by the citizens but now
responsible for violence and brutality, in order to highlight an example
of religion within a conflict and the need to remedy this type of conflict.
The chapter also highlights and reinforces the role, and power, of religion
as a characteristic of resilience and survival.
The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.

The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on
Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. New York, NY: W. W. Norton &
Company, 2004. This is a fascinating exploration of the events that led up
to 9/11. It reveals startling gaps in intelligence gathering and collaboration
as well as the negative impact of ego at the expense of cooperation.
Reisman, D. B., R. W. Klomp, A. T. Kent, and B. Pferrerbaum.

“Exploring Psychological Resilience in the Face of Terrorism.” Psychiatric
Annals 33, no. 8 (2004): 627–632. Although the primary focus of the
article applies resilience to terrorism, the concepts generalize to critical
incidents. It reinforces the potency of resilience.
Ripley, A. The Unthinkable: Who Survives when Disaster Strikes—And

Why. Three Rivers Press, 2009. This is an excellent resource on survival.
It explains universal concepts by embedding them in powerful stories
about real-life disasters filled with impressive feats of survival.
Ru Hsu, Y. “Work-Family Conflict and Job Satisfaction in Stressful

Working Environments: The Moderating Roles of Perceived Supervisor
Support and Internal Locus of Control.” International Journal of
Manpower 32, no. 2 (2011): 233–248. The author examines the effects of
perceived supervision support and internal locus of control in regards to
the relationship between work-family conflict and job satisfaction. This
article reinforces both the range and the power of an internal locus of
control, which contributes to success in all areas of your life, including
surviving critical incidents.
83
Bibliography
Scaramella, G. L., S. M. Cox, and W. P. McCamey. Introduction to

Policing. Sage, 2010. This book covers the foundation of police work as
well as the events and issues that speak to the need for changes. It has
particular relevance for law enforcement. It sheds light on critical incident
stress and naturalistic decision-making.
Shenon, P. The Commission: What We Didn’t Know about 9/11. New

York: Grand Central Publishing, 2009. The author investigated the
investigation of 9/11 and provided new information regarding the inner
workings of the 9/11 Commission.
Siegel, J. M., K. I. Shoaf, A. A. Afifi, and L. B. Bourque. “Surviving

Two Disasters: Does Reaction to the First Predict Response to the
Second?” Environment and Behavior 35, no. 5 (2003): 637–654. The
authors re-contacted respondents studied four years after an earthquake
in California to determine if their experience impaired or enhanced their
future ability to deal with a disaster. The authors analyzed the emotional
injury and how this impacted their functioning. It was found that
the emotional injury facilitated the individual’s preparedness and also
predisposed them to a subsequent emotional injury. The book highlights
the power of preparation in surviving disasters.
Stevens, D. J. Police Officer Stress: Sources and Solutions. Upper Saddle

River, NJ: Pearson Education, 2008. The sources and solutions for police
officer stress are examined, including the impact of current events on
police work. This book is an essential resource on critical incidents,
including effects, stress, debriefing, and resilience. It reveals the complex
nature of survival strategies.
Sullenberger, C., and J. Zaslow. Sully: My Search for What Really Matters.
New York, NY: Harper Collins Publishers, 2009. This book describes
the remarkable emergency landing when Captain Sullenberger skillfully
glided US Airways Flight 1549 onto the Hudson River, saving all 155
passengers and crew. It demonstrates many of the lessons illuminated in
this course.
84
Bibliography
Van Horne, P., J. A. Riley, and D. Campbell. Left of Bang: How the
Marine Corps’ Combat Hunter Program Can Save Your Life. Black Irish
Entertainment LLC, 2014. Incorporating concepts taught in the Marine
Corps’ Combat Hunter program, Left of Bang provides a comprehensive
approach to increase your sensitivity to threats before they happen. The
authors encourage you not only to listen to your instincts but to enhance
them by being alert and ready to respond.
Image Credits
9: Ingrid Taylar/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY 2.0; 20: Darrin Klimek/Getty
Images; 31: Staff Sgt. Daniel J. Martinez, United States National Guard/
SC National Guard/flickr/Public Domain; 35: BrandyTaylor/Getty Images;
43: South_agency/iStock/Getty Images Plus; 65: fizkes/iStock/Getty Images
Plus; 75: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division; 77: National
Archives and Records Administration/Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain
85

Survival Mentality - The Psychol - Nancy Zarse

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Survival Mentality - The Psychol - Nancy Zarse

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Topic Subtopic

Science Neuroscience & Psychology

Professor Nancy Zarse

Copyright © The Teaching Company, 2020

Nancy Zarse is a Professor of

Professor Zarse specializes in the prevention, identification, assessment,

Professor Zarse worked as a forensic psychologist at several high-profile

military prison. Her responsibilities included performing psychological

Professor Zarse consults with and provides training to law enforcement

Professor Zarse has published articles on such topics as hostage

From The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, Professor Zarse

The Teaching Company expressly DISCLAIMS LIABILITY for any DIRECT,

When faced with an unexpected critical situation, how would you

The course starts with a look at the fundamental mental attribute

While a number of innate tools help in a survival situation, some of your

critical situation without your realizing it. Knowing and strengthening

S u rvival is encountering and living through a

The key takeaway of this lecture is that surviving

Types of Critical Incidents

Primary and secondary victimization are also pieces of the critical

An enormous part of the impact of a critical incident depends on your

Your attitude is crucial to your initial response because if you tend to be

Previous experiences are your cumulative body of experiences. This

In one scene, Robert De Niro’s crew is robbing a bank. It is a well-

For the responding police, this was a critical incident: unexpected,

This critical incident represents a perfect storm of factors: It was life-

In this critical incident, primary and secondary victimization occurred

As for the psychological issues at play, the police brought a number of

2 While this course’s definition of survival is tied to a life-threatening

S h ortly after 3:30 pm on January 15, 2009,

The plane landed safely in that river thanks

Because of extreme time

When he determined that

An Internal Locus of Control

1) I have little control over the things that happen to me.

An internal locus of control is about your ability, or perceived ability,

For instance, in Captain Sully’s emergency landing event, he skipped “the

Interestingly enough, there is even evidence to suggest that those with

Sully spent decades building up a supply of survival training. He learned to

In addition to flying and taking correspondence courses, Sully began

People with an internal locus of control recognize the important role of

2 Identify someone in your life who routinely exhibits an internal locus of

3 An internal locus of control is something that can be practiced and

I  stincts are the subject of this lecture. Instincts

In order for the instinct-assessment loop to work to your advantage, you

Instincts are impulses encoded into people’s bodies evolutionarily to help

When you feel true fear, your body is

I  tuition gets a bad rap. It tends to be

The Meaning of Intuition

An instinct is a physical impulse that every human being has simply

An intuition is also an impulse, and it also occurs without conscious

The Role of Intuition

Nobody’s intuition is the same as anyone else’s because nobody’s

This power gives you immediate, subcortical access to the reservoir of

As Kurt scanned the scene, he recognized that one individual looked

On reflection, Kurt realized that he allowed himself to be influenced by

Immediately and reflexively, Kurt said, “Gun.” He tried to secure the

He rushed at the man, bear-hugging him and bringing him to the

Kurt’s intuition and his willingness to listen to it helped him in this

Arousal is your state of awareness and subsequent readiness for action.

For every situation, there is an optimal level of arousal. At that level,

Primary and Secondary Arousal

However, if secondary arousal kicks in too strongly, your feelings about

S u rvival is encountering and living through a

S h ortly after 3:30 pm on January 15, 2009,

I stincts are the subject of this lecture. Instincts

I tuition gets a bad rap. It tends to be

A c ritical piece of survival in a life-threatening

T h is lecture looks at the value of previous training

P e ople make decisions constantly. Sometimes

T h e US Marines first coined the term situational

O e universal trait of survivors is that they never

I t’s easy to think of a survival story as a defined