PSYCHOLOGICAL TRAUMA AND THE ORDINARY WORKING PERSON

Psychologically traumatic experiences can arise out of apparently normal, everyday situations, can affect perfectly ordinary working people, and may only involve one or two individuals. Four case illustrations are given of unsuspecting employees who found their lives thrown into extreme turmoil by the experience of a traumatic event. These included a railway suicide, an acid‐throwing attack, an explosion in an apartment block, and a rape by a work colleague. The nature of psychological trauma is examined, and then the benefits of early intervention in such cases, and the need for employers to provide a counselling service which is sophisticated enough to cater for problems of this kind is considered.