Strategies to Cope with Occupational stress
Coping refers to active efforts to master, reduce or tolerate the demands created by stress. People cope with stress in variety of ways; it may be adaptive or maladaptive. Some police officers respond to stressful events by striking out at others with aggressive behaviours. Aggression is any behaviour that is intended to hurt someone, either physically or verbally. Frequently officers lash out aggressively at others who had nothing to do with their frustration, apparently because they cannot vent their anger to the real source of their frustration. For example, the officer will probably suppress his anger rather than lash out verbally at his superior. Twenty minutes later, however he might be verbally brutal to a colleague or a client (Dimetteo, 1999). This diversion of anger to a substitute target was noticed by Sigmund Freud who called it displacement. Freud argued that behaving aggressively could get pent up behaviour out of one‟s system and thus be adaptive (Robin, 1999). Some officers when confronted with stressful situations simply give up and withdraw from their work. This response of apathy and inaction tends to be associated with the emotional reactions of sadness and dejection.