novelty should not inhibit the search potential, or overshadow the good results obtained
so far, however stimulate the need for professional improvement.
On the Internet we learn that in Canada and the US there is the Association of Traumatic
Stress Specialists (ATSS), organization addressed to professionals exposed to the
traumatic stress caused by the contact with clients involved in crime, aggression of any
kind, war, terrorist confrontation, natural disasters, etc. ATSS places at the hand of “front
desk” staff and executive staff a complete stress management course built around critical
incidents. The course is formed by two theoretical modules and ends with a written
examination and a role-play, sustained at latest three years after the beginning of the
program. The certificate obtained qualifies the holder to provide optimised assistance
services for the victims of critical incidents and at the same time protection of the own
emotional health while confronted with human drama under its various forms.
Critical incidents, as defined in the medical literature, speak of a situation that causes
unusual reactions to the intervention that could affect the capacity for an adequate
response. Support programs in stress management ain at maintaining a good physical
condition, attracting support from family and friends, building a collaborative relationship
with the co-workers, as well as handling the post-traumatic cure.
Counselling works in situations manageable from the point of view of human condition,
where the quality of life and comfort level brought by settling the incident is crucial for
the general welfare of the client, apart from pure survival.
Since most counsellors in the Romanian educational system work in school offices and
classrooms, we bring to attention the teaching perspective on critical incident (Corsini
and Howard): an approach to crisis casuistic, “difficult interpersonal situation in the
classroom” that can occur with “experienced teachers, administrators or parents unsure
regarding the most appropriate course of action or educational reaction”.
Associating emotional discomfort to the uncertainty caused by the disturbing fact of life
outlines the magnitude that the same critical incident may get for individual agents
involved. Ultimately, the inclusion by the practitioner of a situation in the irreconcilable
category of those for which he/she has no abilities or external validity at a given time,
overwhelmingly depends on his / her capacity to make useful connections and transfer
expertise from usual to less usual cases, from literature to methodology, from the possible
to the likely, from his / her own portfolio to that of the others and the other way around.
The time elapsed from the usual to the critical incidents is one of professional
accumulation and refinement.
Method description
Vocational phenomenology is hard to seize in formal reports. When practitioners must
write down the experiences that made them reflect on a concept or idea, it becomes