Ambiguity: The Enemy of Mental Health Decisions

Firefighters face a lot of options when it comes to dealing with a mental health emergency.

There is access to EAP or employee assistance programs.

There are private counselors and therapists who specialize in first responder populations.

There are modalities like EMDR, acupuncture, yoga, peer support, breathwork, meditation, and any number of other things that aren’t traditionally familiar to firefighters. All of them require some degree of vetting for folks to decide whether they want to pursue them or not.

Is it painful? Boring? Can I afford it? Is it weird? Is it confidential? What should I expect? Can I openly pursue this? Who am I if I do this? How do I get started?

Too many options, especially for those in an overwhelmed emotional state, can paralyze the ability to decide.

“More options, even good ones, can freeze us and make us retreat to the default plan. This behavior is clearly not rational, but it is human.”

— "Switch: How to Change When Change is Hard"

Ambiguity and uncertainty can exhaust us when we are trying to solve a problem. This is why we train and operate with standard operating procedures. They are meant to eliminate ambiguity every time. We train them to the point of being automatic so that mental energy is conserved on scene.

Imagine if the fire service didn’t operate with SOPs. Outcomes would be completely unpredictable, personnel would freelance, and chaos would rule! Handling a situation like that would be utterly exhausting.

This imaginative scenario is akin to what a person experiences during a mental health challenge. Knowing what to do, where to turn, what the problem is, and how to fix it decisively is uncertain.

“As the number of choices grows further, the negatives escalate until we become overloaded. At this point, choice no longer liberates, it debilitates. It might even be said to tyrannize.”

— "The Paradox of Choice"

It’s not surprising, then, that a common choice made is suicide. Suicide is permanent. It is clear. The decision is without ambiguity.

So, to combat this trend, there needs to be an equally easy, permanent, and clear solution on the table.

Trained resilience, or self-command, offers this solution. When departments choose to train resiliency, they equip personnel with a set of cognitive SOPs. Those tools then become as automatic as tying a knot or climbing a ladder. They are effectively conditioned.

They require no mental energy to execute and as such, will become the default plan that firefighters fall back upon during times of stress.