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Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
In the mid
1970s, I read a journal article about the difference
between experienced and inexperienced sky divers.
Experienced sky divers were not only less anxious
than the inexperienced, they also felt the anxiety
at a different time. Experienced sky divers felt
anxiety some hours before the jump and were calm at
the time of the jump, while inexperienced sky divers
felt maximum anxiety at the point of the jump
itself. If I can track down the reference I will put
it here because I thought it was an interesting
result.
Supposing the
worst happens and you get involved in a dive
incident where you, your dive buddy or someone in
your group had a dive emergency, you may have some
reactions you weren't expecting. Life threatening
incidents can be upsetting, overwhelming, even
terrifying. Someone involved may experience Post
Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
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Symptoms of PTSD may include:
Feeling numb
Feeling tired, depressed, or drained of energy
Not enjoying things that used to be pleasurable
Feeling anxious, sometimes for no apparent reason,
or feeling 'jumpy'
Experiencing intrusive thoughts of the dive incident
Having dreams or nightmares of the dive incident
Having more intense feelings than usual
Feeling alienated from people and having problems
with relationships
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If you think
that someone you know may be experiencing PTSD,
there are things you can do to help them:
- Listen
uncritically and sympathetically - don't give
advice or say things like, "You should have done
this....".
- Give them
a hand with day to day chores.
- Give them
the opportunity to talk if they want to - don't
press them if they don't want to.
If the
effects persist for more than a week or two, suggest
that they talk to a professional, such as a
counsellor.
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Most of the
findings above apply to the 'average' diver.
However, is there any way of training someone to
become an exceptional diver? Nevo and Breitstein
(1999) report one possible approach, based on the
training of Soviet cosmonauts. In addition to the
complex routines that each cosmonaut had to memorise
perfectly, they were also trained in conditions
designed to prepare them psychologically for the
stresses and possible emergencies of space flight.
For example, they carried out survival training in
difficult conditions to create feelings of autonomy
and self-confidence; they practised sky diving while
doing more and more tasks during the jump, to be
able to divide attention and deal with problems
simultaneously; and they isolated crew members for a
month in a closed room to become accustomed to
isolation.
This training
was said to have prepared them to deal with the
mishaps that occurred during space flights and to
improvise solutions to the problems that arose.
PADI has
created diving programmes that enable children as
young as 8 years old to experience scuba diving.
With their usual thoroughness they have considered
many aspects of this before making programmes such
as Bubblemaker available, including looking into the
developmental psychology of children and diving.
Below is a letter that I wrote in response to an
article on the subject that appeared in PADI's
journal to its members. In case you do not have
access to the Undersea Journal, the original article
consisted mainly of an introduction to the
developmental concepts of Jean Piaget, an
influential developmental psychologist who placed
considerable emphasis on a model of cognitive
development involving progress through discrete
stages:
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Mr K.
Shreeves
PADI Americas
30151 Tomas Street
Rancho Santa Margarita
California 92688
USA
11th May 2001
Dear Mr Shreeves
Ref.: How
Children Learn
I enjoyed
reading your article in the First Quarter issue of
the Undersea Journal, on ‘How Children Learn.’ It is
very encouraging for me as a diving instructor,
diving psychologist and lecturer in developmental
psychology, to see that PADI has taken the trouble
to study the psychology of young people and children
in the development of their programmes.
I thought it
worth adding to what you wrote that, although Piaget
is still respected by psychologists and teachers
alike and many teachers still describe what they do
in Piagetian terms, in practice very few actually
use his concepts. In practice, if you watch what
teachers actually do, it is much more in line with
the increasingly popular work of Lev Vygotsky and
his sociocultural theory (see Vygotsky, 1978, for
example). There is a very good reason for that –
almost the only role for teachers in Piaget’s model
is in creating a suitable environment in which
children can learn for themselves. Vygotsky’s model
is far better suited both to the actual practice of
teaching in schools and also of imparting skills
such as those needed for scuba diving to children.
There are
also good reasons for thinking that Piaget
underestimated children’s abilities and the ages at
which they are able to do certain things, because
the tasks he used were not suited to the actual
abilities of children. So I believe that there are
good reasons for not using Piaget’s theories as the
psychological basis for teaching children to dive,
but instead to use Vygotsky’s ideas.
Vygotsky, for
example, used the concept of the zone of proximal
development (ZPD) to describe the gap between what
they are already able to do and what they cannot
accomplish without the help of a skilled adult. With
the right kind of guidance they can cross the ZPD
gap and responsibility for learning gradually shifts
to the child. The temporary guidance that the
skilled adult gives is known as scaffolding, because
the assistance is removed when the child can do the
task alone. It is like teaching a child to float.
First an adult provides support and gives guidance
on breathing and posture in the water etc. Then
gradually the support is removed until the child is
floating by himself.
No single
theory of children’s development is universally
accepted, but Vygotsky’s model seems to have
particular relevance to teaching diving skills to
children, where Piaget’s model is less so. However,
one implication of the model is that some detailed
study is carried out to find out which of the skills
of diving fall within the ZPD for children at a
particular age and which skills are beyond the
typical child of that age. If it has not been done
already, I would urge PADI to support such research
being carried out.
Yours
sincerely
(Dr) Peter M.
Forster
PADI # 605811
http://www.blue-oceans.com/scuba/
Reference:
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The
development of higher psychological processes.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
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I hope you
found this page interesting. If you want to discuss
any of it,
please get in touch. If you want to find out how
to cope with diving emergencies, read on - we are
fortunate to enjoy a sport with one of the lowest
accident rates around, but the inherent risks of
diving mean dive accidents may be serious. And when
things go wrong, they can go wrong quickly. A quick,
cool and effective response is often the difference
between a close call and serious injury or worse.
How prepared do you feel to handle a dive emergency?
Go to:
http://www.scubadiving.com/training/instruction/scuba911.shtml
to find out more about handling dive emergencies.
I wish you
safe and sensational diving.
Bachrach, A.J.
and Egstrom, G.H. (1987). Stress and performance
in diving. San Pedro, CA: Best Publishing
Company.
Baddeley, A.D., Godden, D., Moray, N.P., Ross, H.E.
and Synodinos, N.E. (1978). Final report on
training services agency contract - Selection of
diving trainees. Department of Psychology,
Stirling University and M.R.C. Applied Psychology
Research Unit, Cambridge.
Edmonds, C., (1986). The abalone diver.
Australia: National Safety Council of Australia,
Victoria.
Lesnik-Oberstein, M. and Cohen L. (1984). Cognitive
style, sensation seeking and assortative mating.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46
(1), 112 - 117.
Nevo, B. and Breitstein, S. (1999). Psychological
and Behavioral Aspects of Diving. San Pedro,
CA:Best Publishing Company.
Spigolon, L. and Dell'oro, A., (1985). Autogenic
training in frogmen. International Journal of
Sport Psychology, 16 (4), 312 - 320.
Zuckerman, M. (1979). Sensation Seeking: Beyond
the optimal level of arousal. Hillsdale, NJ:
Erlbaum.
That's it for
now - I will put more interesting research here when
I get the time. Here are links back to our other
diving pages:
Blue
Oceans
© 2000 to
2003 Peter Michael Forster
(Dr) Peter M. Forster
PADI # 605811
http://www.blue-oceans.com/scuba/
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