psychological training

I'm posting this in the public forum because its agenst forum rules to post questions in the training and information section.

I'm sure we all have our own physical training but what about training for our minds? In general I am a very cold hearted person. An extreamly shocking and/or disturbing event has little to no effect to me. As nice as that may sound, I'm sure there is some sort of unknown side effect but thats not the point.

My question is do any of you practice anything to prepare yourselves for what you may or may not deal with in you lives? Personally I use to watch the faces of death box set once a month as well as log onto a certain website I will not mention. After roughly 2 years of this I stopped this practice.

Proper psychological training would consist of meditating, college level courses in psychology, sociology, and of course a bag on your head.

I know the last part sounds odd, but here's how it works. You put a bag on your head thats connected to a pulley system so someone (person a) can lift it at any moment. Then you go and get random situations set up without your knowledge by others (Persons b-z ?) and have interaction with them via situation set up when you can't see and having to figure out what to do in a split second once the bag is off your head. These situations can be mundane such as someone asking for directions, to someone full on attacking you.

But ultimately the other's are far more effective long term wise for psychological training.

Psychology and sociology is about other people/s. I'm talking about personal training. Although I've never heard of the bag deal before. Good stuff.

Psychology is about the raw human mind and how it works. It's extremely useful because you can learn the basic and higher function drives of a persons behavior.

Sociology is the effect of psychological standards in societies and cultures.

It may be applicable the most to 'others', but it's extremely useful for understand oneself if applied in that manner.

Navy seals use the bag technique. I personally think it's silly.

I don't think I understand what you are asking. Are you wanting to know how to deal with the immediate and after-effects of witnessing traumatic events?

Also, when you say you are cold hearted and shcocking/disgusting events have no effect on you, I do not see that as nice, and it screams to me of repressed trauma and extreme avoidance issues. Was there some event in your past that caused you to block out these types of situations because they are too much for you to cope with, or am I totally off the rails here?

Either way, being somewhat detached is a good thing. If you are too busy crying over the fate of a victim, you can't effectively protect them from further harm. Likewise, you can't be so far detached as to not care at all, or you will be too busy pounding on a perp while your victim bleeds out in the street.

Hope that helps.

I want to know if anyone practices teqnics for quicker thinking or mentally prepare for a fight/disaster/event/anything really.

And yes you are 100% off the rails.

Watching suffering and death on video doesn't really prepare you for anything.

E0N wrote:

Watching suffering and death on video doesn't really prepare you for anything.

I would highly disagree.

First time I ever taped a Surgery I crawled out of the room, in time I could stick a camera up under a guys chest & look at his organs beating etc.

But I still don't think you can be "prepared" so much as you've trained yourself to "Act" instead or "React" in most situations.

A few years ago my house alarm had a malfunction in the middle of the night sending me thru the celing. When I landed I was crouched by the bed, hand my SIG in my hand (Still not sure how) stood up & cocked it as lound as I could & said "Whoever you are get out now before I blow your F*&^ing head off!" to give them a chance to get out then went room clearing. It turned out to be a false alarm, but at least now I know "Ok, you won't poop yourself if somebody breaks in." I know for sure.

Bloody auto accident? I know for sure.
Fire? I know for sure.
Nazi frogmen? I know for sure.

Prepare as much as you can, and when it happens you'll know for sure.

But you see what I'm saying.

Nazi frogmen???

Zombie wrote:

E0N wrote:

Watching suffering and death on video doesn't really prepare you for anything.

I would highly disagree.

I've watched many faces of death videos (even making my own by compositing them to disturbing music).

sorry, I still have a soul. EON is right.

There will always be something that will come up that you are not prepared for. We've all heard the stories of hardened cops arriving at the scene of particularly gruesome murders and losing their lunch. It's nature.

If you are talking about training yourself to "stay cool under pressure", then yes, it is possible to an extent. Some people are just hard wired to handle tense situations and some aren't.

You can learn the mental discipline to remain focused in the sight of something horrific, but there is always the chance that you're going to come across something you've never seen before, and apart from keeping your mind open for anything, there's really no way to prepare yourself for that.

@Pro: You brought something up too, when the cop rolls on thet paticularly gruesome murder Usually the person commiting it did'nt set out to make it so grusome. They usually say 'It just happened" & I'm not talking Serial killers or something either. It shows what people are capable of as well as being prepared for.

Superhero, EON, and Urban Avenger are correct in their posts.

Nothing will prepare you except focused repetitive training and experience.
We can watch all the videos and read all the books we want, but you never really know until the real thing happens.

Proteus is also correct: some people are wired differently. Some people can do things others just can't. A good example is with my mortuary and EMS/CNA experience. Stuff like that doesn't bother me, I can be up to my elbows in corpse, blood, and feces. Doesn't bother me a bit. Somebody splits their skull open falling down, not a problem, pain and suffering do not bother me while in an emergency. I'm wired that way. I can turn it off. No biggie.

However, by the same token, childbirth gets me. After experiencing all of that other stuff, watching an actual childbirth almost made me pass out. I find it disgusting, it squicked me out, and I almost had to have oxygen put on me.

You never know til you know.

The way I see it, If you can't watch it on a screen theres no was in lleh your going to be able to handle it in person. The only thing that disguses me is guts. They look all sticky and slimy and its just plain nasty. But after finding a rather large pile of, what I can only asume to be deer insides randomly hiking in the woods, I know it wont bother me to be around.

I've seen many videos of things I wouldn't want to imagine and I feel I've bettered myself for see them. And if I see such events in real life I feel it will be lest of a shock then if I had not seen the videos.

Black wrote:

Nazi frogmen???

It's a thing.

And nothing compares to real-world experience.

Quote :

Black wrote:
Nazi frogmen???


It's a thing.

And nothing compares to real-world experience.

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You know honestly it's the weirdest thing. In crisis situations I've always been the guy who says "Alright everybody calm down." and I'm usually able to get things done...

But if I watch a video of someone having an accident or breaking an arm or some such thing, It's like I can imagine what that injury must feel like and I get all squeemish.

I've never been able to figure it out.

That is very true, especially if you are a take charge kind of person, not having control is harder for that person than the situation,
But the best way to deal with things is experience,but some things just cannot be prepared for.

Back in like 1990. Me & the Opossum were working as private patrol officers in a gated community & some guy FOLDED one of those big 1980's Mustangs in half against a tree.

The passenger landed on his feet, saying "What happened?" W/O a scratch...

The driver was smooshed. We pulled him out of the wreck & he was choking to death on his own blood with one Big Pupil & one little one (Dain Bramage) and he was dead. They Bayflighted his body to hack it up for parts.


Anyway we handled it just fine, Then the next few days I felt this irepressable guilt & deression for some reason then it was fine. I didn't even know the guy. Odd.

I suggest you sit in on a few autopsies if you have the access. I used to watch the county coroner perform autopsies, and it is a whole different ballgame when you see them peel off some guys face or harvest his organs. I learned a lot, but got sick quite a few times, too. Sometimes just the memory of what I saw made me want to heave, and I will never forget the sweet smell of decaying human. I don't get sick from these things anymore, but I wouldn't wish the sight on anyone who didn't want to see it on purpose. Horror videos will not prepare you.

Yeah, surgey is one this but I don't do autopsies.

Superhero wrote:

Anyway we handled it just fine, Then the next few days I felt this irepressable guilt & deression for some reason then it was fine. I didn't even know the guy. Odd.

Could have been some survivor's guilt. It sets in after the action is over.
It's not uncommon or rational. It can happen even with strangers.