Emotional First Aid and Activist Trauma Support during COP15
Emotional first aid and trauma support is basic psychological first aid for activists provided by activists. It's based around providing a physical space with a calm and low stress environment, as well as active listening and awareness on stress related issues. It's not psychological therapy or counseling, but it does revolve around knowledge on psychological issues, such as enabling activists to recognize symptoms of stress and the like before they pose a serious threat to their mental health.
Emotional first aid is as important as physical first aid. What is different is the way in which we, as political persons, deal with the emotional/psychological effects of our activism, as opposed to how we deal with physical injuries. There is a tendency to not talk about the psychological strains we put on our selves, they are not cool, they don't give street credit and - most importantly - are not as easily recognized as a real consequence of political activism. It's easy to to see and recognize a physical injury and therefore more easy to talk about it.
What emotional first aid aims at is raising awareness on the issue of psychological injuries and working towards enabling activists to react to this. This needs attention because we all need to take care of our selves and our friends in order to secure sustainable activism.
Because we recognize the stress of activism and the possibility of being exposed to traumatic events while doing political work, a group of Copenhagen activist have started a group that does emotional first aid and trauma support, by activists for activists.
We are working to set up a support structure that will be available during the summit, for you or your friends to use if you experience servere stress, burn-out or traumatic events during the summit, or afterwards.
Also you can join us if you want to do this type of activism.
As a group we will be present at general info-meetings as well as we're trying to set up a workshop of our own for people who are interested in knowing more/being active. Info about that is to be announced.
You can contact us at efa-cop[at]aktivix.org
No stress!
Copenhagen Activist Trauma Support (CATS)
PS. Check the links below to see the UK and German Activist Trauma Support group websites!
German activist trauma support British activist trauma support