As an effort to continuously improve services for service users, the Psychology Consultation Unit (UKP) of the Faculty of Psychology UGM presents the event “Skills Improvement Training: Psychological First Aid”. This event was held on Friday (3/9) and was intended for UKP Psychologists and Assistant Psychologists.
Present at this event were Maria Ratih Maharani, M.Psi., a psychologist as a speaker who currently works as a psychologist at Panti Rapih Hospital, Yogyakarta, UKP Psychology UGM, and the Bureau of Intuition Psychology. “Usually, Psychological First Aid (PFA) training is carried out for a minimum of 7-8 hours per session, but if we want to do PFA training for only 1 hour, I request permission not to label this session as training or debriefing,” explained Maria. Therefore, according to Maria, this event is more suitable if it is called an introduction to PFA.
Maria believes that in general people have done PFA, but the person concerned does not realize it because PFA is a very simple thing and is attached to the human side of a human being. Thus, it is hoped that everyone can practice PFA for the surrounding environment and be assisted by an adequate PFA training program.
This event started with a question asked by Maria to the participants about what can and cannot be done during PFA. Some of his statements about whether a person will experience trauma after a traumatic event to the question of whether PFA is the same as trauma healing.
According to Maria, helping with intention is sometimes not enough. Helping skills are needed so that the assistance provided is as needed, does not exceed one’s own abilities, and is able to activate internal resources. These things ultimately make PFA something that needs to be studied.
There are several things that are the goals of doing PFA, namely, to calm others who are stressed, empathize, foster a feeling of security, listen to complaints wholeheartedly, accompany them in difficult times, seek to fulfil basic needs, normalize anxiety, and provide needed information.
At the end of this session, participants were invited to practice directly about PFA by dividing the participants into several groups. One group consisted of three participants who were given the task of taking turns acting as observers, the person who needed the PFA, and the person who gave the PFA.
This event was acknowledged by the participants as very enjoyable and helped them understand what PFA is and how to do it. Participants said they were happy and enthusiastic and hoped that there would be more fun events in the future that would also help them in their role as assistant psychologists and psychologists.