The Psychodynamic Processes Related to the Involvement in Peacekeeping Missions: Experiences of Slovenian Police Officers
Purpose:
The purpose of this paper is to review the decade of Slovenian police officer’s experiences with international peacekeeping operations. The main goal of police officers, involved in these missions, is to prevent conflicts between opposite sites, to implement basic agreements, protect humanitarian missions and reinforce policing operations in the conflict area. The purpose of the paper is to acknowledge the lessons learned while planning and implementing further cooperation of Slovenian police officers in peacekeeping (police) operations. The main purpose of the paper is to analyze the consequences of deployment to peacekeeping missions for police officers as well as their family members (partners and children) by analyzing the psychodynamic processes related to the involvement in peacekeeping missions.
Design/Methods/Approach:
The paper is based on the review of literature. The empirical part of the paper presents the results of the research on a small sample of police officers (n = 36) and their family members (n = 25 partners + 35 children).
Findings:
Police peacekeepers should be well prepared for different stress situations; they are exposed to various stress factors before, during, and after serving in a mission. That is why training and reintegration programmes are of great importance. We establish that respondents assess that deployment to a peacekeeping mission has a positive and negative impact on the relationships between family members. As many as ¾ of mission members believe deployment can have a positive impact above all in the sense of strengthening the emotional ties between partners, increased mutual trust and strengthening of the partnership. For them, deployment to a peacekeeping mission is a challenge and personal experience, which can change the way they see the world. 2/3 of partners state similar positive impacts and they also believe that there is more trust between the partners after the experience with the peacekeeping mission, they treasure their time together and thus represent bigger support for each other in difficult times. As the most common problem, respondents perceived marital problems and the occurrence of negative feelings among family members (anger, avoidance, judgment ...). A large share of respondents stressed problems with children. 43.8% of respondents also named depression as a problem.
Research limitations/implications:
The findings are limited to the Slovenian police and their police officer’s experiences, serving in various police peacekeeping missions and their family members.
Practical implications:
Based on lessons learned this paper complements the results of different surveys of the researched topic. The results cannot be completely generalized, although some findings could also be useful to similar police organizations in Europe.
Originality/Value:
This paper addresses and explores different small scale surveys, conducted on sampled Slovenian police officers who served in peacekeeping missions and their family members. Findings could be of interest for the general as well as expert audience.
UDC: 159.9:351.74/.76
Keywords: police, police officer’s family, peacekeeping missions, Slovenia, stress, training and reintegration programmes, SE Europe