Cognitive Dissonance

Officers and investigators have much latitude in deciding how a situation should be handled.  Many times creating a state of cognitive dissonance for them.

In one of the jurisdictions in which I worked, I was sent to a person’s home for a period of several weeks concerning prowlers or unwanted persons in the home.  We worked in one-officer cars so consequently a back up officer was sent to assist me or I responded as the back up officer. Prowler or unwanted persons calls usually require two officers. Having two officers enables one to cover the front of the residence and one the rear to help prevent escape. Also there are officer safety issues to consider concerning the number of prowlers or intruders.

The female resident appeared to be delusional because she kept describing persons to both me and the other officer that we did not see, or any evidence of anyone being there. The other officer and I would talk to these imaginary persons. We would appear to struggle with them

to remove them from the home. We would go back into the house and explain to the woman that the unwanted intruders were gone and we sternly told them to never return. She was happy with the outcome and we wouldn’t hear from her for several days

It did look funny seeing both of us talking to no one and struggling with thin air, but it worked.  Our job was to protect and serve. We served her need to feel safe. But we both questioned, were our actions encouraging her delusions?  Should we have tried to convince her there was no one in her house? We tried that approach the first few times we responded to her home and kept receiving multiple calls from her the entire evening.

In law enforcement you often need to be a psychologist, a doctor, a counselor, an auto mechanic, and several other functions to fully serve and protect the people. Were we failing as psychologist with this woman?

Talk to you tomorrow,

Sally S