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Gut instinct in Emergency Response and in life‘Going with your gut’ or indeed having ‘a police(man)’s nose is definitely a thing. We say it all the time, whether it be about a dodgy person in a position of perceived power (see previous blog on psychopaths), or whether someone ‘likes-you’-likes-you when you sense a little flirtatious fizz, or even j…

“One more time with feeling”: Dealing with flashbacks In his film, One More Time With Feeling, singer and songwriter Nick Cave spoke about his experience of losing his young son in a tragic accident and the trauma and grief that lives with him. He allowed me to quote him directly in my book The Policing Mind with something very specific that has st…

TRAUMA DAYS: HOTELChasing Safety On my desk I have a little corner of me: a round desk lamp with a bobble hat which is in the shape of the human brain (of course), a picture of a lovely view from a stoney window out to see, a chalk coaster with a Land Rover Defender image on it and a quote from Joseph Goldstein that brings me right to where I need …

TRAUMA DAYS: GOLFUpping your game by letting goIt sounds counter-intuitive and nonsensical (the idea that by letting go we can achieve, gain or get a better grip on life). The science and the practice shows it to be very logical and a no-brainer when you understand it. To do it, it feels far from that: it feels clumsy, quite tricky and then absolut…

TRAUMA DAYS: FOXTROTTrauma Anger and Life AngerAnger can mean so many different things. It can mean different things by the way it is expressed and it can mean different things by the way it originates. Anger can come out in different ways and it can come from different places -and yet sometimes we don't make that distinction. Being a man who's ang…

TRAUMA DAYS: ECHOFinding Fun Where It’s Not Supposed to be: Everyone wants to be happy*. It’s the most blindingly blooming obvious thing about life and the universe, right? And Emergency Response is no different. But it kinda is. Being a little honest here, when you deal day-in and day-out with others’ suffering or harmdoing, sometimes bouncy happy…

TRAUMA DAYS: CHARLIE*“I’LL BE HAPPY WHEN”There isn’t one human I have ever personally known who hasn’t conditioned their present state on being OK, acceptable, enough without the caveat of providing they get better (at something, or being something, or having something) in the not-too-distant future. New Year is an absolute ‘wotsit’ for this. We’re…

SHUSHING THE LLAMAI’ve learned some very tough lessons in the past few weeks. Not about life*, but about my own grasp on my own ability to handle threat.(*The adage ‘sh*t happens’ has its place in neuropsychology as well as everywhere else in the universe!)It’s been a humbling experience and yet one that – if I can turn it around- could lead to bet…

SO. This is me.According to my neighbour's 4 year old son. Today. And to be fair, his depiction I find both insightful and flattering. Here I am all in a bit of a tiz, dishevelled, fringed with red, my head is almost upside down and there is a big cloud of intense rumination above me. Also, my ears (I think they are ears) are open. (Either ears or …

Dr Jess with Cambridge Resilient Research Ltd (directed by Prof Brendan Burchell) is now offering a new, discrete and bespoke trauma resilience service, including presenting, leadership training, high-risk resilience work, trauma management planning, research and evidence-based approaches and incident-specific support. Availability is limited so Je…

The Marshwood Vale magazine of the South West features a front cover piece on Dr Jess Miller and how she found herself working in trauma resilience. To read a bit more about how the personal meets the professional, honouring the trusted adage "Re-search is Me-search", click here. 

Here Dr Jess talks about how her first book The Policing Mind: Trauma Resilience for a New Era has had impact since 2022: Transforming Society ~ Getting inside the policing mindIn doing so, the book as been passed to the Home Secretary in the hope of further change to our police service being more trauma informed and open to understanding the impac…

We are absolutely delighted to share that our project has featured in an essay by Jules Morgan in The Lancet Psychiatry on 21st March. Here is an extract :"People are only just starting to talk about complex PTSD, but we need to act now, says Jessica Miller (University of Cambridge, UK, and Police Care UK), Principal Investigator of the project Tra…

We were really pleased to contribute to the Baroness Casey Review of the Met with a view to understanding how trauma exposure and resilience interacts with culture, standards and behaviour. Here is an extract from the full report 21 March 2023:"During the Review we spoke to Dr Jessica Miller, Director of Research at Police Care UK, and Research Ass…