The adaptive capacities of Canadian correctional officer recruits: Exploring experiences of and responses to acute and traumatic stress

The work of correctional officers (COs) is multifaceted. Within prisons, they are responsible for maintaining the safety of prisoners, intervening to prevent injuries and fatalities, and caring for some of society’s most vulnerable people. They navigate their roles amidst numerous occupational stressors which range from quotidian difficulties like staffing shortages, to more acute sources of stress like violence. Across Canada, the psychological well-being of COs is of growing concern. Nonetheless, many COs engage in health sustaining behaviours and demonstrate resilience in the face of many occupational stressors. To date, little research has documented experiences of resilience and coping strategies amongst COs on the job. Even less is known about the capacity to navigate stress and demonstrate resilience after exposure to a potentially psychologically traumatic event (PPTE) that COs in training - correctional officer recruits (CORs) - bring with them as they enter the workforce. Knowledge of pre-existing coping and resilience capacities can be applied to strengthen existing supportive interventions to promote employee well-being once CORs have completed their training and enter the workforce.Thus, in this dissertation, the physiological, emotional, and cognitive experiences of and adaptations to moments of acute and potentially traumatic stress, labeled overwhelm, in CORs are explored. Starting from the assumption that CORs enter the workforce with prior experience navigating moments of stress and trauma, I seek to understand how they experience these moments and what adaptive capacities they bring to their roles in corrections. In the research, three separate manuscripts examine overwhelm via the following questions: what is the experience, physiologically, emotionally, and behaviourally, of overwhelm for CORs? How do CORs navigate moments of overwhelm? And what are the adaptive capacities of CORs upon entering federal corrections? In the first manuscript, the method of phenomenology is used to explore the lived experiences of CORs with overwhelm. In the second manuscript, I draw on grounded theory to examine how CORs navigate moments of overwhelm. In the third manuscript, I apply grounded theory to understand how CORs are impacted by exposure to PPTEs and what capacities for resilience and growth exist after those exposures.In the results, I demonstrate that for CORs, overwhelm is a dysregulatory experience, physiologically, emotionally, and cognitively. Moreover, it is not experienced as a single moment, but, for some, the internal dysregulation continues after the stressor is no longer present. Many CORs describe strategies to navigate both the external stressor and internal experience of stress. Additionally, CORs draw on relational support to navigate acute and potentially traumatic stress and some even use the experience as an opportunity to learn and grow. I elucidate both the types of events that CORs perceived as potentially psychologically traumatic and the spectrum of reactions they described in response to these events. In doing so, I highlight potential pathways for resilience to PPTEs amongst CORs.Individuals enter the correctional workforce with multiple ways of navigating acutely stressful and potentially traumatic events. The findings are the basis of an operationalization of the core experiential features of acute stress (i.e., overwhelm), an outcome commonly researched amongst COs. Based on my findings, I suggest that individuals need to resolve external stressors and also take steps to process the embodied experience of stress after an exposure occurs, thus reiterating the value of social supports through coworkers, family, and friends, in navigating high stress careers. These findings inform work on the psychological well-being of COs and other professionals in high-stress jobs across the disciplines of social work, sociology, and psychology

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