| Summary: | Police officers are exposed to stress outside the range of usual human experience. The
operational duties of police work, by their very nature, may at any time place officers
in life threatening situations (McCraty, Tomasino, Atkinson and Sundram, 1999).
These life threatening situations often lead police officers to experience different
kinds of trauma. Certain temperament characteristics have throughout time been
implicated as vulnerabilities toward trauma (Marais, 2005). This research study aimed
to investigate this relationship between temperament styles and the effects of
traumatic events on police officers working as dog handlers at the SAPS Dog Unit,
Soweto. An exploratory-descriptive research design with a combination of qualitative
and quantitative research methods was used to address the aims of the study. Use of
the Keirsey’s Temperament Sorter indicated that from the fifteen respondents who
took part in this study the majority demonstrated a tendency towards extraversion,
sensation, feeling and judging. The sensation subscales showed a weak, yet significant
relationship with both intrusion and avoidance symptoms which were measured by
the Impact of Event Scale – Revised (IES-R). In addition to the IES-R the researcher
made use of a semi-structured interview schedule to determine the effects that
traumatic work incidents had on the respondents. Common themes that emerged from
the interviews included: denial, emotional detachment, lack of trust and a lack of selfknowledge.
The main conclusion that emerged from the study was the need to
empower police officers by helping them gain self-awareness in terms of their unique
ways of coping with trauma.
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