How understanding the neurobiology of trauma can play a crucial role in reducing the stigma associated with police officers seeking mental health support
Police officers and first-line responders face a higher risk of experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), other mental health issues, and suicide (Rousseau, 2025), but are often among the least likely to reach out for help due to organizational stigma. Although getting shot at is not a regular occurrence in every city, police officers face other’ traumatic events’ daily. Even highly functioning police officers, through the activation of mirror neurons and empathy, will feel the burden of being present for the most horrific events in people’s lives. Unfortunately, “putting up” with the pain and trauma until a breaking point, sometimes suicide, is more likely.
The fact that law enforcement organizations tend to celebrate values we often relate to masculine attributes, such as physical strength and emotional stoicism, has fostered a culture interpreting vulnerability, in particular showing emotion or reaching out for help in difficult times, as a weakness. This can result in loss of trust from coworkers, isolation, humiliation, and career setbacks for those who dare ask for support.
This said, understanding the neurobiology of stress and trauma could radically change the view of receiving mental health support or maintaining positive mental health in the face of a psychologically trying profession.
Qualities that are found in good policing work include:
- Planning and anticipation of situations based on a call
- Awareness of your surroundings and the context at play
- Inhibition of inappropriate actions or emotions
- Empathetic understanding of people you are intervening with (especially given the heightened amount of mental health-related calls)
- Effective decision-making in action to undertake
These functions are all under the responsibility of one key area of the brain: The prefrontal cortex (Rousseau, 2025). It is responsible for regulating one’s emotional state, controlling inhibition, thinking through decisions, problem solving, the ability to reason (Rousseau, 2025), and it is also the hearth of mirror neurons, responsible for empathy and responding to others (Van der Kolk, 2015, p.34), essential in policing to connect with victims, defuse violent or dangerous situations, and ultimately do a good job. By highlighting how trauma and stress directly impact the brain, working through mental health challenges can be reframed not as strong, but as representing a liability for others.
PTSD, caused by either an acute or chronic event that represents a threat for someone’s survival or those around them, affect the brain long term, causing symptoms such as flashbacks and hyperarousal (Van Der Kolk, 2015, p.22), but also affects the brain in other ways. In situations where the person perceives a threat or something that resembles the original trauma, which can be common in police officers’ daily duties, the prefrontal cortex can completely shut down. Indeed, in MRIs of PTSD victims, when simply asked to think about their original trauma long after it had occurred, the scans showed that the prefrontal cortex displayed no activity, while the emotional areas of the brain were very active (Van der Kolk, 2014, p.39).
Without this essential area of the brain, how can a police officer properly do their job, protect the community, and be of support to their partner?
Mistakes could be made in decision-making, effective assessment of situations, and appropriate inhibition of emotions like anger or undue violence when provoked. Empathy and understanding are no longer options to trauma-afflicted officers, as trauma causes some to not only avoid gaze because their mirror neurons, turned off, do not make them curious about other humans, but because something as simple as looking people in the eyes sends them into survival mode, their social engagement areas being deactivated (Van der Kolk, 2014, p.52).
Reconnecting to oneself, and aligning the brain, body, and trauma that occurred though different treatments, such as therapy, but also alternative methods such as yoga, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), neurofeedback, and even theatre, can help restore and reactivate critical brain functions, supporting police officers’ capacity to do their jobs well and upholding the qualities most valued in the profession (Van der Kolk, 2015, p.98).
If police officers were aware of the effects of stress and trauma, as well as the possibilities unlocked with effective mental health, they would not only consult and work on their own mental health, but request from their partner and coworkers to do the same, thus eliminating the idea that receiving help for mental health makes you unreliable and less effective as a police officer!
Ultimately, an informed understanding of the neurobiology of trauma can empower officers to value mental health care as a critical component of professional strength and safety, rather than something that undermines their reliability or effectiveness as police officers. This shift can foster a healthier, more supportive workplace culture and reduce the stigma around seeking help.
References
Rousseau, D. (2025). “CJ 720: Module Six: Trauma and the Criminal Justice System. Boston University.
Rousseau, D. (2025). “CJ 720: Module Three: Neurobiology of trauma. Boston University.
Van der Kolk, B. A. (2015). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. Penguin Books.