Applying psychology in police operation and training is a trend in recent years. Dr Peter B Ainsworth (Director of Henry Fielding Centre, University of Manchester) has published a book called "Psychology and Policing" in June 2002. He summarised and introduced the areas of applied psychology relevant to police work, including recruitment and training, stress management, interviewing suspects, offender profiling, negotiation and hostage taking, as well as management of violent incident, etc. The importance and wide application of psychology in contemporary policing is well recognised.

In view of this, Psychological Services Group (PSG) and Training Wing have decided to actively promote the training of "Psychological Competency" to enable Force members to make use of psychological knowledge and skills in managing their daily operation and stress arising from police work pressure.

PSG and Training Wing recently conducted a survey to determine the training needs on "Psychological Competency". The feedback was encouraging. The results confirmed the need for such training amongst Force members of various ranks. The definition of "Psychology Competency" is actually very broad. It includes the ability to handle interpersonal relationship problem in daily police work, ability to effectively manage stress and emotions, as well as basic understanding of criminal psychology. In the coming 13 issues of PSYNET, Police Clinical Psychologists will introduce the five major domains of "Psychological Competency".

They are:

1. Counselling and Interpersonal Communication

2. Emotional Regulation

3. Conflict Management

4. Stress and Lifestyle Management

5. Criminal and Investigative Psychology

Stress management workshops

The PSG will organise a series of stress management workshops to be conducted in Chinese.

Date: September 14

* Time: 8.45am - 12.30pm (Participants are requested to arrive 15 minutes early)

* Venue:Police Sports and Recreation Club Sportsman Bar

* Reservation: PSG (2866-6207)

Thirty places for each session will be allocated on a first-come,first-served basis.

Seek advice and help from the Psychological Services Group:

PHQ, Hong Kong Island and Marine: 2866-6206 (5/F, 111 Leighton Road, Causeway Bay); Kowloon and the New Territories: 2735-3739 (22/F, Ocean Building, 80 Shanghai Street, Kowloon).

PEN: psg@police.gov.hk

Special Notice:

The website of PSG on the police intranet has been updated recently. You are welcome to browse the website at the following address.

http://ux37phq.hpf.gov.hk:8088/bbs/psb/ps-web/psg/index.htm

You may also find the link of the above website under the Personnel Wing and Healthy Lifestyle webpage. The new PSG website provides you with information about our counselling service, other services provided by PSG, different special topics related to mental health and links to other police psychology and mental health websites.