1. Patrick Risan Prof. Per-Einar Binder Prof. Becky Milne
Regulating and coping with distress during police interviews of traumatized victims
Patrick Risan
Prof. Per-Einar Binder
Prof. Becky Milne

2. Project aim
Explore what police interviewers experience as important and useful in the process of developing and maintaining rapport with traumatized interviewees.
All the participants in the study carried out investigative interviews of victims following the massacre on Utøya Island at the 22nd of July 2011 in Norway where 564 people were present and 69 were killed.

3. Research question
What do the police investigators regard as useful approaches to regulating distress, maintaining rapport and promoting the well-being of the interviewee?

4. Method Sample Semi structured interviews (Kvale and Brinkmann , 2009)
N=21 (12 f/9 m)
Inclusion criteria: KREATIV
The participants interviewed approximately 150–170 victims in the Utøya case
Semi structured interviews (Kvale and Brinkmann , 2009)
The interview guide was divided into two parts where the first emphasized interviewing traumatized interviewees in general and the second targeted the Utøya case
The interviews were conducted between February and September 2013

5. Analysis
Explorative-reflexive thematic analysis (Binder, Holgersen & Moltu, 2012)
Nvivo 10
Identify and assign meaning codes for content units
Group meaning codes with regard to capturing different aspects of the participants’ experience
Summarize groups as themes considered important in relation to the research question

6. Results
1. Becoming aware of the interviewees’ capacity to cope with distress by attending to non-verbal cues
2. Interviewers communicating acceptance and modelling how to cope with painful emotions
3. Regulating distress by responding to the interviewees’ emotional needs, helping them feel safe and promoting the positive

7. Implications
Perceive and accommodate interviewees’ emotional activation, do not avoid
Regulate distress to build tolerance
Building tolerance for emotions may facilitate communication and have positive effects on the interviewees’ well-being (e.g. through a sense of agency/mastery/coping, reappraisal of memory)

8. Limitations of the study
Sample bias? We do not know how many declined to participate
Generalizability to
the totality of Utøya interviews?
everyday work?
Reflexivity: Interpretative elements and double-hermeneutics
Timing of investigative interviews and research interviews

9. References
Binder, P.-E., Holgersen, H., & Moltu, C. (2012). Staying close and reflexive: An explorative and reflexive approach to qualitative research on psychotherapy. Nordic Psychology, 64(2),
Kvale, S., & Brinkmann, S. (2009). Interviews: Learning the craft of qualitative research interviewing (2nd ed.). Los Angeles, California.: Sage.
Risan, P., Binder, P. E., & Milne, R. J. (2016). Regulating and coping with distress during police interviews of traumatised victims. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy.