Power and Limits: Peer Support in the 9-1-1 Community

By Suzz Sandalwood | The complexities of relying on each other in moments of crisis, where both healing and challenges can coexist.

Written by Suzz Sandalwood | Seeking Veritas Columnist | Sankarsingh-Gonsalves Productions

“You can’t explain it to someone who’s never been there. They’ll never understand” (Leary, 2004).

Support in first responder communities exists within a paradox. The more responders witness human suffering, the more they come to believe that those outside their world cannot truly understand. This belief is not just a passing thought or a fleeting frustration, it becomes ingrained, reinforced by each call, each crisis, each moment when words fail to capture the weight of what they carry. Over time, it is no longer just a reaction to experience; it evolves into something deeper,; an identity, a cognitive framework that shapes how they see themselves and the world around them. The job is no longer just what they do; it becomes who they are.

With this shift, isolation becomes almost inevitable. Not because friends, family, or even trained professionals are unwilling to listen, but because the brain, in an act of self-preservation, stops expecting them to understand. The more this belief solidifies, the harder it becomes to reach beyond the walls of the profession for support. And yet, within the first responder community itself, there is an unspoken understanding, one built on shared experience, unfiltered honesty, and the kind of connection that requires no explanation. It is here, in the bonds formed through common struggle, that many responders find their strongest source of support.

At best, peer support can fosters resilience, collective healing, and a sense of shared understanding. It is often the first and most trusted form of psychological debriefing in emergency response cultures. It mitigates the alienation that often accompanies trauma by normalizing emotional responses through shared experience. In this way, peer support functions as a form of narrative co-construction, allowing responders to piece together overwhelming experiences in a way that is psychologically tolerable. A single glance between colleagues after a difficult call can communicate, I know, in a way that goes beyond just words. This nonverbal validation is powerful. It reduces the cognitive load of explaining an experience that might feel inexpressible to an outsider.

However, narrative construction without integration is not a full recipe for healing. While peer validation is necessary, it is not always sufficient for long-term resilience. Without external intervention, repeated exposure to shared trauma narratives can reinforce rather than alleviate distress. This phenomenon, sometimes referred to as vicarious traumatization or secondary traumatization, can lead to a form of collective despair, particularly in workplaces where help-seeking outside the peer group is stigmatized.

The risks of a closed system

When insular, peer support alone risks deepening professional identity foreclosure, reinforcing trauma exposure, and inadvertently isolating responders from broader avenues of support. The challenge is not whether peer support is important because it is, but rather how to ensure that it does not become the sole mechanism of coping, to the exclusion of more comprehensive strategies. No one person or group can bear the full weight of another’s trauma.

While peer support serves as an essential psychological anchor, it carries a risk: it can solidify a first responder’s world to the exclusion of external perspectives. The emergency services community often operates on an implicit assumption that civilians, family members, friends, even clinicians, cannot truly understand their experiences. This belief, while understandable, is limiting. It creates a self-perpetuating a cycle where first responders turn only to one another for support, reinforcing the perception that the outside world is not a viable source of healing.

When you factor in the recycling of trauma within a closed system, it makes sense this would present a unique psychological risk. When trauma narratives circulate exclusively within peer groups, there is potential for emotional contagion; where distress amplifies rather than resolves. Without structured guidance, peer discussions can transform into spaces of collective rumination rather than recovery. Instead of processing trauma in a way that allows for narrative resolution, responders may find themselves repeatedly re-exposed to distressing material without movement toward integration. This is why external intervention, whether through professional therapy, broader social connections, or structured resilience training is so essential. It interrupts the closed-loop cycle and introduces a wider range of perspectives, helping first responders contextualize their experiences beyond the narrow lens of their profession.

Expanding support beyond peer networks

A truly sustainable model of first responder mental health needs to include integrative, multilayered interventions. Drawing from the work of Bessel van der Kolk, it is clear that trauma healing necessitates reconnection, not just with those who share the trauma, but with a broader, more diverse range of relationships and experiences. This aligns with the neurobiological principle of diversification: just as a well-regulated nervous system requires multiple sources of safety, a well-regulated responder needs a variety of support systems.

Mental health strategies for first responders need to move beyond peer debriefing models to incorporate therapeutic intervention, relational expansion, and experiential regulation. Encouraging first responders to engage with family, friends, and non-work-related communities fosters a sense of identity beyond the job. Individuals that can offer different perspectives and emotional resources. Sometimes, it takes the eyes of someone who doesn’t "get it" to show you that, despite the weight of the job, you are allowed to exist beyond it.

Next Week in 911 COMMUNITY

Continuing the conversation on peer connections, next week I'll dive into the growing collaboration between mental health agencies and first responder networks, highlighting how these partnerships are bridging professional expertise with firsthand knowledge to create a stronger, more comprehensive support system.

About the Author: Suzz Sandalwood is an RSW/MSW Therapist, Advanced Certified Clinical Trauma and Addiction Specialist and a Certified Grief Counsellor. She has extensive professional and lived experience in first responder, addiction, and grief communities. | Connect with the author: https://suzzsandalwood.com