The Policing Mind: Developing Trauma Resilience for a New Era - Paperback

by Jessica K. Miller (Author)

How does it feel to be a police officer in the UK? What happens in the brains of officers, particularly in high-risk roles such as counter-terrorism and child sexual exploitation? Jessica Miller uses the most recent neuroscience and real-life examples to explore risks to individual resilience, be it trauma exposure, burnout or simply the daily pressure of adapting to life on the front line.

A compulsory read for anyone with an interest in policing, the book offers practical, easy-to-follow resilience techniques applicable to anyone in the wider emergency responder community. The book also offers policy and operational recommendations to equip police officers with skills to face crime in a post-COVID world.

Author Biography

Jessica K. Miller is Principal Investigator for the Trauma Resilience in UK Policing project at the University of Cambridge, consultant for the Royal Foundation of The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Director of Research for Surfwell. She was also Director of Research at Police Care UK for 7 years and now works across other high-risk professions including the RNLI, the military, journalism and construction in the UK and abroad delivering training, advice and guidance on cognitive resilience, specialising in trauma.

She has published works on policing trauma in The Police Journal: Theory, Practice and Principles and Police Professional, the first UK police prevalence rate and the world's first work-related CPTSD prevalence rate in Psychological Medicine, genetic trauma research in J. Clin. Med and Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, Neurobiology of Learning and Memory and her thesis Lost in Trauma on military and police trauma is available online with Bournemouth University.

Her work has been filmed by C4 Dispatches, BBC Inside Out and made headline news across the world in May 2019. Jessica's expertise informs key recommendations in the landmark Casey Review of standards in the Metropolitan Police Service 2023. She also had the privilege of interviewing New York Times bestselling author Rick Hanson during the pandemic in 2020 and continues to in The Mindful Soldier: Building Resilience to Overcome Life's Challenges, co authored with Ash Alexander-Cooper and due out in August 2025.