Police are a holding environment for society. Society depends on police for basic safety needs and to help manage anxiety about the aggressive impulses of others. Reaction to the Rodney King verdict strongly demonstrated the degree to which some members of society regard police as the source of the aggression they are seeking to stop. The perception that they cannot depend on the very social institution created for their protection constitutes a serious deprivation because institutions are social systems that "function as a collective defense against anxiety". Police institutions serve police employees in the same way by providing a collective defense against the anxiety generated by the job itself. If you need help with admission essay writing or want to get Custom written term papers, do not hesitate to buy services at our site! Adults are ambivalent about dependency because dependence threatens deeply held values of autonomy, independence, and free will and is reminiscent of a primitive, childlike aspect of ourselves. This is especially difficult for law enforcers because of cultural projections about police and masculinity that imprison officers as much as they imprison those who create the projections. When individual officers feel disconnected from their institutions, or the institutions themselves disconnect from society, we see disorder within police departments and the increase of basic assumption activity--particularly fight or flight activity--as manifested by vigilantism, brutality, burnout, labor unrest, and the perversion of authority. Although society has every right to expect police to hold to a higher standard, it is also obligated to provide the support necessary to maintain that higher standard. Neither the dependent needs of society nor the dependent needs of officers can be ignored because of their intrinsic relatedness. The process consultant models the holding environment by providing employees a container in which to learn to understand and manage the social and intrapsychic experiences that are attached to police work: despair, ambivalence, fear, dependence, impulsivity, cynicism, anxiety, frustration, and the ongoing dilemma between the humiliation of passivity and remorse for aggression. Get custom critical essay writing online at cheap price! I work with leadership at all levels of the organization to apply the authority of their role to secure the work environment so that it becomes a safe base from which to take risks. Law enforcement takes risks in order to make things secure. Conversely, things must be secure in order to take those risks.