The Psychology of Diving - Page 2

Thursday, 02 January 2003 22:34 Last Updated on Saturday, 08 January 2011 14:52 Written by (Dr) Peter M. Forster

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Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

In the mid 1970s, I read a journal article about the difference between experienced and inexperienced sky divers. Experienced sky divers were not only less anxious than the inexperienced, they also felt the anxiety at a different time. Experienced sky divers felt anxiety some hours before the jump and were calm at the time of the jump, while inexperienced sky divers felt maximum anxiety at the point of the jump itself. If I can track down the reference I will put it here because I thought it was an interesting result.

Supposing the worst happens and you get involved in a dive incident where you, your dive buddy or someone in your group had a dive emergency, you may have some reactions you weren't expecting. Life threatening incidents can be upsetting, overwhelming, even terrifying. Someone involved may experience Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Symptoms of PTSD may include:

Feeling numb
Feeling tired, depressed, or drained of energy
Not enjoying things that used to be pleasurable
Feeling anxious, sometimes for no apparent reason, or feeling 'jumpy'
Experiencing intrusive thoughts of the dive incident
Having dreams or nightmares of the dive incident
Having more intense feelings than usual
Feeling alienated from people and having problems with relationships

If you think that someone you know may be experiencing PTSD, there are things you can do to help them:

Listen uncritically and sympathetically - don't give advice or say things like, "You should have done this....".
Give them a hand with day to day chores.
Give them the opportunity to talk if they want to - don't press them if they don't want to.

If the effects persist for more than a week or two, suggest that they talk to a professional, such as a counsellor.

The Exceptional Diver

Most of the findings above apply to the 'average' diver. However, is there any way of training someone to become an exceptional diver? Nevo and Breitstein (1999) report one possible approach, based on the training of Soviet cosmonauts. In addition to the complex routines that each cosmonaut had to memorise perfectly, they were also trained in conditions designed to prepare them psychologically for the stresses and possible emergencies of space flight. For example, they carried out survival training in difficult conditions to create feelings of autonomy and self-confidence; they practised sky diving while doing more and more tasks during the jump, to be able to divide attention and deal with problems simultaneously; and they isolated crew members for a month in a closed room to become accustomed to isolation.

This training was said to have prepared them to deal with the mishaps that occurred during space flights and to improvise solutions to the problems that arose.

Children and Diving

PADI has created diving programmes that enable children as young as 8 years old to experience scuba diving. With their usual thoroughness they have considered many aspects of this before making programmes such as Bubblemaker available, including looking into the developmental psychology of children and diving. Below is a letter that I wrote in response to an article on the subject that appeared in PADI's journal to its members. In case you do not have access to the Undersea Journal, the original article consisted mainly of an introduction to the developmental concepts of Jean Piaget, an influential developmental psychologist who placed considerable emphasis on a model of cognitive development involving progress through discrete stages:

Mr K. Shreeves
PADI Americas
30151 Tomas Street
Rancho Santa Margarita
California 92688
USA
11th May 2001

Dear Mr Shreeves

Ref.: How Children Learn

I enjoyed reading your article in the First Quarter issue of the Undersea Journal, on ‘How Children Learn.’ It is very encouraging for me as a diving instructor, diving psychologist and lecturer in developmental psychology, to see that PADI has taken the trouble to study the psychology of young people and children in the development of their programmes.

I thought it worth adding to what you wrote that, although Piaget is still respected by psychologists and teachers alike and many teachers still describe what they do in Piagetian terms, in practice very few actually use his concepts. In practice, if you watch what teachers actually do, it is much more in line with the increasingly popular work of Lev Vygotsky and his sociocultural theory (see Vygotsky, 1978, for example). There is a very good reason for that – almost the only role for teachers in Piaget’s model is in creating a suitable environment in which children can learn for themselves. Vygotsky’s model is far better suited both to the actual practice of teaching in schools and also of imparting skills such as those needed for scuba diving to children.

There are also good reasons for thinking that Piaget underestimated children’s abilities and the ages at which they are able to do certain things, because the tasks he used were not suited to the actual abilities of children. So I believe that there are good reasons for not using Piaget’s theories as the psychological basis for teaching children to dive, but instead to use Vygotsky’s ideas.

Vygotsky, for example, used the concept of the zone of proximal development (ZPD) to describe the gap between what they are already able to do and what they cannot accomplish without the help of a skilled adult. With the right kind of guidance they can cross the ZPD gap and responsibility for learning gradually shifts to the child. The temporary guidance that the skilled adult gives is known as scaffolding, because the assistance is removed when the child can do the task alone. It is like teaching a child to float. First an adult provides support and gives guidance on breathing and posture in the water etc. Then gradually the support is removed until the child is floating by himself.

No single theory of children’s development is universally accepted, but Vygotsky’s model seems to have particular relevance to teaching diving skills to children, where Piaget’s model is less so. However, one implication of the model is that some detailed study is carried out to find out which of the skills of diving fall within the ZPD for children at a particular age and which skills are beyond the typical child of that age. If it has not been done already, I would urge PADI to support such research being carried out.

Yours sincerely

(Dr) Peter M. Forster
PADI # 605811
http://www.blue-oceans.com/scuba/

Reference:

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Final Thought

I hope you found this page interesting. If you want to discuss any of it, please get in touch. If you want to find out how to cope with diving emergencies, read on - we are fortunate to enjoy a sport with one of the lowest accident rates around, but the inherent risks of diving mean dive accidents may be serious. And when things go wrong, they can go wrong quickly. A quick, cool and effective response is often the difference between a close call and serious injury or worse. How prepared do you feel to handle a dive emergency?

I wish you safe and sensational diving.

References:
Bachrach, A.J. and Egstrom, G.H. (1987). Stress and performance in diving. San Pedro, CA: Best Publishing Company.
Baddeley, A.D., Godden, D., Moray, N.P., Ross, H.E. and Synodinos, N.E. (1978). Final report on training services agency contract - Selection of diving trainees. Department of Psychology, Stirling University and M.R.C. Applied Psychology Research Unit, Cambridge.
Edmonds, C., (1986). The abalone diver. Australia: National Safety Council of Australia, Victoria.
Lesnik-Oberstein, M. and Cohen L. (1984). Cognitive style, sensation seeking and assortative mating. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46 (1), 112 - 117.
Nevo, B. and Breitstein, S. (1999). Psychological and Behavioral Aspects of Diving. San Pedro, CA:Best Publishing Company.
Spigolon, L. and Dell'oro, A., (1985). Autogenic training in frogmen. International Journal of Sport Psychology, 16 (4), 312 - 320.
Zuckerman, M. (1979). Sensation Seeking: Beyond the optimal level of arousal. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

That's it for now - I will put more interesting research here when I get the time. Here are links back to our other diving pages: Blue Oceans

© 2000 to 2003 Peter Michael Forster
(Dr) Peter M. Forster
PADI # 605811

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The Psychology of Diving - Page 2

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