First Responder Psychology with Stephanie M. Conn, PhD, ABPP
About Dr. Conn
Dr. Conn is a former police officer, wife and daughter of officers, who is now a Board-Certified Police & Public Safety Psychologist.
She began as a dispatcher before becoming an officer with the Fort Worth Police Department and then earning her doctorate in Counseling Psychology. Drawing from 29 years of combined experience in the first responder field, she offers counseling, peer support, and resilience training to first responder agencies.
I, and many others have found Dr. Stephanie Conn and her team to be exceptionally well qualified professionals. I learned valuable tools to help provide crisis response and peer review team support from them. I highly recommend this team.
Confidential Support for Individuals
We offer effective guidance for dealing with stress, trauma, burnout, anxiety, depression, relationship difficulties, and anger. We build on the first responder's problem-solving skill set, offering effective strategies for healthier coping and relationships.
Critical Incident Response
We offer Individual and group debriefings for critical incidents. We are ICISF trained in the CISM model as well as Psychological First Aid for field responses. Stephanie is an approved ICISF instructor for Assisting Individuals in Crisis and Group Crisis Intervention.
Training & Consultations
Preventative training empowers first responders to be healthier. Investing in their health pays for itself. We offer training in stress management, coping and resilience, work-life balance, healthy relationships, and crisis communications. Courses can be designed to meet the needs of the agency. Training packages available. Stephanie also assists in the development and training of CISM and Peer Support Teams. Critical Incident Response, and Critical Incident Response.
Group-Assisting Individuals (GRIN)
This 3-day course combines ICISF’s Assisting Individuals in Crisis & Group Crisis Intervention. The course is 27 hours (10-hour days, including 1-hour lunch break).
It is designed to present the core elements of a comprehensive, systematic and multi-component crisis intervention curriculum. Further, it prepares participants to understand a wide range of crisis intervention services for both the individual and for groups. Fundamentals of Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) will be outlined, and participants will leave with the knowledge and tools to provide several group crisis interventions, specifically demobilizations, defusings and the Critical Incident Stress Debriefing (CISD). The need for appropriate follow-up services and referrals, when necessary, will also be discussed.
BOOK - Increasing Resilience in Police & Emergency Personnel
GREAT NEWS !
2025 Expanded Edition Released
The second edition offers a variety of new
first responder and wellness resources and
addresses current demands placed on first
responders, including exposure to chronic
suffering, staffing shortages, burnout,
organizational betrayal, and moral injury. It
includes significant expansions of practical
strategies based on advances in sleep
science, optimizing performance and
cognitive functioning based on
developments in neuroscience, advanced
peer support practices, and innovations in
health and wellness.
REVIEWS FROM INDUSTRY EXPERTS
"The second edition of Dr. Conn's valuable guide to strengthening
resilience for first responders, their families, police administrators, and
civilian employees is chock full of practical new ideas about coping
with trauma, moral injury, PTSD, depression, organizational betrayal,
and societal turmoil. She writes in a straightforward way infused with
empathy and understanding that comes from her experience as a first
responder."
Ellen Kirschman, PhD, author of I Love a Cop: What Police Families
Need to Know, I Love a Fire Fighter: What the Family Needs to Know,
and Counseling Cops: What Clinicians Need to Know (with Mark
Kamena and Joel Fay)
"Stephanie has made a major and unique contribution to the field of
public safety wellness. She provides a well-referenced scholarly work
that draws on her unique lived experiences across several life roles. Her
clinical experience as a respected veteran police psychologist,
blending with this background, provides the reader with a valuable
resource at multiple levels."
Kevin M. Gilmartin, PhD, author of Emotional Survival for Law
Enforcement
"Dr. Conn set the bar for the study of resiliency in law enforcement with
her first edition, and this newly updated, expanded edition impressively
raises that bar. Dr. Conn’s law enforcement experience, combined with
her expertise in police psychology sets her work as the model for the
field. Officers, agency executives, the public, and police clinicians can
all gain valuable insight from this highly recommended book."
Thomas Coghlan, PsyD, NYPD Det. (retired), Owner,
Blue Line Psychological Services, PLLC
For Bulk Orders ,
Contact the Author or Publisher
Emai Author Stephanie Conn at firstresponderpsych@gmail.com
or
Publisher Christine Squire at christine. squire@taylorandfrancis com
For Individual Orders (Below)
Use Discount Code ADC25 at Checkout
Order the Updated & Expanded Second Edition of Increasing Resilience in Police & Emergency Personnel. Order from Stephanie here.
Acute Stress Adaptive Protocols
UPCOMING TRAINING
Acute Stress Adaptive Protocol (ASAP) Tacoma, WA. $550 Oct. 27-30, 2025.
Instructor: Stephanie M. Conn
Hosted by Tacoma Pierce County Chaplaincy
Venue: Pierce County EOC
2501 S 35th St., Tacoma, WA
Join us for a 4-day in-person ASAP Peer Support Training event in the Tacoma WA area. This training will delve into psychoeducation around stress and trauma, explore why trauma is unique in first responders, and equip you with confidence in administering ASAP to your peers. Our experienced trainers will cover a range of topics to enhance your effectiveness as a peer supporter. Don’t miss this opportunity to connect with like-minded individuals and make a positive impact in your community. Register now to secure your spot!
Essential Oils
Eric Zielinski, DC
I have chosen Dr. Zielinski to be one of the featured spotlights because of the amazing impact he and his family have made in the safe use of essential oils, as well as practical applications DIY that help the spirit, soul and body. In my journey, I have been searching for ways to heal my body and support my system at the foundational levels. I needed to find out how to deal with the challenges I face with faulty functioning thyroid and adrenal glands and needing to support my other organs in the best possible environment. I was finding so much misinformation online and in doctor's offices, mostly pumped by the pharmaceutical companies. I am not demonizing pharmaceuticals, they do have their place, but I found, for me, most of them are more detrimental than healing. For instance, I am hypersensitive to the medication and the fillers put in synthroid, the standard treatment medication (levothyroxine) causing the medication to not work in my system. Each time I moved, the new clinician had to be brought up to speed on what works in my system and what does not. Not believing I had any idea of what I was talking about, I was continually forced to do a trial of synthroid with the same repeated results. I would share the dosage of the Nature-throid (a natural thyroid hormone) that worked for me, and again, the clinician insisted I start their way. This would involve at least 6 months of playing the game and feeling lousy in the meantime, until I could get to the dosage levels I needed to feel better. Each time I had to endure this, I would hunt for nutritional or natural remedies that could help alleviate my symptoms until I reached a good treating level of my medication. I started researching nutrition and naturalistic healing remedies. I came across Dr. Z at a time where I had run out of options for dealing with intractable pain and increasing allergies.
Kitano Method
Yuji@Kitanomethod.com
Yuji Kitano is a physiotherapist living in Chigasaki, Japan with his wife Soness, who is a Ted Speaker Coach, and their two cats. Yuji holds two degrees from Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand.
I just finished six beta sessions with Yuji, as well as a one hour one on one session. In the first two sessions Yuji shared about the back, pain, movement and misconceptions. He shared the differences between mechanical and inflammatory causes of pain. He shared about anatomy and how the spine and hips are made to move or support in certain ways. In just the third session, I had a major breakthrough, I mean a blow the trumpet kind of breakthrough. Since my accident 8 years ago, I have been in horrific pain, unable to reach much past my knees when bending over and unable to flex backward or twist while standing. In fact, it has been hard for me to stand more than 15 minutes, no matter what I do. In the 3rd session, while following Yuji’s directions in a zoom gathering, I was able to touch my toes! Now that excites me, because no matter how many other limiting beliefs systems I swallowed over 8 years regarding pain and limitations, I knew I was never going back to that way any more. I had been focused on the pain and ways to not increase it. My focus was wrong. Instead of previously looking at all the muscle groups and trying to get the core stronger, my focus was pivoting to another view, to how I viewed my movement. My focus was always on pain and how to protect myself, I was not seeing the joints involved in the movement. I still have a long ways to go to manage my pain. However, I believe I have found a very good start with the Kitano method. There is an old saying about the thigh bone is connected to the knee bone, etc. This is also true when dealing with pain. Our brain can only focus on one pain at a time, usually the most severe one. I found that when pain levels in an area or region were reduced or alleviated, the brain chooses another area experiencing pain. I learned when my back lets go of severe pain in the lower back, my thoracic spine tends to seize up with pain and so on. Breathing from the diaphragm has been a huge help together with shoulder glides to relieve some of the muscle spasms and nerve pain. It has not been a fix all, since I still have unhealed fractures, but it has changed my life forever. To be able to put on my shoes without excruciating pain says it all to me and the Kitano method will be with me for the rest of my life. I am so very grateful for Yuji and his wife Soness.
