Sitting in the hot seat

Sitting in the hot seat

One of the country’s leading industrial psychologists will give Radio 4 listeners an insight into the role of incident commanders in emergency management during a special one-off programme with broadcaster Edi Stark tomorrow morning.

Professor Rhona Flin of the University of Aberdeen will talk about her new book, Tales from the Hot Seat, to be published by Ashgate, and which was co-edited with the Deputy Chief of West Yorkshire Fire Brigade, Kevin Arbuthnot, on Wednesday, February 6, at 11.00am.

The book has chapters by psychologists on the training of commanders, as well as personal accounts from senior commanders. These include military commanders describing warfare and peacekeeping; a prison governor who managed a hostage taking; a police commander in charge of the Notting Hill riot; and a captain of a jumbo jet discussing in-flight emergencies.

Professor Flin, who heads the University’s Industrial Psychology Group, has just returned from a NATO/Russia Advanced Research Workshop at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, which examined the prevention and management of natural and technical disasters. She has been studying the psychology of the incident commander – the individual in charge of a crisis who has to make high risk decisions quickly.

Professor Flin said: “Tales from the Hot Seat presents the first collection of detailed case studies from emergency commanders across a range of professions. Given the critical nature of their role in an emergency it is astonishing how little has been written on the art of incident command.”

The University will host a conference and presentations by practising commanders from the emergency services later in the year. Critical Incident Management, which will take place on June 10 and 11, will feature Professor Patrick Lagadec, author of Preventing Chaos in a Crisis and Dr Gary Klein, an expert on commanders’ decision making.

Further information is available from Professor Rhona Flin, Psychology, University of Aberdeen, on: (01224) 272341 or visit the website: www.psyc.abdn.ac.uk/serv02.htm

Issued by Public Relations Office, External Relations, University of Aberdeen, King's College, Aberdeen. Tel: 01224 272014 Fax: 01224 272086.

University Press Office on telephone +44 (0)1224-272960 or email a.begg@abdn.ac.uk.

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