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Resilience Development in Action: First Responder Mental Health
Discover practical resilience strategies that transform lives. Join Steve Bisson, licensed mental health counselor, as he guides first responders, leaders, and trauma survivors through actionable insights for mental wellness and professional growth.
Each week, dive deep into real conversations about grief processing, trauma recovery, and leadership development. Whether you're a first responder facing daily challenges, a leader navigating high-pressure situations, or someone on their healing journey, this podcast delivers the tools and strategies you need to build lasting resilience.
With over 20 years of mental health counseling experience, Steve brings authentic, professional expertise to every episode, making complex mental health concepts accessible and applicable to real-world situations.
Featured topics include:
• Practical resilience building strategies
• First responder mental wellness
• Trauma recovery and healing
• Leadership development
• Grief processing
• Professional growth
• Mental health insights
• Help you on your healing journey
Each week, join our community towards better mental health and turn your challenges into opportunities for growth with Resilience Development in Action.
Episodes
281 episodes
A Paramedic’s Turning Point After A Suicide Scene
One call can change the way you breathe, drive, sleep, and even trust your own judgment. I sit down with paramedic Emma Irwin to talk through a suicide scene that hit hard, the moment she cried on scene, and the quiet belief that too many first...
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Paramedic Trauma And The Moment It Hit
A lot of people assume first responder stress is mostly about what you see on calls. Emma Irwin, a UK paramedic who worked both London and Kent, helps us name the other half of the story: the system you work inside. We compare how ambulance “tr...
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A Retired Officer Shares How Ayahuasca Opened The Door To Grief Healing
The day you retire, the job doesn’t just end. Your identity can crack wide open. I sit down with Kemmi Sadler, a recently retired law enforcement professional, to talk about what it really feels like to go from “in the club” to “civilian” overn...
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A Diplomatic Security Agent On Trauma, Clearance Fear, And Getting Help
The job can send you to the hardest places on earth, then expect you to come home and act like nothing followed you back.We talk with Kemmi Sadler, a retired supervisory special agent from the U.S. State Department’s Diplomatic Security...
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Why First Responders And Clinicians Still Need Human Supervision
Supervision used to be something you could reach for without fear or apology, and a lot of us built our careers on that kind of steady mentorship. Recording with Dennis Sweeney, Chris Gordon, Bob Cherney, Andy Kang, and Pat Rice, we get real ab...
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Mandatory Fitness and Mental Health For First Responders
If you think police wellness is mostly about eating better and “handling stress,” this conversation will challenge you fast. Kevin Gilmartin returns and gets blunt about what the job does to the body and brain over years of hypervigilance, and ...
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Why Police Need Mental Health Training Like Firearms
A lot of police wellness talk starts after something terrible happens. We wanted to start earlier and go deeper, into the daily mechanics of the job that slowly shape sleep, mood, relationships, and long-term health. I’m joined by Kevin Gilmart...
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How Leaders Can Support First Responder Recovery
You can do everything “right” on the job and still end up quietly falling apart at home. Part two with Nikki Mason gets real about what first responder mental health support actually needs to look like when the stakes are high and the window fo...
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Inside The Gate: Vetting Care For First Responders
The hardest part of getting help often isn’t the therapy—it’s knowing who to trust when everything feels at risk. We sit down with treatment navigator Nikki Mason to open the black box of first responder mental health: how to spot programs that...
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What First Responders Want From Therapy And Group Work
What do first responders actually need from therapy to make it stick? We unpack fresh survey results from 46 clients and more than 30 first responders to surface what’s working, what’s missing, and the changes we’re rolling out next. From sessi...
Leading With Care: Real Support For First Responders
Stigma keeps too many first responders silent, and silence can cost careers, health, and lives. We sit down with a former deputy sheriff and burnout expert AK Dozanti to map clear, practical ways leaders and peers can replace fear with tr...
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How A Cop-Turned-Coach Helps First Responders Heal And Lead
When a split-second choice could become tomorrow’s headline, how do you stay human under the uniform? We sit down with former deputy sheriff turned coach and author AK Dozanti to unpack the real toll of first responder life—and the science-back...
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Why Emotional Safety Makes Therapy Work For Police, Fire, And EMS
The hardest stories rarely get told in the places that need them most. Susan Roggendorf and I open the door to how confidentiality truly works for police, fire, EMS, dispatchers, and medics—and why airtight boundaries are the backbone of real t...
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Please Stop Asking Cops About Dead Bodies
Ever been told to “suck it up” after a call that split your world in two? We challenge that script with a grounded, respectful look at how first responders can access care that actually helps. Steve sits down with licensed clinician and podcast...
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Step Away From The Cape, You’re Not The Department Of Everything
If you’re the one everyone turns to, you might be carrying more than you realize. We sit down with psychotherapist and mental wellness consultant Leah Marone to unpack the “serial fixer” habit—why it thrives in first responder culture and how i...
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When Systems Fail: First Responders, Crisis Work, And The Cost Of Care
In part 2, the calls keep coming, but the solutions don’t. We sit down with crisis clinician and EMDR therapist Morgan Yaskus to trace how a frayed safety net pushes first responders into impossible roles—and how that mismatch breeds moral inju...
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Alaska, Crisis, And The Thin Line
The toughest calls rarely end when the sirens go quiet. We sat down with Alaska-based counselor Morgan Yaskus to explore how real support for police, fire, EMS, dispatchers, and paramedics takes shape in small communities where everyone knows y...
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How A Fire Chief-Turned-Therapist Is Changing First Responder Mental Health
Strength without silence. That’s the thread running through our conversation with Jeff Dill, a former battalion chief turned licensed counselor and the founder of the Firefighter Behavioral Health Alliance. Jeff has spent years validating firef...
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How Shift Work, Hypervigilance, And Silence Erode Love—and What We Can Do About It
In part 2 with Alexa Silva, we discuss how love doesn’t clock out when the tones drop. We sat down to unpack what really happens when a first responder’s world of shift work, hypervigilance, and on-call stress collides with the everyday demands...
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Inside The Therapy Room: Addiction, Culture, And Trust
The badge asks for everything, then hands you a shift change and a smile. We sat down with returning guest, licensed clinical social worker Alexis Silva, to dig into the quiet realities behind the uniform: why trust is scarce, why stigma ...
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Best of 2025: How A Police Sergeant Faced Trauma And Found A Path Back
The most downloaded conversation of the year returns for a reason: it’s the raw, practical guide first responders and their families keep asking for. We sit with Sgt. Michael Sugrue—Air Force security forces veteran, Walnut Creek Police sergean...
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We Celebrate A Year Of Hard Lessons, Healing Wins, And The People Who Keep First Responders Going
From crime and trauma scene cleanup to midnight dispatch and station kitchens, we gathered the most powerful lessons from a year of conversations with first responders, clinicians.Here are the links for all the episodes: Kris...
How Unprocessed Loss Fuels Burnout And What To Do About It
When the lights are flashing and the clock is ticking, we train for everything—except the weight we carry home. We sit down with Coast Guard veteran and grief coach Justin Jacobs to unpack the invisible load of moral injury, the shock of losing...
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From Skepticism To Skills: How Co-Response Training Changes Policing
What if the most powerful tool on a crisis scene isn’t a badge or a diagnosis, but a practiced partnership? We continue our conversation with Dr. Sarah Abbott about co-response and unpack how pairing clinicians with police changes the outcome o...
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From Arrests To Care: Building A Smarter Crisis Response For First Responders
Crises rarely look like TV. Most calls aren’t bank robberies; they’re frantic welfare checks, neighbor standoffs over fences, a parent terrified for a missing teen, or someone hearing voices at 2 a.m. We sit down with Dr. Sarah Abbott, a pionee...
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