Summary
The Enhanced Critical Incident Technique was utilized to explore helpful and hindering factors influencing the decision to access psychological services in a population of police officers based on interviews with 20 serving Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers in the lower mainland of British Columbia, Canada. These results contribute to the empirical literature by enhancing what is known about elements that influence an officers’ decision to seek psychological services, and factors that can enable officers to overcome these barriers. The results identify the importance of systemic factors, information and education, quality and influence of relationships, individual characteristics, and organizational processes in creating ideal conditions that will increase the likelihood police officers will access the services of a psychologist. These results will serve to inform individual officers, their families, police supervisors and managers, psychological service providers, and those in related professions with an interest in assisting officers remain healthy over their career and long into retirement.