Counseling During a Crisis

When people experience an unexpected, traumatic event it is considered a crisis and can have a wide variety of effects on the individual. Most people can recover from the psychological effects within a few days or weeks, but during that time they need support to understand what they are feeling is normal, cope with grief, loss, shock, or fear, and begin to recover. There is also a need for logistical support such as financial help, food, lodging, and searching for missing loved ones. As a result of this wide variety of needs of a person experiencing a trauma crisis response teams often include a mental health professional. These mental health professionals work with crisis response workers to ensure that a person recovers with their mental health intact. This is done through the use of a variety of mental health models as well as the counselor being a supportive, genuine, compassionate listener.

Compare and contrast the elements of a real-world example of an emergency management plan to the elements identified in the course studies.
Throughout this course the focus has been on helping an individual understand and recover experiencing a crisis. A counselor facilitates this healing through empathy, genuineness, and teaching a client coping skills. When a FEMA employee hears of a crisis their focus is helping the community as a whole recover and their focus is less on the mental wellbeing on the people and more on the logistical care, such as housing, safety, and financial needs. FEMA works on a macrosystem level, which is focusing on the whole culture of the individuals involved in the crisis(James & Gilliland, 2013). The FEMA employee that was interviewed, Dennis, stated when responding to a crisis stated that there was little time to focus on any individual’s mental well-being as their job is to focus on helping the community as a whole recover and rebuild. While Dennis stated it is heartbreaking to see people in such emotional pain; the focus of FEMA