Crisis Intervention

Crisis is said to be experiencing or the perception of an intolerable difficult event that exceeds our coping mechanisms and current resources, leading to severe behavioral, affective and cognitive effects if crisis relief does not occur. Crisis could result from facing obstacles important to our goals, impediments to our goals that we believe to be impossible to overcomes, when we do not know how to deal with certain situations, disorganization in which we face profound disruption to stress coping mechanisms. Crisis develops in four stages; when critical situations occur and the person’s coping mechanism suffices; increased disorganization and tension related to an escalated event that surpasses the person’s coping skills; even in need to be resolved requires additional resources, and major personality disorganization requires a referral in order to be resolved. When crises scale to the point that the situation requires immediate intervention to avoid injury or death, a behavioral emergency occurs. Crisis is not only dangerous because of its overwhelming effects on the person leading in occasions to serious pathology such as homicide and suicide; but it is also an opportunity because it impels the person to seek for help. Danger can exist when a crisis overwhelms the person, bringing them to a point of suicide and opportunity is possible because of the chance for self-growth and self-realization while the person receives help. Crisis is not simple, rather it is difficult and complex to understand, and defies cause-effect descriptions. In the disequilibrium that usually accompanies crisis, anxiety is present, and its discomfort provides an impetus for change. People in crisis are generally amenable to help through a variety of forms of intervention, some of which are described as brief therapy. Crisis is also often accompanied by disequilibrium or disorganization, whether universal or idiosyncratic. Three ways of reacting to a crisis are; coping with it and