The inquest into the basics of crisis intervention strategies necessitates the understanding of a couple of terms. These include;

Crisis

A number of definitions arise that describe crisis. However, the most revered are by;

James (2008)

He defined crisis as being the perception or experiencing of an event or situation as an intolerable difficulty that exceeds the person’s current resources and coping mechanisms. He further reiterated that unless an individual receives relief, the crisis has the potential to result in severe affective, behavioral and cognitive malfunctioning.

Roberts (2005)

He defined crisis in an even more detailed way, stressing that it is an acute disruption of psychological homeostasis in which one’s usual coping mechanisms fail and there exists evidence of distress and functional impairment. The subjective reaction to a stressful life experience compromises the individual’s stability and ability to cope and function. The main cause of a crisis is an intensely stressful, traumatic or hazardous event. It is in this light that intervention comes in to restore a semblance of sanity.

Crisis Intervention

This is basically refers to the professional approach towards crisis situations or repercussions in a bid to curb chaos, restore normalcy or ease the impact of crisis. There are a number of strategies that thus can be employed to affect this.

Strategies

These are the planned moves or approaches towards tasks or the addressing of certain events. They are well thought out steps that are calculated to achieve some objectives. An example is creating awareness.

Crises vary in intensity and impact, from mild discomfort to destructive chaos. However, their impact is numerous and may often affect the psychological, physical, emotional or even social aspects of individual(s). This is why it is critical that therapists deeply analyze and understand the dynamics of individual's responses to and handling of tumultuous events. The following strategies can be used;

CRISIS INTERVENTION STRATEGIES

i). Creating Awareness

The crisis worker can promote an awareness of the feelings underlying a client’s behavior. For instance, someone who is suicidal may have not considered their reasons for living or dying. The worker can help them get awareness of these thoughts and feelings which helps give them new perspective.

ii). Allowing Catharsis

Catharsis is the expression of emotion, for therapeutic purposes. Clients may experience a range of emotions and behaviors, including crying, yelling, swearing, and so on as they vent about what they’re going through. As a client describes what’s going on in their life they may find themselves brought right back to the same emotional intensity when they originally experienced the situation, or even worse.

Someone who talks about a situation that made them powerless or angry will find their blood pressure rising, sweating and all the other physiological responses from the first time. Keep in mind that if a client is getting too elevated it may be more helpful to practice deep breathing and grounding exercises to bring the client back to the present.

iii). Providing Support

This strategy involves naturalizing the client’s response to what they’ve been going through. Often clients will think that they are crazy or that they are overreacting. Note, I didn’t use the word “normal”, because their suspended coping skills are not effective or even typical in someone who is not experiencing a crisis. They are however common, and we need to point out that they are natural given people who are so overwhelmed.

As an example of providing support, many people see suicidal behavior or an inability to cope as a sign of weakness, which can impair their ability to respond effectively. Pointing out that reaching out for help, the behavior that brought them into contact with the crisis worker in the first place, is itself a good response, and working with them to build a plan will help them feel less overwhelmed.

iv). Increasing Expansion

Increasing expansion involves helping clients get out of their tunnel vision. This is very common with suicidal individuals who are totally unable to see anything but hopelessness in their situation. By providing alternative perspectives, the client will begin to see that their situation can be different.

Re-framing in general is a very common strategy throughout crisis intervention and in therapy, especially cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), where distorted thoughts are the cause of depression and suicidal thoughts.

v). Emphasizing Focus

When clients have the opposite of tunnel vision and their cognition are all over the place with no basis in reality, emphasizing focus becomes more important. This helps the client to focus on the specific causes of the crisis and break solutions down into manageable steps that help clients work through these things.

vi). Providing Guidance

Guidance involves providing information and referral services to clients, to help them fix specific issues in their life. This is more commonly achieved by case management in the long-term, but in the short-term may be performed by telephone or in-person crisis workers.

vii). Promoting Mobilization

Mobilization involves helping crisis workers access external supports. Because individuals in crisis have difficulty accessing their internal coping skills external and peripheral supports become more important. These include the people around them that they can trust and be supported by, and professional supports like counselors and therapists.

viii). Implementing Order

Implementing order helps clients break their problem down into manageable pieces and decide which ones are the most important. By dealing with the most important issues first, they’ll be able to get a sense of control and begin to take advantage of internal coping strategies.

ix). Providing Protection

Finally, providing protection involves protecting the client from their own self-injurious behavior and potentially harmful behavior towards others. Suicide and homicide risk assessment is an important part of this strategy, which is demonstrated throughout the crisis intervention process.

CONCLUSION

Crisis tends to unravel the inner capacity of human beings to deal with the worst that life could offer. However, this innate ability to bounce back from a crisis is often hindered by a number of factors. These may be:

♤ Physical stamina to stand intense pain.

♤ The validity and empathetic element of the support system an individual has.

♤ Experience or the influence of professional help availed to cope with the crisis.