Crisis Intervention is a type of brief psychiatric treatment in which individual or their family are helped in their efforts to forestall the process of mental decompensation in reaction to severe emotional stress by direct and immediate supportive approaches .
Defination of crisis
Sudden event in one`s life that disturbs homeostasis , during which usual coping mechanisms cannot resolve the problem
Types of Crisis
Maturational Crisis (Internal)
It is related to stages of development crises anticipated in the development of the infant , child, adolescent, marriage and retirement .
Situational crisis ( External)
Situational crisis occurs at any time for example loss of job, loss of income , death of significant person, illness, hospitalization .
Catastrophic crisis or Adventitious crisis (External)
It can occur at any time and it is not a part of everyday life . For example natural disasters like flood , earthquake , riots and terrorist attack .
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Concepts and Principles related to Crisis intervention
1. Crisis are turning points where changes in behaviour patterns and lifestyle can occur .
2. Social environment and its structure are contributing factor in both the development of psychiatric symptoms and eventual recovery from them .
3. When individual face a problem they cannot solve tension , anxiety , narrowed perception and disorganized functioning occurs .
4 . Immediate relief of symptoms produced by crisis is more urgent than exploring their cause.
5. If crisis is not handled effectively , individual may progress to worse state and future crisi may not be handled well .
Goals of crisis intervention
- To decrease emotional stress and protect the crisis person or victim from additional stress.
- To assisst the victim in organizing and mobilizing resource or support system unique needs and reach a solution for the particular situation.
Techniques of crisis intervention
1. Catharsis :
The process of expressing strong feeling by talking . The patient should be allowed to bring out his/her feeling and emotions
2. Clarification
Encouraging the patient to express more clearly the relationships between certain events.
3. Suggestions
Influencing a person to accept an idea or belief , particularly the belief that nurse can help and person will feel better
4. Reinforcement of behavior
Giving the patient positive response to adaptive behavior .
5. Support of defences
Encouraging the use of healthy , adaptive defences used by patient .
6. Exploration of solution
Examining alternative ways of solving the immediate problems
ABC model of crisis intervention
A : Developing strong rapport i.e close and harmonious relationship to understand each other`s feelings
B : Identifying the nature of crisis and finding alternate solution
C : Developing new coping methods
Characteristics of crisis intervention
- Acute , sudden onset related to a stressful precipitating event of which individual is aware but which immobilizes previous coping abilities
- Responsive to brief therapy with focus on immediate problems
- Focus shifted from psyche in the individual to the individual in the environment
Crisis prevention intervention or implementation in crisis
- Identify stressful precipitating event
- Assess suicidal and homicidal risks
- Assess amount of disruption in individual`s life and effect on others .
- Assess Current coping skills, strengths and general level of functioning
- Help the patient to relate the crisis event to current feelings
- Encourage expression of all feelings related to disruption
- Explore past coping skills and reinforce adaptive ones
- Use all means available in social network to take care of patient`s immediate needs
- set limits
- Teach additional problem solving approach .
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