Reading Report 2: Slaikeu, K. (1990) “Crisis Intervention” Westwood edition. P.

13-25

 Crisis intervention strategies have two aspects: immediate psychological first aid
(provided by individuals closest to the event) and brief crisis therapy (provided by trained
counselors and therapists).
 Primary prevention takes place long before crisis events actually occur.
o True prevention means preventing some events from happening in the first place,
through policy changes in public administration, and other interventions at levels
of the social apparatus.
 When external stimuli cannot be altered, coping strategies are directed at training
individuals to solve their problems and manage their skills so that they are better prepared
to survive life's critical events.
 Tertiary treatment or prevention includes strategies aimed at reducing the impairment and
emotional disturbances that result from poor resolution of life crises.
o Its purpose is to repair the damage already done in patients who are accidental
psychiatric cases of life stress.
 A crisis is a temporary state of disorder and disorganization, characterized primarily
by an individual's inability to handle particular situations using customary methods of
problem solving, and by the potential for a radically positive or negative outcome.
 The crisis state is time-limited, is almost always manifested by a precipitating event, can
be expected to follow successive patterns of development through various stages, and has
the potential for resolution to higher or lower levels of functioning.
 Crises have identifiable beginnings.
o The experience of crisis has been understood as something precipitated or
overwhelmed by some specific event.
 Some events are so universally devastating that they are almost always capable of
precipitating a crisis.
o However, other events are not in and of themselves of a proportion worthy of a
crisis, but must be considered in the total developmental milieu of the individual.
Danish and D'Augelli refer to these events as developmental indicators.
 Nowak suggests that the impact of a particular event depends on its timing, intensity,
duration, continuation and degree of interference with other developmental events.
 Circumstantial crises are accidental or unexpected and their most salient feature is
supported by some environmental factor.
 Developmental crises, on the other hand, are those related to the shift from one stage of
growth to another, from infancy to senescence.
 A cognitive perspective of the crisis suggests how an individual perceives the event that
gives rise to the crisis, especially how the event impacts the person's existential structure
about life, which makes the situation critical.
 One of the most obvious aspects of the crisis is the severe emotional disturbance, or
imbalance, experienced by the individual.
 As Halpem's research indicates, the disorganization, confusion and disruption of the crisis
state can affect several aspects of a person's life at the same time: feelings, thoughts,
behavior, social relationships and physical functioning.
 Crisis state disorganization is the vulnerability and suggestibility of the individual, also
known as reduced defenses.
 The assumption is that, as we mature, each of us develops various methods of coping
with life's difficulties.
 The person in crisis may feel miserable, or completely unable to deal with new
destabilizing circumstances.
 Coping is defined in terms of two main activities: The first involves situational change-
problem solving. The second aspect of coping involves managing the subjective
components of the problem.
 Stages of crises:
o event -> disorder -> denial <-> intrusion -> transprocessing -> termination