CRISIS INTERVENTION

APPROACH
Thelma Lee-Mendoza
 Crisis and Crisis Intervention
 Crisis Theory is known to have developed out
work in a public health setting and orientation
with a truly interdisciplinary approach
involving medicine, social work, psychology,
and psychiatric.
 A Crisis is defined as an “upset in a steady
state” an emotional reaction on the part of an
individual, family, group, or group to a
threatening life event.
 Crisis Intervention is a process for actively
influencing the psycho-social functioning of
individuals and groups, during a period of
acute disequilibrium.
• It involves crisis-oriented, time-limited work
usually “ two to six weeks” in duration. It is a
mode of brief treatment that can be used in
any social work setting and with any target
population under stress.
• To be really effective, crisis intervention
should be available within 24 to 72 hours
after application or referral for assistance.
• Crisis intervention involves a warm, emphatic
reaching out, and what is called a “search and
find approach”.
Crisis intervention with families and groups
includes the following target population:
1) Individuals in crisis
2) Those associated with persons in crisis
3) Those in collective crisis
“ It only requires that he client should be in a
state of crisis or affected by persons in crisis,
willing to seek help or be referred foe help
and, able to sustain a relationship with a
helping person for the period of treatment”.
 Helping process in Crisis
by: (Naomi Golan)
( The Model divided intervention into 3 phases)
Assessment of the situation
1) The hazardous event – This is a specific,
stress-producing occurrence, either an
external blow or internal change, that occurs
to an individual or family in a state of relative
stability in its boi-psychosocial situation.
2) The vulnerable or upset state –Refers to the
subjective reaction of the individual or family
to the initial blow, both at the time it occurs
and subsequently.

3) The precipitating factor or event –This is a

link in the chain of stress- provoking
happening that bring tension to a peak and
convert the vulnerable state into one of crisis.
4) The state of active crisis -Refers to the
individual’s subjective condition once tension
has stopped; the homeostatic mechanisms no
longer operate and disequilibrium has set in.
5) The state of reintegration or reorganization
–This is the adjustment, either adaptive and
integrative or mal-adaptive and destructive,
that takes place as disequilibrium gradually
subsides.
 Implementation of treatment
 This is a middle phase about setting up and
working out with specific tasks, designed to
solve specific problems in the current life
situation, to modify previous in adequate or
inappropriate ways functioning and to learn
new coping patterns.
Two categories of tasks in Crisis intervention
(Golan)
1) Material-arrangement tasks, which are
concerned with the provision of concrete
assistances and services
2) Psychosocial tasks, which are concerned
with dealing with client’s feelings, doubts,
ambivalence, anxieties and despair, which
arise while trying to carry out what both
worker and client need to be done.
 Treatment and techniques in crisis
intervention

1) Sustaining techniques
2) Direct influence procedures
3) Direct intervention
4) Reflective discussion techniques
 Termination
As the end of the time-limited helping
relationship nears, worker and client review
their progress, focusing on key themes and
basis issues. Emphasis that the tasks
accomplished, the adaptive coping pattern
developed, and the ties built with persons and
resources in the community.