1. Crisis Intervention
“a highly emotional temporary state in which an individual’s feelings of anxiety, grief, confusion or pain impair his/her ability to act”

2. Qualities and Characteristics of a Crisis
1) period of heightened psychological accessibility
2) usually stimulated by an outside precipitator
3) are normal reactions to emotionally hazardous situations
4) individual’s appraisal/perception determines the occurrence and seriousness of the crisis

3. Qualities and Characteristics (cont’d)
5) the more seriously threatening the appraisal, the greater the likelihood for primitive coping behaviors
6) persons in crisis tend to “pull away” from contact
7) persons in crisis tend to lose all concept of time

4. How a Crisis Develops 1) Stimulus/Precipitating Event
2) Appraisal of Situation by the Individual
3) Coping Methods and Personal Resources

5. Types of Crisis
1) Developmental
2) Situational
Potential Crises

6. The ABC Method of Crisis Intervention (Stone)
“A”: Achieving contact with the person in crisis.
“B”: Boiling down the problem to its essentials.
“C”: Coping with the problem.

7. Suicide Why discuss suicide?
Edwin Shneidman: father of the suicide prevention movement in the United States

8. Feelings Suicide Survivors Experience
Shame: predominant feeling
Guilt
Anger
Fear
Distorted Thinking

9. Effective Listening Principles for Serving Suicide Survivors
“Do’s”:
Be an active listener, observe body language, clarify, paraphrase
Listen for the 5 most common concerns:
The need to know why.
Guilt
Anger
Finding someone to blame.
Client’s fear that they too are capable of suicide.
Make appropriate referrals

10. “Don’ts” When Serving Suicide Survivors
Don’t answer questions that have not been asked.
Don’t answer exclamations as questions that require an answer.
Don’t answer questions that are theological, psychological or medical.

11. American Foundation for Suicide Prevention
Only national not-for-profit organization exclusively dedicated to funding research, developing prevention initiatives and offering educational programs and conferences for survivors, mental health professionals, physicians and the public.

12. Homicide/Sudden Death
Survivor may have: sense of unreality, guilt, need to blame, helplessness, unfinished business
Medical and legal authorities.
“fight or flight response”
Increased need to understand “Why?”
Follow-up and appropriate referrals.

13. SIDS Over 8000 babies/year in the U.S. Occurs in infants under 1 year.
Most frequent: 2-6 months
Complicating factors:
Death occurs without warning.
Absence of a definite cause.
Involvement of the legal system.
Meaning of the deceased child.
Marital turmoil.
Sadness and anger.

14. AIDS Features that could affect the bereavement process: Contagion
Stigma
Lack of Social Support
Untimely Deaths
Multiple Losses
Protracted Illness/Disfigurement
Neurological Complications