Crisis Counseling

A crisis can be defined as a turning point, our habitual strengths and coping mechanisms have been surpassed and a new approach has to be developed. According to Barnes (1984:115) “crisis intervention focuses on the reduction of anxiety in the client alongside the mobilisation of hope and the restoration of a sense of autonomy and control over the situation.

Andrew Beckett is homosexual, and lives with another man. His lifestyle has caused Beckett to contract AIDS, and the illness is becoming a serious issue for him. Moreover, Beckett has failed to be truthful about his lifestyle. He has been lying to his associates at the law firm in which he works.

The scope of Crisis Intervention Teams (CIT) is limited due to the newness of this model being implemented in different police departments across the country. The CIT model is being implemented in over 400 programs with different aspects taken from the original model. (Draine,J.,Ottati,V.,Schaefer,M.Watson,A.2008)Focusing on the how police officers deal with the mentally ill, and the spread of the police based CIT programs.

If a crisis worker hoped that the client would gain insight from some earlier childhood experience to help solve the

Crisis intervention involves three components: 1) the crisis, the perception of an unmanageable situation; 2) the individual or group in crisis; and 3) the helper, or mental health worker who provides aid. Crisis intervention requires that the person experiencing crisis receive timely and skillful support to help cope with his/her situation before future physical or emotional deterioration occurs.

Problems resulting from disasters linger for quite some time after the acute phase in a disaster and victims may have issues arise that they were not aware of initially. Community health nurses are often a primary point of contact for many of these situations and must be prepared for various problems. Sometimes, they are called on to simply reassure the victim that they are not alone in the situation and that help will continue to come. When a nurse allows a victim to discuss their concerns, the nurse can quickly expedite referrals to the appropriate area if it is out of their scope of practice. Occasionally, just having the validation and reassurance from a professional instills hope that things will get better soon. In the situation where the

Vicki’s co-workers credit her with being helpful and knowledgeable. Vick’s co-workers are able to count on her to talk through a difficult situation with a Client. Working on the Crisis Line can be a challenging because calls are unpredictable. Crisis Line staff work closely together to help clients who are in crisis situations. However, there is not a set formula that works for every client who calls. Vicki is able to problem solve to develop the best course of action to help clients who are dealing with a crisis. Vicki is also able to be supportive to her co-workers during a crisis situation with a client to work together to determine the appropriate intervention.

The objective of this assignment is to conduct an interview with someone who currently works in the crisis intervention, in order gain a perspective of the work or service, what it entails and how to be successful in providing what is needed to those in crisis.

When someone asked me what I thought a crisis was, the first examples that came to my mind was Hurricane Katrina, September 11, 2001. Once I began to think more of what the definition of a crisis would be, I know that it is the reaction of how someone reacts to a crisis event. Other examples may be suicide, homicide, domestic violence, and different traumas that one experiences. Once we began our discussions in class, I realized that a crisis and how one deals with a crisis, whether it is a natural, manmade or personal, effects each person differently. How that person handles the crisis, may have short term or long term effects that may lead to a mental illness. That is one of the points that I found very interesting, among other information we learned in class, along with the various speakers that we had.

The Assessment Crisis Intervention Trauma Treatment (ACT) model was developed by Albert Roberts after the September 11th terrorist attacks. The way it works is mental health professionals, will follow a series of seven steps when responding to a crisis. The most notable include: assess the danger, establish psychological conduct, identify major problems, encourage the exploration of feelings, examine alternative strategies, implementing the plan and following up. The combination of these factors is designed to provide everyone with tools to effectively address the crisis. (Roberts, 2005)

Although not everyone that comes across a stressor in life will experience a crisis, some are unable to cope with the stressor in a healthy manner and eventually succumb to a crisis. If this person does not receive the adequate crisis intervention during this state, he or she is likely to be unable to function at the level he or she had been functioning before the crisis. This will inevitably lead to additional crisis scenarios for every stressor they must face in life. “This pattern can go on for many years until the person’s ego is completely drained of its capacity to deal with reality; often such people commit suicide, kill someone, or have a psychotic breakdown.” (Kanel, K. 2007).

Strategies from the Ten Essential Shared Capabilities can be used for crisis intervention such as promoting recovery and identifying individual’s needs and strengths. It also believes that however vulnerable, the individual should share in decision-making; that they are knowledgeable about themselves and the effect their conditions may have on their lives; and that they should be empowered and enabled to inform their own recovery. (DOH,2004).

Counselors run the risk of being blinded by their own issues and inadvertently miss the warning signals of impending client crisis and missing valuable opportunities for timely responses (McAdams III & Keener, 2008). Unprepared counselors may overreact in a verbally escalating client crisis with excessive physical control which in then harms the client. Pre-crisis instruction in prevention and intervention methods needs to be accompanied by an emphasis on counselors becoming aware of areas in which their clinical objectivity during crisis response might be compromised by issues that they, not the client, bring to the crisis situation (McAdams III & Keener, 2008).

Crisis intervention is a method that uses concepts of crisis theory as a framework to aid in understanding a client’s experiences and to provide a worker with steps to follow when supporting a client in a crisis (Roberts & Ottens 2005, p. 331).

Suicide and accidental death from self-harm were the third leading cause of mortality in adolescents aged 10- 19 years of age in 2015, resulting in 67,000 deaths (world health organization). Many cases have have been reported in the local news, online, and through use of social media websites such as: Facebook and snap chat. There have also been multiple cases of youths that have posted their suicide live online. This is clearly a cry for help, if only someone was there to provide some form of assistance, could these cases have been prevented? This is a very important crisis that affect families, communities, and health care professionals worldwide and therefore deserves to be further discussed.