Crisis Episodes

Growing up we always hear people around us or in movies talk about a “mid-life crises,” and we’ve never really understood what they talk about because we hadn’t experienced it ourselves. In Gail Sheehy’s essay “Predictable Crises of Adulthood,” she writes about each a crisis that can occur in each stage of a human’s life. She break’s our lives into six stages. “Pulling Up Roots”, “Trying Twenties”, “Catch-30,” “Rooting and Extending”, “The Deadline Decade”, and “Renewal or Resignation”. I can’t relate to all but one of these topics because I have not lived them. The only stage I can relate to is Pulling Up Roots, because I just turned 18 and still learning about life. From my experience, Sheehy’s crises claim in the Pulling Up Roots stage is accurate for me.

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.

These stages result from and are connected to a series of crises that develops a persons identity as he develops and matures from infancy through childhood to adulthood (Munley, 1977). As persons grow and develop also people in his environment also change (Munley, 1977). Coming into contact with more persons and increasing the number of relationships with people is express with in the society in which a person lives (Munley, 1977). The first basic trust versus mistrust, autonomy versus shame and doubt, initiative versus guilt, industry versus inferiority, identity versus identity confusion, intimacy versus isolation, generativity versus stagnation, and ego integrity versus despair (Munley, 1977). The time of onset is connected to phase of crisis that is developed in the period in which the individual experienced the crisis. For example, the sense of basic trust versus mistrust in the first crisis by a child in infancy (Munley, 1977). Preceding and corresponding is followed by either greater health and maturity or by increasing weakness (Munley, 1977). The phases in which person face life as children and adults in their life cycle is outlined in Erikson’s eight stage crises (Munley, 1977). Development of basic attitudes in Ian is demonstrated in his personality traits confidence and resilience. Stages of character are built from the outcomes of previous stages of personality development and has ramification for the solution of other crises (Munley,

As lots of sociologists and psychologists have pointed out, dealing by so many demanding events in your life can obtain a fee on a person's mental well-being. When there are lots of variables and not numerous constants, it can be hard to suffer stranded and peaceful life. When these bases of stress turn out to be devastating, the consequence can be sadness, seclusion, displaced anger, and even more severe mental illnesses. (Hasenfeld, 1983). Together with social scientists,

The area of greatest disagreement was the area of midlife crisis. “Levinson (1978) views midlife as a crisis, arguing that the middle-aged adult is suspended between the past and the future, trying to cope with this gap that threatens life’s continuity (Santrock, 2013 p. 512). This is particularly interesting because the female responded that she was experiencing a midlife crisis and the male did not. However, in this instance, the female is still in the workforce and the male is retired. The experiences that the female related closely resemble the conditions of the male during the time of Levinson’s study. In addition to still working, the female had recently changed her place of employment, and within the past five years lost both of her parents. While the male was retired and took care of the house and children, his stress level had been reduced as he became the primary care giver to this in-laws and their passing reduced his overall daily responsibilities. Both maintain close relationships with their siblings and frequently get together with them.

Ineffective individual coping related to situational crisis as evidence by anxiety, depression, and alteration in lifestyle.

How does an individual’s perspective of, and response to, a crisis define him or her?

Rawls returned back again to Japan, pointed out that the fire-bombing by the Americans were unnecessary and did not fit the criteria and meaning of extreme crisis. On the other hand, he concluded that the British were justifiable to attack Germany especially in the earlier stages of the war. Germany with its Nazism ideology, evil and brutality regime had to be stop at all cost.

Someone who would be going through a “Mid-life crisis” is that of the age between 40 and 60("Development in midlife," 2004). It is the point during our lives where we go through periods of self-doubt, this is a natural and normal process ("Development in midlife," 2004). A mid-life crisis can be triggered by different experiences, for instance, children leaving the home, death of a parent or someone close, mid-life transition to

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.

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).

Erickson theorizes that a person experiences different stages, and the “Individual confronts a major challenge or ‘crisis” (Boles, Danner, Briggs & Johnson

There are four elements that an adolescent will react to in a crisis situation. First, the emotional responses involve anger, shock, grief, a sense of helplessness, loss of pleasure in everyday activities, terror, guilt and even phobias. These emotional responses then result in cognitive distortions such as impaired decision making, lowered self-esteem, worry, memory impairment and nightmares. The physical effects of the emotional and cognitive changes can also be a detriment of the adolescents health due to having

|crisis (Rose 2000, p.133). According to Erikson (1965), ‘when a person resolves crises successfully, the healthier their development ||will be’. |

The latter describing the sequestration of experience.One of the main threats to this is the notion of globalisation and everyone being caught up in it. Losing a sense of place and identity due to the change in lifestyle and other aspects feel beyond our control. This involves exposure to crisis situations. Giddens (1991, p 184) says that:'a "crisis" exists whenever activities concerned with important goals in life of an individual or a collectivity suddenly appear inadequate. Crises in this sense become a "normal" part of life, but by definition can not be routinised'Giddens (1991, p 184) states that it is the 'crisis prone nature of late modernity' that is causing may of the tribulations of the self and this creates a general uneasiness.