WEEK 1: WORKING WITH PEOPLE IN CRISIS
Assessments
Assignment 1
- Online quiz: 30%
- 30 Questions
- Opens Week 6
Assignment 2
- Recorded demonstration: 35%
- 20 minute demonstration of your use of crisis and trauma-informed interventions
- Due: Week 11
Assignment 3
- Critique of recorded demonstration 35%
- 2000 words
- Week 12 - Friday, 28/05/21
History of Crisis and Trauma
National Save-a-Live League (1906)
- Borne out of a Baptist minister in New York was saddened to learn of a suicide by a
women, who had asked to speak with him the previous evening, but he was unable to be
located. Dedicated the rest of his life to providing support to those who were suicidal, and
established this league.
The Cocoanut Grove nightclub fire (1942)
- Dr Lindemann treated many of the survivors, and his observations noted they all had
common emotional responses and a need for psychological assistance and support. This
experience led to the first attempts to define “crisis” and build a theory of crisis.
Community Mental Health Centres Act of (1963)
- Asylums were being closed in favour of de-institutionalisation and the community mental
health model. However, de-institutionalisation came with many problems including
medication non-compliance, unpredictable behaviour etc, resulting in many of the
previous asylum dwellers, going to gaol!!! Thus, the need for community crisis
intervention centres was realised.
Grassroots Movements
, - Crisis intervention typically remains unrecognised by the public until victims/victim
advocates exert enough legal, political, or economic pressure to cause change.
- As crisis agencies become crisis organisations, they gain power, prestige, and
notoriety.
Three major grassroots movements helped shape crisis intervention into an emerging specialty.
- Alcoholics Anonymous (AA)
- Vietnam veterans
- Women’s movement during the 1970s
* These were the grassroots movements that would eventually inform modern understanding of
crisis intervention.
What is Crisis ?
“…an obstacle that is, for a time, insurmountable by the use of customary methods of
problem-solving. A period of disorganisation ensues, a period of upset, during which many
abortive attempts at a solution are made” - Gerald Caplan
“ A temporary state of upset and disorganisation, characterized chiefly by an individuals
inability to cope with a particular situation using customary methods of problem-solving, and
by the potential for a radically positive or negative outcome” - Karl Slaikeu
“…a loss of psychological equilibrium or a state of emotional instability that includes elements
of depression and anxiety which is caused by an external event with which individuals are
unable to cope with at their usual level of ability” - Phillip Kleespies
“ …a perception or experiencing of an event or situation as an intolerable difficulty that
exceeds the person’s current resources and coping mechanisms” - James & Gilliland
1. A precipitating event occurs - i.e., there cannot be a crisis if something hasn’t happened
to trigger it.
2. A person has a perception of the event as threatening or damaging.
3. This perception leads to emotional distress.
4. The emotional distress leads to impairment in functioning due to failure of an individual’s
usual coping methods that previously have prevented a crisis from occurring.
5. An "intolerable" period during which one is unable to cope and/or successfully
problem-solve, must be time-limited.
What is Crisis?
1. A precipitating event occurs.
, 2. A person has a perception of the event as threatening or damaging.
3. This perception leads to emotional distress.
4. The emotional distress leads to impairment in functioning due to failure of an individual’s
usual coping methods that previously have prevented a crisis from occurring.
5. The "intolerable" period during which one is unable to cope and/or successfully
problem-solve, must be time-limited.
Crisis Types
Systemic crisis: when a traumatic event occurs such that people, institutions, communities, and
ecologies are overwhelmed and response systems are unable to effectively contain and control
the event in regard to both physical and psychological reactions to it.
“Metastasising crisis”: occurs when a small, isolated incident is not contained and begins to
spread.
- Primary Prevention-stopping a problem before it starts.
- Secondary intervention-minimising the harmful effects that have already occurred.
Theories of Crisis and Crisis Intervention
Three major theories:
- Basic crisis theory
- Behavioural responses related to grief are normal, temporary, and can be relieved
with short-term intervention techniques.
- Crisis occurs when something impedes one’s life goals.
- Developmental & Situational
- Equilibrium vs. Disequilibrium
- Expanded crisis theory
- Psychoanalytic theory: early childhood experiences determines why a traumatic
event becomes a crisis.
- General Systems theory: examines the interdependence and relationships among
people and between people and events.
- Ecosystems theory: extension of systems theory to include an environmental
context (microsystems and macrosystems)
- Adaptational theory: crisis is sustained through maladaptive behaviours.
- Interpersonal theory: a state of crisis can not be sustained if a person has an intact
sense of self-worth and has a healthy support system.
- Chaos theory: applied to systems or events that appeared random but, on closer
inspection, revealed an underlying order
, - Developmental theory: potential for crisis arises from developmental tasks that
are not accomplished.
- Applied crisis theory
- Developmental crises: events in the normal flow of human growth and evolution
whereby a dramatic change or shift occurs that produces abnormal responses. For
example birth of a child, graduation from college, midlife career change,
retirement, or even the aging process.
- Situational crises: emerges with the occurrence of uncommon and extraordinary
events that an individual has no way of forecasting or controlling. The key to
differentiating a situational crisis from other crises is that a situational crisis is
random, sudden, shocking, intense, and often catastrophic.
- Existential crises: a result of intrapersonal conflicts related to one’s sense of
purpose, responsibility, independence, freedom, or commitment.
- Ecosystemic crises: typically occurs when some natural or human-caused disaster
overtakes a person or a (large or small) group of people.
- Natural Phenomena – Floods, tsunamis, drought, flood, bushfire
- Biological - disease epidemic
- Political – war, refugee crisis, ethnic cleansing
- Severe economic depression
WEEK 2: MODELS OF CRISIS INTERVENTION
Transcrisis
- Events immediately following the crisis have a large impact on the duration.
- A crisis event may seem to be resolved, but may actually be submerged into the
survivor’s unconsciousness.
- A transcrisis state occurs when unresolved issues from a previous traumatic event
resurface because of a current stressor.
Transcrisis is not Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
- Transcrisis is not synonymous with PTSD.
- A person with PTSD may be in a transcrisis state, but not all people who are in a
transcrisis state suffer from PTSD.
- PTSD is a DSM-5 defined anxiety disorder resulting from a crisis.
- Transcrisis is the re-emergence of crisis symptoms from some unresolved prior crisis
event.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Assessments
Assignment 1
- Online quiz: 30%
- 30 Questions
- Opens Week 6
Assignment 2
- Recorded demonstration: 35%
- 20 minute demonstration of your use of crisis and trauma-informed interventions
- Due: Week 11
Assignment 3
- Critique of recorded demonstration 35%
- 2000 words
- Week 12 - Friday, 28/05/21
History of Crisis and Trauma
National Save-a-Live League (1906)
- Borne out of a Baptist minister in New York was saddened to learn of a suicide by a
women, who had asked to speak with him the previous evening, but he was unable to be
located. Dedicated the rest of his life to providing support to those who were suicidal, and
established this league.
The Cocoanut Grove nightclub fire (1942)
- Dr Lindemann treated many of the survivors, and his observations noted they all had
common emotional responses and a need for psychological assistance and support. This
experience led to the first attempts to define “crisis” and build a theory of crisis.
Community Mental Health Centres Act of (1963)
- Asylums were being closed in favour of de-institutionalisation and the community mental
health model. However, de-institutionalisation came with many problems including
medication non-compliance, unpredictable behaviour etc, resulting in many of the
previous asylum dwellers, going to gaol!!! Thus, the need for community crisis
intervention centres was realised.
Grassroots Movements
, - Crisis intervention typically remains unrecognised by the public until victims/victim
advocates exert enough legal, political, or economic pressure to cause change.
- As crisis agencies become crisis organisations, they gain power, prestige, and
notoriety.
Three major grassroots movements helped shape crisis intervention into an emerging specialty.
- Alcoholics Anonymous (AA)
- Vietnam veterans
- Women’s movement during the 1970s
* These were the grassroots movements that would eventually inform modern understanding of
crisis intervention.
What is Crisis ?
“…an obstacle that is, for a time, insurmountable by the use of customary methods of
problem-solving. A period of disorganisation ensues, a period of upset, during which many
abortive attempts at a solution are made” - Gerald Caplan
“ A temporary state of upset and disorganisation, characterized chiefly by an individuals
inability to cope with a particular situation using customary methods of problem-solving, and
by the potential for a radically positive or negative outcome” - Karl Slaikeu
“…a loss of psychological equilibrium or a state of emotional instability that includes elements
of depression and anxiety which is caused by an external event with which individuals are
unable to cope with at their usual level of ability” - Phillip Kleespies
“ …a perception or experiencing of an event or situation as an intolerable difficulty that
exceeds the person’s current resources and coping mechanisms” - James & Gilliland
1. A precipitating event occurs - i.e., there cannot be a crisis if something hasn’t happened
to trigger it.
2. A person has a perception of the event as threatening or damaging.
3. This perception leads to emotional distress.
4. The emotional distress leads to impairment in functioning due to failure of an individual’s
usual coping methods that previously have prevented a crisis from occurring.
5. An "intolerable" period during which one is unable to cope and/or successfully
problem-solve, must be time-limited.
What is Crisis?
1. A precipitating event occurs.
, 2. A person has a perception of the event as threatening or damaging.
3. This perception leads to emotional distress.
4. The emotional distress leads to impairment in functioning due to failure of an individual’s
usual coping methods that previously have prevented a crisis from occurring.
5. The "intolerable" period during which one is unable to cope and/or successfully
problem-solve, must be time-limited.
Crisis Types
Systemic crisis: when a traumatic event occurs such that people, institutions, communities, and
ecologies are overwhelmed and response systems are unable to effectively contain and control
the event in regard to both physical and psychological reactions to it.
“Metastasising crisis”: occurs when a small, isolated incident is not contained and begins to
spread.
- Primary Prevention-stopping a problem before it starts.
- Secondary intervention-minimising the harmful effects that have already occurred.
Theories of Crisis and Crisis Intervention
Three major theories:
- Basic crisis theory
- Behavioural responses related to grief are normal, temporary, and can be relieved
with short-term intervention techniques.
- Crisis occurs when something impedes one’s life goals.
- Developmental & Situational
- Equilibrium vs. Disequilibrium
- Expanded crisis theory
- Psychoanalytic theory: early childhood experiences determines why a traumatic
event becomes a crisis.
- General Systems theory: examines the interdependence and relationships among
people and between people and events.
- Ecosystems theory: extension of systems theory to include an environmental
context (microsystems and macrosystems)
- Adaptational theory: crisis is sustained through maladaptive behaviours.
- Interpersonal theory: a state of crisis can not be sustained if a person has an intact
sense of self-worth and has a healthy support system.
- Chaos theory: applied to systems or events that appeared random but, on closer
inspection, revealed an underlying order
, - Developmental theory: potential for crisis arises from developmental tasks that
are not accomplished.
- Applied crisis theory
- Developmental crises: events in the normal flow of human growth and evolution
whereby a dramatic change or shift occurs that produces abnormal responses. For
example birth of a child, graduation from college, midlife career change,
retirement, or even the aging process.
- Situational crises: emerges with the occurrence of uncommon and extraordinary
events that an individual has no way of forecasting or controlling. The key to
differentiating a situational crisis from other crises is that a situational crisis is
random, sudden, shocking, intense, and often catastrophic.
- Existential crises: a result of intrapersonal conflicts related to one’s sense of
purpose, responsibility, independence, freedom, or commitment.
- Ecosystemic crises: typically occurs when some natural or human-caused disaster
overtakes a person or a (large or small) group of people.
- Natural Phenomena – Floods, tsunamis, drought, flood, bushfire
- Biological - disease epidemic
- Political – war, refugee crisis, ethnic cleansing
- Severe economic depression
WEEK 2: MODELS OF CRISIS INTERVENTION
Transcrisis
- Events immediately following the crisis have a large impact on the duration.
- A crisis event may seem to be resolved, but may actually be submerged into the
survivor’s unconsciousness.
- A transcrisis state occurs when unresolved issues from a previous traumatic event
resurface because of a current stressor.
Transcrisis is not Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
- Transcrisis is not synonymous with PTSD.
- A person with PTSD may be in a transcrisis state, but not all people who are in a
transcrisis state suffer from PTSD.
- PTSD is a DSM-5 defined anxiety disorder resulting from a crisis.
- Transcrisis is the re-emergence of crisis symptoms from some unresolved prior crisis
event.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
