Crisis Intervention

Crisis Intervention is emergency psychological care aimed at assisting individuals in a crisis situation to restore equilibrium to their biopsychosocial functioning and to minimise the potential for psychological trauma. Crisis can be defined as one’s perception or experiencing of an event or situation as an intolerable difficulty that exceeds the person’s current resources and coping mechanisms. The priority of crisis intervention/counseling is to increase stabilization. Crisis interventions occur at the spur of the moment and in a variety of settings, as trauma can arise instantaneously. Crisis counselors must keep in mind that crises are temporary, no longer than a month, although the effects may become long-lasting. Crisis Intervention is the emergency and temporary care given an individual who, because of unusual stress in his or her live that renders them unable to function as they normally would, in order to interrupt the downward spiral of maladaptive behavior and return the individual to their usual level of pre-crisis functioning> (Greenstone and Leviton, 1993, 2002, 2011).