How To Help In a Crisis

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How To Help In a Crisis

A crisis can be any unexpected adverse event, ranging from mild to severe. For instance, unexpected news or no news at all.

The best person who would know how to diagnose a person in crisis is a mental health professional. Unfortunately, an emergency may demand that you recognize when you or another person is in crisis.

How to Recognize Personal Crises.

People react to stressful situations in many different ways. This can make it hard to learn how to recognize personal crisises.

Some of the different reactions people may have while in personal crisis:

Difficulty concentrating or making decisions

Nightmares and flashbacks

Anxiety and depression

Anger

Withdrawal from others

Steps You Can Take to Help Someone in Crisis

The are varieties of steps you can take to help someone in a crisis. These include:

Allowing crisis reactions and personal crisis time to run their due course

Seeking support from loved ones and like-minded groups

Discovering healthy behaviors and routines to establish

Avoiding large decisions while in psychological turmoil

Talking to Someone With Crisis-Related Problems

How you react to a crisis may differ dramatically from how someone else does

Be open-minded.

Maintain carefulness and privacy.

Do not downplay the feelings.

Avoid assumptions.

Seek additional and higher level support as soon as it is necessary.

Exercise: Letter to the Problem

1. On a separate sheet, write a letter to your problem. You could include:

• How you see the situation.
• Your feelings about the problem.
• What you want from the problem.
• The consequences of not getting what you want.
• Anything else you like.

2. Be the problem and write a response to the issues raised in the letter.

3. Write another letter to the problem in response to what the problem has told you.

4. How was being the problem different from just being yourself?

5. How did your first and second letters to the problem differ?

6. What did you learn from the exercise?