“A definition of what constitutes a crisis is an acute emotional upset arising from situational, developmental, or social sources. The crises result in a temporary inability to cope by means of ones usual problem-solving devices. Crisis upsets a persons' sense of self, stability, and their usual coping strategies,” according to the New Britain Sexual Assault Crisis Service's Counselor Advocate Training Manual. People can undergo four types of crisis: developmental, situational, social-cultural, and existential crisis. The cause of these crises can range from a change in the family dynamic to an assault. A person's result to a crisis situation is unique to the person. However, the most common psychological response to a crisis is either emotional, cognitive, or behavioral.
Emotional Responses
An emotional response to a crisis is quite common; however, the type of emotion displayed vary greatly from person to person, according to the Counselor Advocate Training Manual. For example, the person may display shock, anger, frustration, and outrage; on the other hand, the person may also experience fatigue, helplessness, or despair. Anxiety is another emotional response to crisis: anticipatory anxiety and generalized anxiety can occur, as well as panic and insecurity.
Depression can also be an emotional outcome, plus feeling out of control or overwhelmed. If the person is a survivor of the crisis, such as a survivor of the assault, he or she may feel guilt. Additional emotional reactions to crisis are denial, uncertainty, inadequacy, irritability, fear, numbness, and grief.
Cognitive Responses
The person's cognitive abilities can also affect by crisis, according to the Counselor Advocate Training Manual. In situations where the crisis results in trauma, the person may have nightmares or flashbacks of the event. In addition, he or she may also have a loss of trust of people in general, or specific individuals involved in the crisis.
Other cognitive responses to crisis include confusion, difficulties making decisions, poor concentration, and an affected attention span. The changes to the person's cognitive abilities may be short-term or long-term, depending on the type of crisis, and whether the event leads to a psychological disorder, like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Behavioral Responses
People may also have a behavioral response to crisis. After the crisis, the person may withdraw from others, regress, excessively use his or her sick leave at work or school, or have a loss of interest in attending religious services. Also, some people may blame or be angry at God for the crisis. Many survivors of crisis resort to alcohol or drug abuse to cope. Changes in the person's life, such as sleep disturbance, appetite and weigh changes, and activity changes are common. In addition, the person may be preoccupied with his or her crisis reactions.
Additional behavioral responses to crisis include difficulty functioning at a normal level, frequent medical complaints, unresponsiveness, being antisocial, communication problems, diminished job performance, anger outbursts, hysterics, increased fatigue, irritability, and crying.
Conclusion
Responses to crisis are quite varied, and patients can experience any of the emotional, cognitive or behavioral reactions. Patients can experience more than one of the responses, and they can last for long periods of time, depending on the severity of the crisis.
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