In community crisis intervention, situational crises are sudden, unpredictable, have emergency quality, and involve both danger and opportunity.
Situational crises are one type of crisis that needs to be addressed in crisis intervention counseling; they are characterized by several factors.
Characteristics of Situational Crises
One characteristic of situational crises is their sudden onset and unpredictability. While a struggle with developmental issues usually builds over time, situational crises strike from nowhere all at once. Unexpectedness is another factor of situational crises. People generally believe “it won’t happen to me," and are blind-sided when it does happen to them.
Emergency quality is another characteristic of situational crises. When a situational crisis hits, it needs to be dealt with immediately. Crisis intervention must allow for priorities to be quickly assessed, followed by the implementation of appropriate action steps.
Situational crises also impact the entire community. These events usually affect large numbers of people simultaneously, requiring intervention with large groups in a relatively short period of time.
The last characteristic of situational crises is the presence of both danger and opportunity. Reorganization must eventually begin. This reorganization has the potential for the individual to emerge on either a higher or lower level of functioning.
Examples of Situational Crises
Examples of situational crises include physical illness and injury, unexpected or untimely death, crime, natural and man made disasters, war, and situational crises of modern life.
One example of a situational crisis is when a loved one commits suicide. Suicide leaves survivors wondering what role they played in causing the death. They may fear other people’s reactions when they disclose that the death of a loved one was suicide. Survivors of an unexpected death will go through these reaction phases: numbness or denial, feelings associated with loss, and gradual acceptance of reality – moving on. A cognitive application would be when a police officer has to “break the news” of a loved one’s death, they should do it with tact to soften the blow.
Another example of a situational crisis is war. In Vietnam veterans, it is common for the trauma of combat experience to be repressed, and then reactivated by some other life crisis. The focus should be on getting veterans to talk about their experience in Vietnam, to their immediate family and social group, and get reactions upon telling stories, in place of mental and physical abuse of their families.
Additional Resources
This information was taken from lecture notes from J. Steinberg's graduate class in Crisis Intervention at Faireleigh Dickinson University (1999). For related information, please read:
The copyright of the article Situational Crises in Psychology in Psychology is owned by Christina Gleason. Permission to republish Situational Crises in Psychology in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
Jun 30, 2008
