What is Crisis Intervention?

Crisis intervention, or crisis response, is a short-term helping process performed by any helping professional trained in crisis intervention.  Crisis intervention (or CI) is not therapy or mental health counseling; therefore, does not require a mental health counselor to perform.  Because CI is not therapy (or a substitute for therapy), CI is available anytime, any where to any person or group is in crisis.

The goal of CI is to stabilize those in crisis, lower their stress and return them to their sense of “normal”.  We often say in training, if mental health counseling is designed to get a person better, then crisis intervention is designed to simply get a person back…to thinking, feeling and acting like themselves again.

Unlike mental health counseling, CI does not require an appointment or an office.  When a critical incident occurs, crisis responders are alerted and activated – called to the scene or designated “safe-site” to meet with those involved.  In our many years of CI, we’ve been called to hospital ERs, fire stations, conference rooms, parking lots, dorm rooms and even a baseball field.

Crisis intervention is exhilarating and rewarding work….but it is work that requires skill and training.  Would you ever attempt physical first aid without training and adequate skills?  Of course not.  Crisis intervention is psychological first aid.  Without proper training and an adequate skill-base, you run the risk of doing further harm.

If you are interested in becoming a crisis responder and enhancing your skills to intervene with individuals and groups following a tragedy, then please contact dorie@crisissupportsolutions.com for information on CSS trainings and certifications.