Following from our considerations of crisis focus, crisis definition, and cumulative effects, let us now focus our attention on causes and effects.  Figure 4 indicates that our question is, What could cause a crisis like this one?  It is important to see that the question is not What did cause? but rather, What could cause?  For example, what could cause someone to want to kill himself?  What could cause someone to become extremely upset or hysterical?  What could cause a teenager to want to run away from home?  What could cause someone to want to quit his job?  What could cause someone to abuse or misuse drugs or alcohol?

The focus on could cause is, on one hand, a relatively simple notion but, on the other hand one that goes against our usual way of thinking about problems.  Typically, we look at a problem and want to know in detail, the situations, circumstances and events leading to the specific problem.  In crisis intervention however, we need to have in mind a set of likely causes of a variety of crisis situations.  When we are dealing with a person in crisis, we need to know the most likely causes of a crisis such as the one we now see.  For example, the three most likely causes for crises involving threats of suicide are: severe marital or family difficulty or disruption, having done something or having experienced a situation that causes extreme feelings of guilt or worthlessness, or some external event that threatens an individual’s social and/or economic well-being.  For each type of crisis situation with which we deal, there are one or more likely causes.  As we look at the individual and his crisis, we want to consider the kinds of things that probably have caused his crisis. …

Please press play to continue.