Chapter 3 – The Crisis State

Initially, it may be difficult to make the conceptual transition from “conflict” to “crisis.” If so, the difficulty probably lies in a tendency to think about crisis and then trying to understand the crisis state. If someone is extremely upset, angry, or depressed, we are first aware of the intensity of his emotional state. In late chapters, we will talk about crisis communication, and we will see that crisis intervention responds first to these intense emotions. Nonetheless, our ability to help the individual in crisis depends on our sensitivity to and awareness of crisis itself. Just as conflict exists within the interaction between the individual and his situation, crisis is also a product of that same interaction. The individual is in crisis; the crisis is not in the individual. He is caught up in “the crisis state.” What is the crisis state? It is nothing more or less than a limited and special instance of the conflict state. As we will see, the interaction between the individual and his total situation has become so conflicted that it has temporarily gotten out of hand. Why did the conflict get out of hand? What happened that intervention is now required? …

THE PRECIPITATING EVENT

In Figure 3, the individual has shifted from the conflict state to the crisis state. What happened? Either suddenly or gradually a new conflict within his interaction developed or an already existing conflict worsened. We will call the causes of such a crisis state the “precipitating event.” Whatever happened, an existing conflict worsened or a serious new conflict developed. We will say that the precipitating event “set off” or caused the crisis. When we are dealing with people in crisis, then, one of our first questions will be: “What happened?” Our effort here is to move gradually toward crisis reduction.

When seeking precipitating events, the tendency is to look for complex psychological or social causes. This leads to very complicated notions of cause and to considering factors, situations, conditions, and circumstances substantially removed in time from the crisis. In the social interaction model, emphasis is place on a precipitating event immediately preceding the present crisis. The individual in crisis is a complex human being; his total situation is similarly complex. Moreover, the conflict between the individual and his situation may be complex. However, the precipitating event tends to have the quality of the “straw that broke the camel’s back.” Something relatively definable brought the interaction to a crisis point.

Aaron, age twenty-two, comes in to the twenty-four-hour drop-in service at 3:30 a.m. He tells a rather confused and disconnected story, indicating that he could not sleep and had to talk to someone. His wife is five months’ pregnant and has worked at a Laundromat for two years. She is twenty-three. He has lived in this area for five years but has no close relatives or friends. Until a few months ago, she was fine. They talked about what they would name the baby and how things would be after the baby arrived. He pays her support, the rent on her apartment, doctor bills, and so on. She always wanted a baby, but she also seemed to want everything else: a new car, furniture, clothes, vacations, and so on. She has left him before. Last February, she was gone but sent him a beautiful card expressing her love and telling him how much she cared for him. They have been married for almost four years and have a beautiful house. His father-in-law does not like him and will not have anything to do with him. His mother-in-law says she is sorry but there is nothing she can do. They do everything for his brothers-in-law and their families but never seem to help him and his wife when they need help. They always tell her she’s better off without him. This hurts him,