CRISIS INTERVENTION: THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL

This paper is a theoretical and methodological dissertation on the concept of crisis intervention as an instrument of primary prevention; appropriate current literature is reviewed. The concepts of crisis are discussed briefly, and a concept emphasizing the intrapsychic state of the individual is proposed. The relevance of crisis with its period of disturbed functioning and its potential immediate and long-term sequelae for mental and physical health and social adaptation is reviewed. The concepts of crisis intervention are explored and dealt with. Each is looked at from the aspects of epidemiologically established basis, forms of intervention, both actual and hypothesized, and methodology of evaluation of effectiveness. Crisis and crisis intervention are terms which have taken on an aura of magic since the onset of the Third Psychiatric Revolution- community psychiatry- magic in terms of the promised value and rewards, and magic replacing scientific methodology in the assess-ment of their worth. It is the aim of this paper to clarify some of the issues propounded in the literature, to propose a theoretical model for crisis inter-vention, and to outline some of the metho-dological problems of cvaluation. Probably the earliest concepts of crisis are those proposed by sociologists such as Thomas who in 1909 stated that crisis was a “threat, a challenge, a strain on the attention, a call to new action-and may have the germ of a new type of organisation”. Later came Lindemann’s ( 1944) work on bereavement, Erikson’s ( 1959) delineation of developmental and accidental crisis, and Caplan’s ( 1 964) ex-position of the role of crisis in primary pre