General Overview

This presentation delivers practical and pragmatic information that will be useful to a wide variety of service providers who encounter clients in crisis. The emphasis is on the development of fundamental clinical skills in the area of crisis intervention, and the curriculum will be relevant to such practitioners as physicians, service providers and students in the counseling, mental health and corrections fields, nurses, clergy, police officers, individuals employed in social service occupations, guidance counselors and special services providers in the educational system, and others who encounter clients in crisis.

Curriculum

Supplemented Through Presentation of More Than 100 Graphics

Crisis Intervention Theory

• Emotional Homeostasis
• Components of a Crisis
• Five Characteristics of a Crisis
  

Emergency Assessment

• Approaching the Assessment: 10 General Guidelines
• The Assessment Protocol: Relevant Information:Eight Sections
  

Depression

• Psychological Signs of Depression
• Vegetative Signs of Depression
• Three General Considerations Pertaining to Depression
  

Suicide and Suicide Risk Assessment

• Statistics
• Increasing Risk: Recent Trends: Three Groups
• Seven Demographic Variables of Relevance to Suicide Risk
• The Importance of Suicidal History in Determining Risk
• Dynamics of Suicide: Four Considerations
• Eight Clinical Predictors of Suicide Risk
• The Importance of Ambivalence in Intervening with Suicidal Clients
  

Psychosis

• Impaired Reality Testing
• The Quality of Psychotic Phenomena: Four Considerations
• Intervening with Psychotic Clients: Four Considerations
  

Anxiety Disorders

• Emotional / Physiological and Cognitive Components of Anxiety
• Cyclical Nature of Anxiety Reactions
• Two Key Diagnostic Questions
• Four Specific Anxiety Disorders
• Two Important Clinical Perspectives Relating to Anxiety
  

Approaches to Crisis Counselling

• Goal of Crisis Counselling
• Crisis Counselling Conducted Through a Seven Question Process (Illustrated with...a Concrete Example)
  

Intervening with the Crisis Prone Person

• Clinical – Demographic Profile: Three Considerations
• Clinical Considerations in Working with the Crisis Prone Person: Four Parameters
  

Hospitalization and Involuntary Psychiatric Admission

• Four Negative Aspects of Psychiatric Hospitalization
• Basis for Decision to Admit a Client to Hospital
• Three Clinical Circumstances Suggesting Admission
• General Parameters Relating to Involuntary Psychiatric Admission
  

Conclusions

• Three General Clinical Considerations