Perhaps one of the gravest errors an individual can make in their dealings with life is to assume, even for a moment, that they are alone in facing their problems and that no one else understands what they are going through. Life is full of challenges and difficulties, and it is with the support and encouragement of others that an individual is able to make it through and continue to lead a healthy and happy life. This is especially true when the individual encounters the particular life problems that could be considered crises and requires a crisis intervention.
About Crisis Interventions
Crisis interventions are specific medical, psychological and sociological procedures that are used to assist an individual who has encountered severe physical, emotional, mental or behavioral distress. The purpose of a crisis intervention is to immediately address the individual’s distress by giving them the tools they need in order to cope. Most individuals would readily agree that when they encounter a particularly distressing situation they lose their basic ability to deal with and solve problems, which is why they require assistance from others.
The counseling provided during a crisis intervention is of short duration, usually lasting no longer than three months as it helps the individual to work out specific events that they find to be overwhelming. With quick address, these situations can be resolved before they escalate and create more serious mental or emotional problems later on. Some examples of the overwhelming situations an individual could encounter that would require crisis intervention include losing a loved one or ruining one’s life through drug use.
How Crisis Intervention Can Help With Drug Abuse and Addiction Problems
Some drug abusers and addicts are well aware of the fact that their drug use is causing problems in their own and others’ lives, and that they need help for these problems. In cases where they refuse to receive help for their drug problems, where they simply cannot see the damaging effects of their drug use, or where they are encountering serious issues such as relationship problems, medical emergencies or legal crises as a result of their drug use, a crisis intervention can be immensely valuable. As opposed to a typical intervention where family members and friends speak with their loved one in an effort to persuade them into receiving rehabilitation treatment services, a crisis intervention is normally performed by a qualified specialist who aims to highlight the many specific consequences that the individual’s drug abuse or addiction has had on self and others around him.
Obviously because of its nature and short duration, a crisis intervention itself cannot bring about for the individual a full recovery from drug abuse or addiction. It is possible that a crisis intervention that occurs near the beginning of an individual’s drug abuse patterns can be effective in convincing the individual of the dangerousness of their actions and that they need to put an end to their drug use. At later stages of drug abuse and addiction, however, crisis intervention essentially opens the door for the individual to recognize that treatment is necessary and available to them. They will then have to move forward in order to receive this treatment.
A crisis intervention normally consists of educating the individual so they understand they can face and handle a crisis using various tools, helping the individual to see that their own decisions and actions have contributed to the crisis they find themselves in, assisting them in realizing that they have the power to take back control of their life and make decisions that will get them through the crisis, helping them to understand the root causes for their crisis, assisting them in designing a new lifestyle that will aid them in moving through this crisis and preventing future ones, forcing them to examine their thoughts and actions in order to better determine when they are making good choices, freeing them from harmful habits that allow them to “avoid” difficult past and present situations, allowing them to create strong bonds between others who can support them, and giving them the strength they need to overcome the difficulties they are facing.
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