Crisis Intervention With Couples and Families

Crisis intervention is an urgent, brief, and intense level of treatment conducted in the event of a crisis to stabilize the situation, alleviate stress, improve coping and adaptive skills, and restore the individual or family’s homeostasis. Crisis intervention with couples and families focuses on the unit and not just a single individual. Couples, marriages, and families are unique units bonded by kinship, love, values, and/or shared experiences. Thus, a crisis or traumatic event that affects any member of the unit will likely affect the other family members but not always in the same way. Specifically, a crisis is a stressful life event that becomes overwhelmingly unbearable and impairs a person’s ability to cope effectively with the traumatic event or experience. The stress caused by a ...