Opportunity. Challenge. Developing a sense of humor. Being interesting. Creativity is a muscle that needs exercise. How much longer before I reach goal?...
While preparing for graduate school in the Fall (U of Memphis, counseling) I stepped up the development speed for a knowledge base, a library of information, about the field of emergency behavioral health. This project may be a gateway into a future career. One of the first questions I've had to struggle with is how to define the topic and the structures that will give the project it's shape.
The topic stretches into acute versus chronic treatments, victims of war and natural disaster, threats to individuals, families, organizations of all sizes. It is pretty clear that national economic crises are outside the scope, but what about the family struggling with developmental transitions? Should this be just about acute interventions and how to do them or should it include the all four phases from training and planning before the crisis through the post-vention and recovery phase?
Well, it should include "everything" that can be connected from a base definition. That much is clear. My personality would not let me do anything less.
There is the consideration of "crisis" vs "emergency" and the level of risk to health or property. But what is this thing, this construct, that so many people hang their hats on? Let's follow Flannery and Everly (2000) and start with the idea of psychological crisis.
A psychological crisis happens when a person or family is overwhelmed by some one, or series of multiple, stressful events that throw the person/family out of balance to the point that they cannot recover without assistance. Flannery and Everly refer to this phenomonon as the "crisis response" to the "critical incident" stressor.
This whole field is based on planning for, mitigating, responding to, and recovering from critical incidents. And, defining who, what, when, where, why and how crises happen. This blog will track rabbits and map the trails.
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