Brief Crisis Counseling
Psychotherapy is for healing a disorder or learning to think, feel, and behave in more satisfying ways.
Crisis Counseling has a different, simpler purpose: to help mobilize a person’s internal and external resources to manage a current life crisis. Crises are disruptive to people’s coping abilities and confidence in themselves. Crisis counseling is a brief intervention, usually two to six weeks, with a goal of helping a person restore his or her psychological stability, restore his or her safety, and help find resources to meet immediate needs in the crisis. It focuses on coping skills, exploring alternative solutions to immediate problems, and promoting an experience of mastery and control, so that the person has the ability and the psychological strength to solve the problems that have arisen. Crisis counseling often involves increasing skills for anxiety management, but its main aim is to restore a person’s confidence and level of functioning as they were before the crisis occurred. Today, when so many are facing illness, job loss, and new family demands in the face of Covid-19, brief crisis counseling can be a significant and financially viable source of support.