Counseling & Mental Health

Types of crisis

What is a crisis?

A crisis is a time of intense difficulty, trouble, or danger.

Natural disaster- a natural event such as a flood, earthquake, or hurricane that causes great damage or loss of life.

Death & Dying- the action or fact of dying or being killed; the end of the life of a person or organism.

Financial crisis- A risk factor related to the family's inability to provide sufficient financial resources to meet minimum needs

Stand up if…?

Stand up if you or anyone you know have been through a natural disaster.

Keep standing of they lost their home.

Now stand up if you have lost a family member.

Stand up if you’ve lost a friend.

Stand up if you or someone you know have gone through a financial crisis.

Natural disasters

Give yourself time to adjust. Anticipate that this will be a difficult time in your life. Allow yourself to mourn the losses you have experienced. Try to be patient with changes in your emotional state.

Ask for support from people who care about you and who will listen and empathize with your situation. But keep in mind that your typical support system may be weakened if those who are close to you also have experienced or witnessed the trauma.

Communicate your experience. In whatever ways feel comfortable to you, such as by talking with family or close friends, or keeping a diary.

Find out about local support groups that often are available such as for those who have suffered from natural disasters. These can be especially helpful for people with limited personal support systems. Try to find groups led by appropriately trained and experienced professionals such as psychologists. Group discussion can help people realize that other individuals in the same circumstances often have similar reactions and emotions.

Engage in healthy behaviors to enhance your ability to cope with excessive stress. Eat well-balanced meals and get plenty of rest. If you experience ongoing difficulties with sleep, you may be able to find some relief through relaxation techniques. Avoid alcohol and drugs because they can suppress your feelings rather than help you to manage and lessen your distress. In addition, alcohol and drugs may intensify your emotional or physical pain.

Establish or reestablish routines such as eating meals at regular times and following an exercise program. This can be especially important when the normal routines of daily life are disrupted. Even if you are in a shelter and unable to return home, establish routines that can bring comfort. Take some time off from the demands of daily life by pursuing hobbies or other enjoyable activities.

Help those you can. Helping others, even during your own time of distress, can give you a sense of control and can make you feel better if pabout yourself.

Avoid major life decisions such as switching careers or jobs possible. These activities tend to be highly stressful

Death

Share your feelings. Your other family members may be experiencing the same emotions you are. Mutual support can help everyone get though the grieving process.

Take advantage of coping programs, if available. Experienced counselors can offer support and structure to help individuals and groups come to terms with a loss and make appropriate plans for memorials and gestures of condolences to family members.

Plan ahead. If you are in charge, work with your family members death, Issues to consider include sharing information, handling personal effects, allowing time off for funerals

If you continue to feel overwhelmed, consult with a psychologist or other licensed mental health professional who can help you learn how to manage your grief more effectively. He or she can help you identify problem areas and then develop an action plan for changing them. Practicing psychologists use a variety of evidence-based treatments — most commonly therapy — to help people improve their lives.

Financial Crisis

Identify your stress points. Maybe it’s the threat of a job loss, or the realization that you need to get more serious about saving for retirement, or perhaps you are dealing with a troublesome credit card balance. Write down your three biggest financial stress points. Keeping the list short will help to ward off feeling overwhelmed.

Give it a positive spin. Your mindset is what will help fix your finances and keep you motivated to change. Rather than lament that you have too much debt, imagine how much better your life would be with less. Then make your vow: "Each month I will spend less and pay enough so my balance declines by at least $100."

Focus on small, sustainable steps. Determine what you can reasonably achieve and then dedicate yourself to following through each and every month. Just as crash diets and insane workout routines typically lead to burnout, you don’t want to set overly ambitious financial goals that you will abandon in a few weeks or months.

Make the most of your income. A common speed bump toward reducing financial stress is the belief that you simply don’t have enough money to put toward your goals. A spending calculator is a great tool for seeing how much money you can save by making small changes to your budget. If you’re motivated to take a more detailed accounting, try the envelope system.

Again, small steps are key. You may not be able to cut any one expense by $500, but you may be able to identify five monthly expenditures you could reduce by $100. Forgive yourself if you slip up. Sticking to a budget is not always easy, and there may be days when your resolve falters. When that happens, remind yourself of how much you have to gain in reaching your goals. Then examine your spending patterns to see why you overspent. You may need to modify your budget or your behavior—if you can’t go into sporting supply stores without buying something, then stop visiting them.

Make it a group project. Every hard task becomes easier with the support of friends and family, so share your goals. Leaning on your relationships can also help keep you on track. There’s no better stress reducer than spending quality time with loved ones.

6 steps to the family life cycle

the young unattached adult;

the newly married couple;

the family with young children;

the family at midlife: adolescents and aging parents;

the stage of launching children and moving on; and

the family in later life.

The newly married couple tends to have a high level of certain family strengths, including self-disclosure, loyalty, trust, and respect. One of the couple’s important tasks is forming its own marital system. In doing so, spouses have to follow or reject the models of their parents. In setting up their marital system, they must deal with the issue of closeness versus fusion, striving to build intimacy while retaining their individual identities.

The couple with young children faces the challenge of taking on the roles of mother and father as well as husband and wife and of enlarging the family system to include other people.

The family at midlife faces multiple challenges: the care of aging parents who become ill, disabled, or frail; illness or death of one of the spouses; allowing the children to form their own independent identities and establish a wider range of intimate relationships; and midlife concerns with regard to the marriage and the spouses’ careers. Adolescents are undergoing important physical, intellectual, and social definitional changes that lead to new expectations about responsibilities. They need increasing autonomy and independence, which can result in conflict with the parents. Communication, discipline problems, and financial struggles are common. Adolescents themselves see most of their stress arising from daily hassles with parents.

The midlife couple may be further stressed by personal concerns, including their own aging. They begin to change the way that they view life, thinking in terms of how much time is left and how many doors of opportunities are closed. Levinson and his associates have identified four fundamental concerns of men at midlife: mortality, destructive and creative possibilities, balancing masculine versus feminine qualities, and coming to terms with attachment to and separation from the social environment. Women usually reach the midlife crisis point earlier than men and may begin to focus more attention on their own needs and growth.

In the launching and empty-nest stage, the couple must deal with the children moving out. They must come to terms again with their marital relationship and its future. Women are more likely than men to find the empty nest painful because they tend to invest themselves more in the child-rearing process. But the majority of people report the empty nest as a time of increased marital satisfaction and renewed family strength.

Grandparenthood is likely to occur in the fifth stage. There are different kinds of grandparents, including the formal, the fun seeker, the surrogate parent, the reservoir of family wisdom, and the distant figure. Grandchildren perceive their grandparents to play a variety of roles, including the historian, the mentor, the role model, the wizard, and the nurturer/great parent. The grandparent-grandchild relationship can be highly gratifying for both generations.

Couples in the sixth stage tend to be martially rather than parentally oriented. The marriage is likely to become more egalitarian. The couple may continue to have an active and meaningful sex life. And marital satisfaction is likely to be at its highest point since the couple’s early years together. Family relationships are still important. Contact with children tends to be frequent.

Apa.org

https://www.bankofamerica.com/onlinebanking/education/how-to-overcome-financial-problems.go

http://highered.mheducation.com/sites/0072487747/student_view0/chapter15/index.html