Psychoanalysis Crisis Intervention Techniques 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: In Caplan's crisis theory, what distinguishes a crisis from ordinary stress?
- The individual's usual coping mechanisms are overwhelmed (Correct answer)
- The stressor is always external and environmental
- The crisis lasts more than six months
- The individual has no awareness of the problem
Correct answer: The individual's usual coping mechanisms are overwhelmed
Caplan defined a crisis as a period when habitual problem-solving methods fail and emotional tension rises sharply.
Question 2: The Roberts Seven-Stage Crisis Intervention Model begins with which step?
- Establish rapport
- Assess lethality and safety (Correct answer)
- Explore feelings and emotions
- Plan a follow-up
Correct answer: Assess lethality and safety
Roberts' model opens with a biopsychosocial and lethality assessment to determine immediate safety needs.
Question 3: Which psychoanalytic concept explains why a crisis can trigger regression to earlier developmental conflicts?
- Sublimation
- Fixation at earlier libidinal stages (Correct answer)
- Reaction formation
- Intellectualization
Correct answer: Fixation at earlier libidinal stages
When ego resources are depleted, individuals may regress to fixation points where libidinal energy was arrested during development.
Question 4: Active listening in crisis intervention primarily serves to:
- Collect diagnostic data for a formal assessment
- Communicate empathy and reduce the client's isolation (Correct answer)
- Challenge irrational beliefs immediately
- Redirect the client toward problem-solving tasks
Correct answer: Communicate empathy and reduce the client's isolation
Active listening validates the person's experience and builds the therapeutic alliance needed for further intervention.
Question 5: A psychoanalytically oriented crisis counselor notices the client idealizes them immediately. This most likely reflects:
- Healthy transference that should be maintained
- Projective identification of the client's aggression
- Idealization transference arising from heightened dependency needs during crisis (Correct answer)
- A sign the client does not actually need intervention
Correct answer: Idealization transference arising from heightened dependency needs during crisis
Crisis states increase dependency and regression, making idealization transference more likely as the client seeks an omnipotent rescuer.
Question 6: When a crisis counselor uses cognitive restructuring, they are working to:
- Uncover repressed childhood memories
- Help the client reframe distorted appraisals of the precipitating event (Correct answer)
- Prescribe medication for acute anxiety
- Deepen the transference relationship
Correct answer: Help the client reframe distorted appraisals of the precipitating event
Cognitive restructuring challenges maladaptive appraisals that maintain the sense of catastrophe and helplessness.
Question 7: The concept of 'psychological equilibrium' in crisis theory refers to:
- A permanent state of mental health
- The dynamic balance disrupted by a crisis and restored through resolution (Correct answer)
- Suppression of all emotional reactions
- Pharmacological stabilization of mood
Correct answer: The dynamic balance disrupted by a crisis and restored through resolution
Crisis theory views psychological equilibrium as a homeostatic balance that crises disrupt and effective intervention restores.
Psychoanalysis Crisis Intervention Techniques 2
In Caplan's crisis theory, what distinguishes a crisis from ordinary stress?