The Therapeutic Value of Crisis

Abstract

The experience of crisis is an inevitable occurrence among persons and groups. The process of living imposes biological and social pressures which challenge old forms of adaptations and necessitate psychological changes. While the experience of personal crisis is painful, it is essential to growth and represents both a condition of vulnerability and the opportunity for rapid psychological change for better or worse. An initial attempt to formulate a psychology of crisis in terms of psychological structure and therapeutic resolutions envisages three levels of crises. (1) situational crises: significant disruptions in the adaptation of a fairly effective person because of a change in his situation; (2) crises in secondary narcissim: disequilibrium in the form or adequacy of the compromise between the ego and internal standards (superego); (3) crises in primary narcissim: weakening in the integration within the ego. Psychotherapy, like life, can be considered a succession of instigations and resolutions of crises with the goal of orienting clients to seek new and varied experiences that will enable them to change and grow.