Crisis Intervention

Abstract

In palliative care, regardless of the setting, it is common for clinicians to encounter patients and families during times of heightened stress or crisis, when normal coping mechanisms may be compromised in the context of serious illness. Crisis intervention (CI) skills are critical to the palliative care clinician, and palliative care social workers are poised to implement them in order to support strengths, enhance resilience, and mitigate trauma. This chapter reviews the history of CI, the uniqueness of precipitating events that occur in palliative care settings, and the literature related to crisis situations in palliative care. It examines whether common CI models are well-suited for palliative care settings as well as ways in which best practice palliative care approaches may differ from existing CI models, highlighting areas for future inquiry.