How to Help During a Crisis

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There's a time when everyone needs to talk problems out with others to resolve some of life's crises. It's often a frustrating feeling trying to help someone close to you when they are temporarily upset or disoriented following a change or loss in their lives. Sometimes a troubled person just needs a friendly arm for support and words of encouragement. Taking the time for a long talk can really help. Be warm, concerned, and have time available for that person.

Helping a person in crisis learn to accept help is often important. Persisting in the fantasy that everything is all right and trying to brush off all offers of help doesn't help find solutions. The person who acknowledges the problem, actively looks for help, then gratefully accepts it, is on the way to a healthy solution.

Offer assistance with daily tasks to the person in trouble. Offering to babysit for a few hours or taking dinner to a neighbor who is ill might be some of the helping responses.

Discussing one's troubles can have a double valuable effect: in addition to being a method of expressing emotions, it can often help a person get rid of the effects of emotions. Help them to speak of unspoken fears, to grieve, and even to cry.

But don't give a troubled person false reassurance. The everything-will-be-all-right, Pollyanna approach is not really helpful to a person in trouble. It is a put-down, treating the person as a child, making him or her weaker rather than stronger. Everything may not be all right. Lend a shoulder as an equal rather than as a reassuring parent. This provides a more important type of reassurance--that you have faith in their ability to handle the crisis.

Encourage the person to focus on the practical future not the past. Bemoaning misfortunes does not help to build a better future. Try helping them with a plan of action for the future. Help friends find their coping resources: spiritual, interpersonal, inner.

Encourage sensible health habits to meet stressful situations. Being hungry or over-tired is likely to add to bodily and emotional upset. Perhaps that's why it's often easier to hear bad news or confront new problems early in the day than toward night.

Know your own limitations in assisting. Serious problems need professional and experienced help. Individual or family counseling might be that help. Group help from mutual-help groups or AA meets the needs of many. The community may have other resources.

Most human problems, however, don't need this kind of assistance. A wise, warm, kindhearted spouse, parent or friend can do much to ease the emotional distress that comes with the inevitable worries, disappointments, and conflicts inherent in life.

Source: Nebraska Cooperative Extension Service, September 1985.

Sue Meyers
University of Minnesota Extension Service

Orginally published in November 1985

College of Human Ecology in cooperation with the University of Minnesota Extension Service

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