Case Study: Analyzing Crisis Intervention and Solution Focus Theories

This case study analyzes Melody's attempted suicide through an overdose of co-codamol, examining the application of crisis intervention theory and solution-focused therapy. The report explores the principles, advantages, and disadvantages of each theory, focusing on their relevance to Melody's situation. Crisis intervention theory emphasizes short-term psychological care and immediate support to mitigate trauma, while solution-focused therapy concentrates on present and potential circumstances, helping individuals identify solutions and build on their strengths. The study evaluates how both theories can be utilized to address Melody's mental health challenges, considering her history of self-harm, family dynamics, and social issues, offering insights into effective healthcare interventions and the importance of a supportive environment.

Case study
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................................3
Crisis intervention theory.................................................................................................................3
Solution focus theory.......................................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION....................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES.....................................................................................................................................9
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INTRODUCTION
Health and social care sector aims at delivering the best quality of treatment facilities and
vaccination to the public in order to improve their life expectancy and ensure long-lasting living. In
the present report, Melody has attempted a suicide by taking overdose of the co-codamol tablets.
Thus, the report critically evaluate the application of two of the popular theories of social care that
are crisis intervention theory and solution focus theory. The report will analyse and examine both
the theories along with their benefits and shortcomings to resolve the health care issues facing by
Melody and strengthen their life expectancy and bring improvement in their health situation.
Crisis intervention theory
Crisis Intervention is short term psychological care that asses individual crisis situation,
psychological condition and accordingly medical professionals provide them treatment in order to
minimize long term psychological trauma of the patients. This concept explains that people take
unnecessary stress in their life and due to this, their mental condition get affected. In such situation
it is necessary to provide emergency and temporary care to service users so that health of the
patients can get improved soon (Aronowitz, 2016).
Crisis intervention theory is the successful application of crises intervention protocols that
suggests individuals in facing challenges and do not get stress in complex situations. Protocols help
victim in improving their mental condition so that they grow in their life. It is very important that
parents and medical professional have an eye on the suffered persons so that individual do not feel
alone and face the situation with courage. In the initial phase person who is suffering from the
crisis, individual needs to be properly examined. After that its crisis situation needs to be explore so
that in depth information about critical condition which has increased stress level of the patients can
be examined. After that medical professionals need to listen them and try to develop understanding
about type of person. After that they have to work on providing effective treatment to them so that
they feel secure and do not commit any crime in the future (Five Principles of Crisis Intervention:
Reducing the Risk of Premature Crisis Intervention, 2000).
There are several principals of this theory:
 Mobilization of crisis intervention team to understand the critical incident and level of stress
of individuals
 Closely monitor signs and symptoms of psychological condition of the patients.
 It is very important to understand needs of individual. It is more essential to understand the
type of individual rather than critical incident.
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 Treatment must be given by proper scheduling. It is based upon the readiness of the person
(James and Gilliland, 2012).
Advantages
 It is the great concept that assists to address psychological condition such as depression,
anxiety, fear of patients. By this way medical professionals and counselor treat them
accordingly so that users can manage their stress level.
 It prevents people from over load and helps in health promotion. It deliberately helps in
avoiding in long- term matter and concentrate on present situation. By this way practitioner
make people more self-reliant and less dependent on external resources (France, 2015).
 Crises intervention theory assists in observing the patients whether individual is medically
stable or not. It is essential that suffered person feel safe and secure. Crisis intervention
theory gives knowledge to professionals so that they monitor the patients and make them
feel more secure (Kanel, 2014).
 This theory is very effective, it emphases on ventilation and validation. It guides counselors
that they have to listen properly the story of individual in order to understand their crisis
situation. It teaches about non-judgmental listening so that person can express their feeling
easily.
 Crisis management theory suggests that medical professional have to continuous monitor the
patients so that they do not commit any wrong activity again. It is the way through which
medical situation of the individual can be improved (Ginnis and et.al., 2015).
According to given case scenario, it is analysed that Melody used to become popular girl
and wanted to be center of attraction in school also for society. Further, by bullying with other girls
in her class, she tried to overdose co-colloidal tablets which is harmful for health and in this case
she got suspended from school. It was looked like she broke up the promise and her friends broke
up friendship with her. Moreover, school teachers wanted to hidden the incident happened but it
disclosed through Val reports that she wanted to cut herself at first and further tried to get suicide.
However, for rescuing from this kind of cases, social care theory is applied that is helpful for this
getting safe from this stuff. In this regard, the theory has several advantages such as focuses on
reducing suffering for individual who is experiencing with serious life events. Including this, theory
is related to beloved and increasing self-esteem for need prioritization. It is useful for social care
and welfare of society related to taking care of adolescent children. However, theory is linked with
finding these kinds of cases and further rescue from these life events (Hepworth and et.al., 2016). It
is required for special care to this kind of children who getting through serious life events. In
addition to this, according to case study, it is liability of Melody's parents and school teachers to
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take care of children and their friends group. It is necessary for concentrating on each and every
individual behavior that is interlinked with socialism and cultural factors. Therefore, society get
aware with getting knowledge of these kinds of scene which is needed be decreased. Along with
this, they learn more related to taking care of children and providing them protection by
encouraging them as well showing affection towards them. In accordance to this theory, several
techniques are obtains for taking care of children creating effective environment for them.
By evaluation on crises intervention theory, negative aspects are also presented that occurs
different issues for social care of adolescent aged children. In this regard, it is difficult to aware
entire society related to these kinds of scene. However, feeling inferior regarding come to their
dreams is unable to total control over children's misbehave. Including this, teachers' irresponsibility
and friends' group behavior emerges different kinds of feelings within individual. Moreover, it is
difficult to concentrate on each and every individual student of the school and their group.
Therefore, family negligence and avoidance related to children's wishes impacts on socialism
(Ginnis and et.al., 2015). Along with this, in modern era, all students who belongs to adolescent age
want to get fame and a large number of group who loves them. In case of Melody, same thing is
happened with her in school group and family avoidance. Therefore, it is required for creating that
kind of effective environment for all children by which they feel confident and emerges positive
feelings to be loved. In this regard, according to Melody case, society's awareness and taking care
of their children is needed.
Solution focus theory
Solution focused therapy pays focus to the present and potential circumstances of an
individual. As its name implies, the theory focuses on finding out the solution of people’s problems
that people are experiencing. In the social care sector, health professional use this theory as a
technique to manage negative symptoms and cope up with the challenging conditions. The therapy
assumes that people are very well aware about their changing requirement in their lives therefore,
the healthcare practitioners provide them required assistance to clarify their targets and work
collaboratively to attain such goals. It focuses upon maximizing internal abilities of a person so as
to gain the desired outcome (Lutz, 2016). In the healthcare sector, SFBT practitioners use this
technique as a problem solving mechanism to help the people and thereby improve their social
working practice. Thus, the most important benefit of this theory is that it is a solution building
theory which pays attention to the methods that can solve the individual problems and difficulties in
an effective manner. Although it is a time limited method still has a long-term and long-lasting
impact on the individual’s life.
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The theory follows several assumptions such as constant & certain change, availability of
resources to overcome the problems, short-term therapy and long-term impact etc. Under this
theory, health and social care practitioners do not analyse the individual’s weaknesses by
concentrating their attention to the strength to help them to solve problems and move forward. This
solution building concept aims at fostering change in an individual and assist people to develop
realistic goals (Solution focused brief therapy, 2012). As per the theory, SFBT practitioners &
therapists identify the actual feelings of the individual by asking them various questions which
encourage the people to stop negative thinking. In this, they also encourage the people through their
best life experiences in the past when they felt really extremely happy. It believes that thoughts are
the best predictors of individual’s happiness and pays attention to the present problems and future
period’s concerns.
There are various techniques used in the SFBT approach such as asking miracle questions
from the people to discover what is happening with them and what they are feeling currently. With
the stated case study, Melody is a teenager girl who lives with her mother and attempted to suicide
by overdosing consumption of co-codamol tablets. In this, repeated incidents of self-harm has
negatively affected her and as a result, school authority has suspended her for her undisciplined
behaviour i.e. climbing on CCTV, smoking and larking (mischievous) acts. In the case, suicide and
self-harm are the two most challenged conditions and problems that encourage counsellors and
therapists to apply solution focused theory by treating Melody collaboratively and creatively. SFBT
approach can be applied as a technique of suicide prevention (McClennen, Keys and Day, 2016).
Melody’s mother, Val has reported that Melody first cut herself when she decided to live
apart from her father, Peter before 5 years. During the time, she was uncommunicative for a very
lengthy time duration and even when she talk, it often escalates into the arguments. She was not
happy with her mom’s decisions to ending relationship with her father, Peter, however, Val has
decided to live apart from him because he was having an affair. Many-times, especially on the
occasion, Melody missed her father a lot and wish to live with him. In the stated case, although,
Melody lived with her father for a short period of 6 weeks and then came back to her mother’s flat.
Thus, in the stated situation, health care experts can utilize the Solution focused therapy by asking
different questions i.e. miracle, scaling, coping and others from the Melody to examine her current
mental status, feeling, opinion, thoughts and behaviour (Pichot and Dolan, 2014). In the case, it is
clearly mentioned that Melody did not talked for a lengthy period, in such situation, this therapy
looks really beneficial to find out the reasons behind such behaviour through applying cognitive
therapy. Here, with this, practitioners can sort out her problems of depression and anxiety and stop
negative thinking to improve her mental status. With the help of this, health care providers can
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examine her relationship with her parents and examine her behaviour, thoughts and feelings.
Psychology professionals can use the techniques as a cognitive behavioural therapy focusing on
strength of Melody’s strength. They can work as a coach for he and guide and assist them to change
her behaviour and come out from the depressed conditions.
In the case, Melody’s father, peter reckoned differently as he said that Melody was just an
attention seeking girl who wants other’s attention. This is the only reason why she attempted to
suicide, so that, she can gain attention of the people. Similarly, one of the worker of Child and
Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) said that Melody wants to become a popular and
famous girl by seeking lots of attention from her peers on the social networking sites. She spent a
long hours on her on-line world by saying that on web, she feels more controlled in comparison to
the offline social situations. She also like to see people online and also upload her own picture and
waits for the comments on the same to receive more likes than the last one picture uploaded.
Analysing the conditions, it is better to implement SFBT approach because it is beneficial for the
people who has modern lifestyle (Murphy, 2015). Moreover, looking to the case, it is founded that
communication difficulties, stressful conditions, depressed mind, behavioural issues, smoking,
eating disorders are the factors which encourage the social care providers to use this therapy to find
out the life changing requirement of the people like beginning and ending of the relationship.
Although the theory is founded better for the case stated still, it has several downfall sides
and disadvantages. It is not considered good for the regularly scheduled workers and needs creative
skills and capability to deal with the clients successfully. Moreover, practitioners can never argue
with the Melody and has to listen carefully and seriously what she said and what does she mean by
the same. Further, one of the most important criticism of the theory is that its goal-oriented nature
sometimes does not allow therapists to take excessive time to find out the actual feelings of the
individual (Payne, 2015). Another concern that the theory raise is that SFBT do not consider the
other treatment modalities. For instance, it totally avoids the relationship between the issues what
people face and their changing requirement. Moreover, it does not explore the reasons behind
thoughts, feelings and experiences of the Melody which is a disadvantage of it. Apart from this, it
may be possible that Melody do not want to seek the therapy which cause difficulties for the
practitioners to resolve the problems and issues of the clients (O’Connell, 2007). Thus, it becomes
clear that though there are various benefits of the theory still sometimes, it may be difficult for the
practitioner to effective apply the theory to overcome hurdles and difficulties that an individual
faced.
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CONCLUSION
Aforementioned report concluded that crisis intervention theory provides benefits to
overcome depression, anxiety, promoting health of the individual. However, on the other side, it has
several drawbacks also such as it can leads to cause negative impacts for the adolescent aged
children. Further, negligence, avoidance and departure decisions negatively affects the Melody’s
mental conditions, as a result, she had attempted suicide. Besides this, the application of solution
based theory identified that psychology practitioners can adopt it as a goal-oriented and solution-
driving approach to overcome the Melody’s stressful mental conditions and depression and bring
change into her life to move forward.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Aronowitz, S., 2016. The crisis in historical materialism: Class, politics and culture in Marxist
theory. Springer.
France, K., 2015. Crisis intervention: A handbook of immediate person-to-person help. Charles C
Thomas Publisher.
Ginnis, K.B. and et.al., 2015. Family-based crisis intervention in the emergency department: a new
model of care. Journal of Child and Family Studies. 24(1). pp.172-179.
Hepworth, D.H. and et.al., 2016. Empowerment Series: Direct Social Work Practice: Theory and
Skills. Nelson Education. 12(3). pp.16-39.
James, R. and Gilliland, B., 2012. Crisis intervention strategies. Nelson Education.
Kanel, K., 2014. A guide to crisis intervention. Cengage Learning.
Lutz, A.B., 2016. Creating Hope and Possibilities: Solution-Focused Approaches for Treating
Multi-Stressed Families. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent
Psychiatry. 55(10). pp.S358.
McClennen, J., Keys, A.M. and Day, M., 2016. Social work and family violence: Theories,
assessment, and intervention. Springer Publishing Company.
Murphy, J.J., 2015. Solution-focused counseling in schools. John Wiley & Sons.
O’Connell, B., 2007. Solution-focused therapy. Dryden’s handbook of individual therapy.
Payne, M., 2015. Modern social work theory. Oxford University Press.
Pichot, T. and Dolan, Y.M., 2014. Solution-focused brief therapy: Its effective use in agency
settings. Routledge.
Online
Five Principles of Crisis Intervention: Reducing the Risk of Premature Crisis Intervention. 2000.
[Online] Available through: <http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?
q=cache:PyRBlGIeFcIJ:www.ncccism.com/upload/Five%2520Principles%2520of
%2520Crisis%2520Intervention.pdf+&cd=14&hl=en&ct=clnuk>. [Accessed on 21st April
2017].
Solution focused brief therapy. 2012. [Online]. Available through: <
http://www.goodtherapy.org/learn-about-therapy/types/solution-focused-therapy>.
[Accessed on 21st April 2017].
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