Crisis Intervention Techniques & Examples

Crisis intervention is a short-term therapeutic approach to help clients deal with emergency or traumatic situations. Usually, these emergencies are mental health-related and involve taking steps to assist at the moment, bring the client to safety, reassess current needs and plan for future treatment.

Crisis intervention techniques can support individuals through their hard times and therapy is a great place to begin to learn these techniques. Many crisis hotlines are trained with staff who can de-escalate situations when crises occur and there is a rise in the number of mental health providers working with the police and emergency response personnel (Koziarski, O’Connor, & Frederick, 2021).

Crisis Intervention Techniques and Examples

Some of the most common crisis intervention techniques include:

1. Active listening: The therapist fully engages with the individual in crisis to understand what they are experiencing and respond in appropriate validating and safe ways to build trust and safety.

For example, Jennifer is a client in crisis in a therapy session with her therapist Sarah. Jennifer is having anxiety and a panic attack around feeling safe after a major fight with her ex-husband. She is fearful he may retaliate. Sarah shows active listening by leaning in towards Jennifer and maintaining eye contact. Sarah also demonstrates listening by mirroring Jennifer’s affect.

2. Safety planning: The therapist uses solution-focused approaches to help individuals in crisis come up with a safety plan that is realistic, attainable and safe for them to set out to do.

For example, Jennifer is discussing her fears around safety at her home since her ex-husband knows where she lives and Sarah is listening and taking notes on her fears and asking probing questions to help Jennifer access her support system and resources. Sarah reminds Jennifer of her friends and her brother who live nearby, who may be available to come over or have her stay with them. She also reminded Jennifer that she can work remotely and has the option to go elsewhere for a little bit to make additional plans and can continue therapy virtually if needed. These tactics are realistic options for Jennifer and she begins to make a list of the people and things she needs to ensure she is safe.

3. Mental health first aid: The therapist uses mindfulness and compassion-based approaches to help individuals in crisis feel supported and less alone to reduce the immediate feeling of threat.

For example, Jennifer is expressing a lot of doubt and fear and Sarah is listening without judgment and helping her to feel supported by validating Jennifer’s feelings and ideas for her own wellbeing. Sarah is reminding her that her emotions right now are big but temporary and there are ways to feel safer and that Sarah will be there to help support her and craft a plan together.

4. Grounding techniques: The therapist can use breathing exercises such as box breathing, and mindfulness to help them regain a sense of stability.

For example, Sarah is helping Jennifer stay calm as she recounts her fears by using box breathing when Jennifer starts to hyperventilate. She uses a gentle hand touch to help her co-regulate as she is in crisis. Jennifer is receptive to this and Sarah helps her identify ways to regulate when there isn’t another person around to co-regulate with. She helps Jennifer learn how to place her hands on her stomach and chest and feel her breathing.

5. Crisis hotlines: The counselor on the phone can use verbal cognitive behavioral therapy techniques to help individuals reframe their thoughts so their actions can be safer moving forward.

For example, if Jennifer was experiencing this crisis in a remote setting, the crisis hotline counselor, Sarah, would help Jennifer remember that where she is right now is a safe location by confirming that upon answering the phone. Sarah would help Jennifer redirect the intrusive thoughts and help her make conscious decisions, not decisions out of a reaction.

6. Developing a support system: The therapist can help individuals identify all the helpers in their lives, safe locations they can go to and coping skills they can use to help themselves.

For example, in any location, virtual/remote or in-person, Sarah can help Jennifer list out all the local people who may be available to call, who she can go visit and her means of transportation. She also helps Jennifer recognize her strengths in these situations by referencing how she coped before and what she has learned about Jennifer in terms of what has been helpful. Sarah reminds Jennifer that journaling has helped her in the past and encouraged her to journal that day.

7. Solution-focused brief therapy: The therapist here focuses on the current issue versus exploring the root cause to help individuals find safety sooner, and then can explore deeper if needed. This helps to manage the current crisis and prevent escalation (James, Whisenhunt, & Myer, 2025).

For example, Sarah may focus on getting Jennifer to safety over exploring other themes that may be coming up from Jennifer around betrayal, abandonment and trust. Sarah is prioritizing Jennifer’s immediate need for safety over other things.

How Does it Work?

Many crisis intervention techniques utilize different types of frameworks. In the mental health community, we often use an evidence-based 6 step model of crisis intervention:

1. Define the problem: The therapist builds a quick connection with the client or individual experiencing the crisis and uses active listening skills.

2. Ensure client is safe: Here the therapist makes sure the client is in a physically safe location where they can be assessed for any harm done. This is especially critical for those who are at risk for suicide or in violent environments.

3. Provide support: The therapist takes time to learn about the crisis and provides immediate options for short term and long term solutions.

4. Examine alternatives: The therapist encourages the client to think about resources they currently have access to and who in their support system can help. The therapist can help to reaffirm client self-determination here.

5. Create a treatment plan: Here the therapist works with the client to create a safe plan together with small steps and goals. A safe plan will consist of a location they can go to when they are in crisis, a list of family or friends they can call, community centers who can support them, having enough resources available to them and a means of getting to where they need to go. Since the spectrum of what a crisis can be for individuals varies from person to person, it’s important to talk about what you need to feel safe with your therapist to ensure that you have a plan created that is relevant for your needs. Goals can include making steps to get certain resources or accommodations set up.

6. Create a contract: Here the therapist is tasked to help gain commitment from the client to participate in these steps for their own benefit. Creating a written safety contract can help the client feel in control and know what to do if they experience a crisis again (O’Malley, et al., 2024)

What Causes a Crisis

Many situations can cause a mental health crisis. A crisis can occur at any time, so there isn’t always an indication that someone may be nearing a crisis situation. Sometimes a crisis can occur mid therapy session and sometimes it can occur outside of a therapy office. Crises can also vary and the intensity of the crisis itself may depend on how individuals respond to the stressors. What may be a crisis for one individual may not be a crisis for other, so its important to be sensitive to the capacity and unique individual needs of everyone.

High stress or traumatic events can trigger a crisis as the individual may be unable to fully comprehend or process the event that just happened. Crisis intervention can serve to ground these individuals to help them regain a sense of safety in themselves. By deescalating, an individual can learn to find steady footing to begin to manage their emotional reaction to the traumatic event (Anderson, et al., 2020).

Sometimes when individuals are triggered, they may react as if the traumatic event is happening at that time. These triggers can feel very real and visceral to the individual and its important to know how to support clients who have these occurrences happen. When they are triggered, they are transported to a past event and crisis intervention techniques can help them come back to the present and help them remember that their current circumstances do not reflect the experiences of the trauma. Helping them learn to identify the trigger here is important.

Those with a history of mental health conditions or substance abuse issues, they may be more at risk for experiencing a crisis. It’s important to lean into existing tools they may have learned to help them feel a sense of control. Experiencing a crisis can feel destabilizing for individuals with these histories and supporting their own self-determination here can be powerful for them.

Those who have suicidal ideation or a history of suicide attempts are also at higher risk for experiencing a crisis. It is critical we respond to these timely and with sensitivity. Addressing the individuals experience means prioritizing their safety and helping them redirect maladaptive thoughts in the moment (Esterwood and Saeed, 2020).

Who can Benefit from Crisis Intervention

Everyone can benefit from crisis intervention. Those who are fleeing domestic violence situations and abuse are populations we often see crisis intervention resources for, however this can help those in natural disasters, those living in or near war zones, those dealing with acute and situational mental health issues such as seasonal depression, PMDD or postpartum depression.

Those who have other mental health conditions such as bipolar disorder or schizophrenia may also have symptoms which can feel like a crisis in which they may benefit from crisis intervention as well. It’s important to remember that crisis intervention is one framework towards therapeutic work, but it alone is not therapy. It is very brief and goal-centered for immediate relief. To get further support with the crisis and ongoing management, it is recommended that clients seek professional psychotherapy (Zhang, et al., 2020).

References

Anderson, G. S., Di Nota, P. M., Groll, D., & Carleton, R. N. (2020). Peer support and crisis-focused psychological interventions designed to mitigate post-traumatic stress injuries among public safety and frontline healthcare personnel: a systematic review. International journal of environmental research and public health, 17(20), 7645.

Esterwood, E., & Saeed, S. A. (2020). Past epidemics, natural disasters, COVID19, and mental health: learning from history as we deal with the present and prepare for the future. Psychiatric quarterly, 91(4), 1121-1133.

James, R. K., Whisenhunt, J., & Myer, R. A. (2025). Crisis intervention strategies (p. 672). Cengage.

Koziarski, J., O’Connor, C., & Frederick, T. (2021). Policing mental health: the composition and perceived challenges of co-response teams and crisis intervention teams in the Canadian context. Police Practice and Research, 22(1), 977-995.

O’Malley, T. L., Hagen, C. A., Rabinovich, B. A., Bueno, J. N. B., Greene, A. D., & Burke, J. G. (2024). A Survivor-Centered Framework for Domestic Violence Brief Crisis Intervention: A Stakeholder-Informed Approach. Partner Abuse.

Zhang, J., Wu, W., Zhao, X., & Zhang, W. (2020). Recommended psychological crisis intervention response to the 2019 novel coronavirus pneumonia outbreak in China: a model of West China Hospital. Precision clinical medicine, 3(1), 3-8.