Decision in Paradise Pt2

Review of Literature

Crisis Intervention and Brief Therapy

Georgia State University

Brenda Micheals

June 9, 2007

This literature review evaluates the increase in the focus of crisis intervention in research and academia. As state in the article, “On Financial Crisis,” by Arjen Bojen, in the wake of events such as September 11th and Katrina, the crisis field has gained a great deal of relevance in both academic and practitioner circles. As a result, more funding has been given to policymakers and managers who have become interested in crisis research findings about the impact of crisis situations on people.

The article effectively demonstrates how several professional fields have merged to become a single research field. Since the crisis field is made up of a multidisciplinary field that draws from many disciplines such as disaster sociology, psychology, public administration, political science, international relations and management, the crisis field has evolved into specialized academic area. According to the article, research from these disciplines define crisis in terms of some basic threat to the core values of a system, necessitating urgent response under conditions of severe uncertainty. This analysis is consistent with Robert’s view of disequilibrium that occurs when a significant crisis happens in peoples lives. This multidisciplinary definition of crisis allows for communication between these academics generic crisis field.

In order to evaluate what the research has demonstrated, the article posed two crucial questions, which relates to the societal relevance of this research field. The first question asks why a social system such as a firm, a town, a nation or a global network experiences a crisis. The second question asks why some systems manage to minimize the crisis impact where others suffer severe damages. A general consensus is emerging in the crisis field with regard to these questions, and can be summarized in a handful of principles. The first principle, which can be considered the bottom line of this research consensus, holds that crises will always occur. However, societies learn from previous crisis events and develop new coping modules only to discover that the nature of crisis is continuously changing. The implications are sobering: crisis prevention is a good idea, but it will never make us safe from new crises.

The second principle is deduced logically from the first. If crisis prevention is essentially impossible, organizational and societal resilience must be the proper way to prepare for and deal with crises. The author argues that a more effective way to prepare to focus on research about the resiliency of the human spirit. Research in crisis should be directed toward the design of organizational structures that facilitate flexible and resourceful answers to unknown future problems.

Interestingly, the article showed that the third principle draws our attention to the unintended effects of crisis management efforts. Research revealed that the crisis management capacity of policymakers