Why Crises Can Bring Out The Best In Us

The word crisis comes from the Greek verb ” krino “, which means ” I judge and choose “. This concept suggests a choice or a moment where we are faced with different perspectives and possibilities (Onnis, 1900). We can see crises as a process of natural homeostasis between a person and his environment.

We achieve a balance by “changing the weights on our weight” or by changing our limits. This can therefore give us the opportunity to create changes that enable new forms of adaptation.

What differentiates a person’s or a family’s functionality is not the absence of crises, but how they have dealt with them. We can also look at how these crises have contributed to personal and family growth and development.

There are also events that, due to their nature or when they occur, can simply be too much for us and do us harm.

The types of human crises

Throughout life, each person must face a series of critical moments that we can classify in different ways. In general, we can classify these critical moments into two types:

• Normative (Expected) : These are specific to the normal life cycle and expected (marriage, looking for work or housing, retirement, etc.).
• Non-normative (Unexpected) : These refer to cumbersome, unpredictable, unintended and unexpected crises caused by one or more events. Since these events happen suddenly, they require an immediate response.

So a person’s or family’s crisis may or may not be predictable, but they all have one thing in common. The problem that has caused them is very difficult to solve. As far as mental health is concerned, the  results of a given crisis are the same, but the personal experience varies.

What determines a crisis?

We are not isolated people having personal crises in our own waterproof bubble. We can group the factors that determine the development of these crises into three types:

• The seriousness of the events that triggered the crisis.
• Family resources : Flexible roles, socioeconomic and functional characteristics, care, emotional support …
• Social support : Family, friends, the community or other people who can help minimize any harmful effects.

There are different theories that try to explain these crises by applying different focus points. They are: The theory of vital events, the cognitive theory, the theory of copy mechanisms and the theory of reactivation of past events .

Novacek (1978, cited by Slaikeu, 1996) suggests that the probability of an event producing a crisis depends on a number of factors. These include the moment at which it occurs, its intensity, its duration and the extent to which it affects a person’s development.

Man: An elastic species

The human race seems to have been constantly trying to recover from relentless wars, massive crises, disasters and violence since the dawn of time. Crises leave their scars and go from generation to generation. They also have a lasting impact on our minds and emotions.

Why are some people experiencing a crisis not seriously affected while others are? The cause is related to one of the biggest problems in mental health: their chronicity . In other words, the repetition of critical events in one’s life, as well as the fact that they have few resources to deal with them.

Every crisis is a message to our lives

Everyone who experiences a crisis receives a message for their lives. The message is, or may not be, deliberately processed, but it becomes part of the “manuscript” of a person’s life. Caplan wrote about his interest in what is happening to the subject in the first three days of the crisis.

He examined how this combined with the description of the crisis and how it affects their cognitive function. Dyregrov also wrote on this topic. He realized that the combination of these elements may explain the variation in different people’s adaptation mechanisms.

How we assimilate impressions of these critical moments is finally projected into the “manuscript” of the future in our lives. It is impossible to escape from what we feel and what these events mean to us. Later, however, we can change these impressions with new, more positive messages.

The different ways in which a person’s basic needs are present after these crises make it difficult to build a generalized negative script. It is also important to consider the conclusion that a person has reached about a given crisis.

When someone has a crisis, we should not think of them as victims. The “victims” of these crises had to deal with these events and move on with their lives. We are not talking about victims. However, we are talking about great survivors.