The British Journal of Psychiatry (1970) 117: 627-633. doi: 10.1192/bjp.117.541.627
© 1970 The Royal College of Psychiatrists
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Crisis Theory and Possibilities of Therapeutic Intervention

SYDNEY BRANDON M.D., D.P.M., D.C.H.1

1 Nuffield Foundation Fellow in Psychiatry, University of Newcastle; Reader in Psychiatry, University of Manchester

Crisis theory offers a model of value in planning both treatment and preventive services in psychiatry. The central concept is of personality as a dynamic equilibrium, with a storehouse of coping mechanisms which can be adapted to cope with most life situations, but which becomes fluid and disorganized when faced with a potentially insoluble challenge. During this period of fluidity the potential for change—for better or worse—is greatly increased, and help provided at this stage is most likely to be effective. These concepts can embrace psychodynamic, behaviourist, social or organic theories of behaviour, but are not in themselves adequate to explain all normal or deviant conduct and should be viewed as guidelines for action rather than theories of aetiology.

Submitted on July 17, 1969




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