Consultation
When a mental health crisis happens, individuals and their families often do not know what to do next. Many times they will call their pastor for help. Mental Health Crisis: A Pastoral Perspective is a seminar designed for pastors to provide a basic understanding of mental health issues and assist pastors in developing a plan for a crisis that utilizes the resources in their own area. As his time permits, Rev. R. David Morrow LMFT will share a discussion with a pastor that is dealing with a mental health issue for guidance. To reach out to David Morrow, send an email to David @FruitfulVineFamilyMinistries.org.
What about a true EMERGENCY?
A person with thoughts of committing suicide, or thoughts of hurting another person is a true emergency. A 1-100 graduated scale is a great way to give the person at risk of self-harm or harm to others to quantify the intensity of that risk. For example, if a person is having thoughts of self-harm, you might say something like this: “On a scale of 1-100 with 1 being you have had a thought about suicide but do not have any desire to act on the thought, and 100 being you are planning to die today, where are you?”
Another true emergency is when a person is psychotic. There are two types of psychosis: hallucinations and delusions.
A hallucination is when a person experiences something with one of the five senses. Auditory (hearing) and visual (seeing) hallucinations are by far the most common types. Tactile hallucinations (something moving on the skin or inside the body) hallucinations, olfactory hallucinations (smelling something others do not smell) and gustatory (tasting something others do not taste) are very rare. This is an emergency because people sometimes develop command hallucinations. These are voices they are hearing inside their own head that are telling them to do certain behaviors such as harm one’s-self or harm another person. A person with religious belief is likely to attribute these voices to God, Satan, or some other deity.
A delusion is when someone believes something that can’t possibility be a reality. For example, if a person believes he can fly, and decides to jump off of a mountain to enjoy flying, you can see how this would end badly. Therefore, it is also a psychiatric emergency.
Please consider bookmarking this page so you can have easy access to it in the event you need this information. Also, remember this: An emergency is anxiety producing. However, how you respond will determine if the anxiety continues to increase, or you can be a sense of calm in the midst of the storm. If you know the mental health providers in your area, and you can facilitate a referral to an appropriate mental health provider, the natural anxiety will decrease when you can say that help is on the way. Take the time to make a plan on how you will respond to a mental health crisis so you are not “winging it.” Your planning now could bring some peace to a difficult situation.
