NAMI Education Night features crisis intervention talk

By Beth Ranagan

   DOVER-FOXCROFT — A group of local residents and some folks from North Carolina, Texas and Florida, who were vacationing in Maine, listened to Ted Hunt explain crisis intervention in an engagingly informative talk at NAMI’s Education Night at Mayo Regional Hospital on Sept. 15. Hunt’s expertise in crisis intervention comes from 21 years of experience working as a crisis intervention specialist at Community Health and Counseling.

Hunt

   A crisis can happen to any individual with or without mental illness. Crisis behaviors can occur when a person witnesses or perceives from within a situation to be life threatening or dangerous. What happens to a person’s brain during and following a crisis determines behavior. Using a diagram, Hunt showed how the frontal lobes, a person’s rational, decision-making filters, shut down and the medulla in the brain stem then takes over. The medulla is a more primitive part of the brain concerned with basic life functions and safety. It is not concerned with rational thinking or action, but instead puts us in a fight or flight mode reacting to our fear. This is why a person in crisis may become confused or angry. “Anger is a symptom of confusion,” said Hunt.
   So, what can someone do when communicating with a person in crisis to bring him/her back to a calm and rational state of being? Hunt uses the rule of five:  use words of no more than five letters; use sentences of no more than five words; and, repeat statements five times. Remembering that the frontal lobes have shut down and that the person in crisis can’t really hear or process what is being said normally, keep communication direct, objective and simple until well past the initial point of crisis. 
   Hunt reported that first responders are being trained to use this technique all over Maine using NAMI’s crisis intervention training program for which he is an instructor in surrounding counties.
   Following a crisis, some people experience post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). During PTSD episodes, people relive through their senses various aspects of the life-threatening or dangerous experience that they encountered in the past. Hunt explained that not everyone is diagnosed with PTSD after a crisis. If symptoms such as sleep disruptions, abnormal eating patterns or flashbacks persist beyond a year, then a diagnosis of PTSD may be made.
   Crisis service is available by calling 1-888-568-1112. It is available 24/7 for you, a family member or a friend.