Crisis Intervention in Practice

Crisis intervention is an essential ingredient in any truly comprehensive community mental health service. This book is a study of the development and operation of a long-established multidisciplinary crisis intervention and community mental health service, viewed through the eyes of its users and team members. The author examines multidisciplinary practice showing how its quality can be both limited and enhanced by the powerful and complex interdisciplinary relationships, and the attitudes and beliefs of individual team members and their clients. He shows aspects which can be fundamentally negative and self-defeating, yet demonstrates, through focusing on the social work members of the team, how the crisis intervention approach can be used to provide a flexible, effective and adaptable service to a wide range of people with mental health problems. The book aims to promote the development of good practice in this challenging and rewarding way of delivering community care.