Why are some people happier than others? Through Sam, representing the average North American worker, we explore how one's life choices impact their happiness, and delve into the underlying reasons why. The average person's life is often filled with challenges, and with those come stress. How one deals with this stress has a profound impact on their happiness. Mental illness is having a negative impact on people's overall quality of life, including employees, families, employers, and on community safety. Many are asking, "Why does it appear as if more of my peers are experiencing negative mental health issues? Why is there no remedy offered? The Coping Crisis takes a journey through the eyes of Sam to explore mental health, stress, and the role of coping skills and how the lack of those skills impacts one's health. Sam's experiences help demonstrate how gaps in coping skills directly impact happiness, and show how one can improve their coping skills to improve their happiness and health.
This book examines new developments in the area of human competence and coping behavior. It sets forth a conceptual framework that considers the interplay between environmental contexts and personal resources and their impact on how indi viduals cope with life transitions and crises. The selections cover the tasks confronted in varied life crises and describe the coping strategies employed in managing them. The material identifies the long-term effects of such life events as divorce and bereave ment as well as the way in which these stressors can promote personal growth and maturity. The book contains a broad selec tion of recent literature on coping and adaptation, integrative commentaries that provide the background for each of the areas as well as conceptual linkages among them, and an introductory overview that presents a general perspective on human compe tence and coping. Illustrative case examples are included. The first part of the book is organized chronologically ac cording to developmental life transitions confronted by many people-from the childhood years through adolescence, career choice and parenthood, divorce and remarriage, middle age and retirement, and death and bereavement. The second part covers unusual life crises and other hazards that typically involve ex treme stress such as man-made and natural disasters and terrorism. The book highlights effective coping behavior among healthy individuals rather than psychological breakdown and psychiatric symptoms. The emphasis is on successful adaptation, the ability to cope with life transitions and crises, and the process by which such ix x PREFACf. ".
Why in the pre-industrial period were some settlements resilient and stable over the long term while other settlements were vulnerable to crisis? Indeed, what made certain human habitations more prone to decline or even total collapse, than others? All pre-industrial societies had to face certain challenges: exogenous environmental hazards such as earthquakes or plagues, economic or political hazards from ‘outside’ such as warfare or expropriation of property, or hazards of their own-making such as soil erosion or subsistence crises. How then can we explain why some societies were able to overcome or negate these problems, while other societies proved susceptible to failure, as settlements contracted, stagnated, were abandoned, or even disappeared entirely? This book has been stimulated by the questions and hypotheses put forward by a recent ‘disaster studies’ literature - in particular, by placing the intrinsic arrangement of societies at the forefront of the explanatory framework. Essentially it is suggested that the resilience or vulnerability of habitation has less to do with exogenous crises themselves, but on endogenous societal responses which dictate: (a) the extent of destruction caused by crises and the capacity for society to protect itself; and (b) the capacity to create a sufficient recovery. By empirically testing the explanatory framework on a number of societies between the Middle Ages and the nineteenth century in England, the Low Countries, and Italy, it is ultimately argued in this book that rather than the protective functions of the state or the market, or the implementation of technological innovation or capital investment, the most resilient human habitations in the pre-industrial period were those than displayed an equitable distribution of property and a well-balanced distribution of power between social interest groups. Equitable distributions of power and property were the underlying conditions in pre-industrial societies that allowed 'favourable' institutions to emerge with high rates of participation down the social hierarchy, giving people the freedom and room to choose their own fate - not necessarily reliant on one coping strategy but with the capacity to combine many different ones in search of optimum resilience.
Psychological Crisis Intervention: The SAFER-R Model is designed to provide the reader with a simple set of guidelines for the provision of psychological first aid (PFA). The model of psychological first aid (PFA) for individuals presented in this volume is the SAFER-R model developed by the authors. Arguably it is the most widely used tactical model of crisis intervention in the world with roughly 1 million individuals trained in its operational and derivative guidelines. This model of PFA is not a therapy model nor a substitute for therapy. Rather it is designed to help crisis interventionists stabile and mitigate acute crisis reactions in individuals, as opposed to groups. Guidelines for triage and referrals are also provided. Before plunging into the step-by-step guidelines, a brief history and terminological framework is provided. Lastly, recommendations for addressing specific psychological challenges (suicidal ideation, resistance to seeking professional psychological support, and depression) are provided.
Damaging stories and rumors can go viral in an instant—now, the nation’s premier political spin doctor teaches you how to cope with disasters in business, politics, and life by telling it all, telling it early, and telling it yourself. TELL IT ALL, TELL IT EARLY, TELL IT YOURSELF These days, every scandal is tried in the court of public opinion. Political insider and legal crisis manager Lanny Davis has spent years helping politicians, sports figures, business executives, and corporations—including Bill Clinton, Martha Stewart, Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder, and Macy’s, to name a few—through the biggest reputation crises of our times. In this fascinating and practical resource, Davis tells the real stories behind his famous clients’ very public scandals and how each case has aided him in the creation of five invaluable rules that absolutely anyone can use to protect himself. Damaging falsehoods can go viral in an instant. The nation’s premier political spin doctor will teach you how to fight back.
This book contributes to a better understanding of what makes people and communities resilient in the face of disasters, violence and terrorism. This resilience is understood as a resource that facilitates recovery, effective functioning and positive outcomes in the wake of major critical events that threaten the well-being of individuals, families, communities and nations. The chapters in this publication present complementary perspectives on resilience in a variety of socially adverse settings and how to assess resilience beyond the level of an individual. The contributing authors not only consider evidence of resilience in the aftermath of mass trauma, but uniquely explore it from a developmental perspective and expand the focus from individual resilience to the broader ecological levels of community and society. The book contains 11 chapters reflecting different aspects of resilience. Presentation of these different perspectives will be helpful to scholars and students of human behavior affected by life-threatening crises. Together, the chapters present up-to-date research that affirms human strength when confronted by the extreme experiences. The book also covers the broad landscape of current knowledge and research topics on resilience that are related to mass violence and terrorism, which is one of the growing concerns of the world today.
Intended for those involved in dealing with other people's crises, and their clients, this volume aims to provide a basic understanding of what a crisis is and how individuals respond to them. It also offers suggestions on how to help.
The first comprehensive text on stress and crisis management specifically tailored to courses focusing on the family Organized by stress model, this book helps readers understand the relationships among models, research, crisis prevention, and crisis management with individuals and families. Providing a balance of theory, research, hands-on applications, and intervention strategies, this innovative text presents a comprehensive overview of the field. Intended Audience Individual and Family Stress and Crises is ideal as a core text for upper division undergraduate and graduate students in courses such as Family Crisis, Family Stress & Coping, and Dysfunctions in Marriage & Family.
COPING IN CRISIS attempts to examine 'crisis resolution' processes in the light of the time honoured Chinese perspective that crisis 危機 is a time of danger and a time of opportunity. It presents a specific approach to crisis intervention - designed to turn the dangers, demands and deprivations inherent in crisis situations along positive lines - and provides an impetus for" growth. The Hong Kong crisis study, reported in this book, examines the nature of personal, and family, crises; over which people in Hong Kong seek help from the family service centres of the Social Welfare Department and Caritas. It also seeks to discover whether opportunities for growth and learning are present, despite the risks to which the person-in-crisis is exposed.
