Health ministry of republic of moldova the university of medicine and pharmacy nicolae testemiţanu

Dificult situation – 
any unpleasant, heavy or potential dangerous 
situation. 
Emergency situation – 
combination of circumstances that necessi-
tate immediate action. When the appearance of emergency situations be-
comes chronic, it may lead to exhaustion. 
Crisis
is a personal (traumatic or stressing event) or social situation 
implying a sudden, unexpected change of the homeostasis of that indivi-
dual or group, a disturbance of daily existence, following the exhaustion 
(collapse) of coping mechanisms. 
There are 4 stages of crisis reaction: 
1. 
Impact,
shock and immediate response (astonishment, denial of 
the reality, etc). 
2. 
Heroic phase
: colaboration in order to dominate the anxiety, an-
ger, regression, etc. 
3. 
Honey
moon phase after 1 week, hope that everything will be all 
right. 
4. 
Desillussion
phase, over 2 month, hostility, anger etc. 
5. 
Resolution
: acceptance of the situation and planing for the future 
or 
overtiredness
(exhaustion) of personal resources and psychobehavio-
ral disturbances. 
Characteristics of crisis situations: 
–
Limited in time (a few days-weeks); 
–
The individual is unable to solve the situation with his own re-
sources; 
–
High personal vulnerability (suicide risk, homicide, accidents, 
etc); 
–
Resolution by discovering new resources, coping strategies or 
developing some pathology; 
–
Empowering of personal experience and source for the progress 
if resolved satisfactorly.
Generally, crisis intervention imply the followings steps: 
1. Considers the person in crisis as a
normal person 
in an abnor-
mal situation. 

---

37 
2. Immediate intervention with short interactive form of psychothe-
rapy to promote (stimulate) the personal resources. 
3. Facilitation of understanding of causes. 
4. Focusing on problem solving. 
5. Encouragement in own forces. 
Stress. 
Walter Cannon, profesor at Harvard University uses the 
term 
stress, 
by mentioning the role of emotional factors in the evolution 
of diseasses. He linked the organic reaction (emotion) and the behavioral 
reaction to the stress: 
fight
or
 flight, 
when dealing with a new, possibly 
dangerous situation.
 
The first one who extensively studied stress, was the canadian H. 
Selye, in 1936. Selye concludes that it must be an unspecific reaction of 
the human body to disease.
H. Selye considers that stress is an innate characteristic of living 
beings, lack of stress being equivalent to death. Selye introduced the dis-
tinction between 
eustress 
“good stress” and distress “bad stress” in 1983.
He identified and described