What Are Ways To Help Someone In Emotional Crisis?
By Dr. Betsy Usher
This is going to depend on the modality you come from. (i.e., CBT, Psychodynamic, Gestalt, Family therapy, ect.) I’m going to come mostly from a combo of Object Relations, Client Centered, & Humanistic……
1.) DO NOT GIVE ADVICE
Our society has been programmed to believe that if someone is sharing with you, or even appearing to ask advice from you that you should give it. You 100% should not give advice. If I can give you one take away it’s not to give advice. People actually do not want advice. They want to be seen, heard, understood, and accepted. If you give advice you are basically distancing yourself from them; saying you know more than they do. You need to join them, empathize with them, and accept them. Think about it, do you want people’s advice when you are sharing your feelings, experiences, sufferings, and traumas? It’s so easy on the outside to tell them what to do but it makes them feel far away from you and weak. What people need is emotional validation and barely anyone was taught how to do that, so no one does it.
2.) Authentic Emotional Validation
Emotional validation feels so weird when you first do it. It feels like you are leaving the person hanging in air with no help. However, it’s the opposite. You are joining them, seeing them, accepting them. It goes something like this……
Friend: “My partner has been so cold and mean to me lately. I feel like he/she doesn’t love me anymore, I think he is cheating on me.”
You: “What?! That’s awful to feel that way. You must feel so confused or frustrated. It’s so hard not to trust the person you love and to not feel loved by them.”
Lame? No. Validation. That’s it. That’s all you say. Let it hang in the air. Do not fix it; do not tell them what to do. Find what emotion they may be feeling based on what you may feel and lead with that. Or ask a question, and not about the content. About the feeling, like: “How have you been managing this while working?” They will keep talking and tell you more.
Friend: “I haven’t. My work is suffering and I feel like I might even get fired.
You: “So you have to deal with the fear of your husband cheating and getting fired? That’s too much for someone. I’d be so overwhelmed and scared.”
See, you are joining them; not trying to shame them, change them, fix it. You can’t fix it, they don’t want you to fix it, they want to feel understood and loved.
3.) Take Yourself Out
We call this The Holding Place, in psychology. You put the problem they are having between you. It’s not all of theirs, and it’s not your responsibility. You are problem solving how they feel about the situation and you don’t put it on your shoulders to hold—or you will come to feel frustrated when you give advice, and they don’t do it; and they won’t do it, we all know that. You are both different people with different childhoods and will not solve the problem the same, and it’s not for you to solve, so you must take “you” out of the equation or you will only come to be more and more frustrated at them for something they are not even asking you to solve. You are a neutral, curious friend who is there to love them no matter what and support their life choices, because it’s not yours.
4.) Have No Judgment
If your friend tells you they tried cocaine the other night and you judge them because that’s not what you would do, then you just shamed them. Shame leads to deep feelings for that person. It leads to fights, problems—and now you’re the target. It is not your life and even if you care about them and their choices, they are not yours to make. If you remain judgment free and curious, then they can have the free space to explore what it means to them and why. Maybe they realize they are escaping traumatic feelings that they have never talked about, and in talking about them, it changes how they feel about cocaine. Maybe cocaine is something they need to do for themselves right now as part of their journey. It is not for you to know or decide. Being judgment free allows people to be close and to actually share without shame.
5.) Be Curious
Asking questions is a way to show someone you are listening, not judging, interested, and care. It takes away the shame and shows that you are on their level, not higher and knowing more. Then they can explore judgment free, maybe even for the first time in their lives.
6.) Don’t Tell Them It’s Going To Be Okay
There is no way for you to know if it’s going to be okay. This creates a false promise and distance between the relationships. It also invalidates them. They are telling you they FEEL it’s not okay, and it’s your job to believe that they FEEL that way. “I can see how you can feel this way, it feels hopeless right now.” That’s all you say. It hangs over the edge and does not wrap it up in a bow. They will then continue to talk and explore.
7.) Practice Authentic Listening
When you practice active listening it means you aren’t on your phone, you aren’t talking about you, you are hyper focused on them and what they are saying and the feelings they are trying to express. You are present. It’s respect.
8.) Give Good Healthy Boundaries and Let Go of the Guilt
Boundaries look like this: “I saw you called and need to talk. I want to talk to you and hear all about what’s happening, but I have a big deadline tomorrow and am swapped. I feel if I were to speak with you, I wouldn’t give you my true attention, and that’s not fair to you. I will call you tomorrow, after work. I want to be there for you in the way you deserve, and I will be tomorrow.” If you don’t do this and you talk to them when you can’t, you will build resentment. Resentment is when you are too uncomfortable to say no in a moment that will last for a few seconds, so instead, you say yes and then are uncomfortable for hours, or days later, resenting the person because you couldn’t say no, and then blaming them. In reality, it is you who lacked the boundary that you needed for yourself. You can’t be there for someone all the time, and they will have to tolerate that; and they will, if done in the right, authentic way.
9.) Not Making It About You
A lot of times, when someone is suffering, we can make it about us. We want to help the person not feel so alone so we can tell stories about ourselves in order to relate to the other person. This in itself is not bad. It can be a very useful way to connect, but sometimes we then take away from the one who needs to share and make it about us instead. This also happens when someone is telling you how you can hurt him or her, and so forth. We then can become defensive and take away their experience as well as profusely apologize, which then is making it about us.
10.) Empathy vs Sympathy
Empathy is one of the powerful tools we have as humans. Empathy is the ability to feel, see, and relate to someone else’s suffering. It is the experience of understanding their suffering by relating to the other person in a way that we can remember a time when we suffered through something similar. Sympathy is then feeling sorry for another person because we can’t relate to their suffering. Instead we just feel bad for them. Empathy is much more powerful; finding a way to relate is the key. You may have not lost your mother like your friend did, but you have lost someone else close to you. You pull upon the feelings that you had then—to feel something similar to what they could possibly be feeling. You don’t have to share if it doesn’t feel right, but you can feel it that the other person will be appreciative