I want

Coping with a Mental Health Crisis

Revital Ordan, Psychiatric nurse, Director of the Community Mental Health Division, Mental Health Administration, Ministry of Health
29 July 2026

A mental health crisis is a period of significant emotional or psychological distress that may cause feelings of anxiety, exhaustion, helplessness, or difficulty functioning. It often develops in response to threatening or overwhelming life events. A crisis becomes more intense when the coping strategies that worked in the past are no longer enough to restore emotional balance, confidence, a sense of control, or the ability to adapt and move forward.

It's important to understand that a crisis is not a mental illness. It is a natural human response. Everyone experiences crises at different points in life—personally, within the family, in the community, or even on a national level. How well someone copes depends largely on their inner resilience, personal strengths, and the support available to them. The severity of the crisis, how long it lasts, and whether several crises occur at the same time can also affect a person's ability to cope. If the distress is severe or begins to interfere with daily functioning, it is recommended to seek professional advice and treatment.

Types of crises

There are many types of mental health crises. Some are developmental and related to major life transitions, while others are situational and triggered by unexpected events. Traumatic crises can develop after exposure to threatening or traumatic experiences, while existential crises may arise from questions about meaning, purpose, or identity. Crises can also affect entire communities, societies, or nations, such as during wars, natural disasters, or pandemics.

Stages of coping with a crisis

People often move through four stages when coping with a crisis:

  1. Exposure to a stressful event and increased emotional distress.
  2. Usual coping strategies become ineffective, leading to greater distress.
  3. Developing new coping skills and drawing on available resources.
  4. Adjusting to the new reality.

In some cases, people may struggle to find effective ways to cope, resulting in more complex emotional difficulties and long-term impairment in daily functioning. Support from family, friends, and mental health professionals can make a significant difference throughout the recovery process.

Key principles for coping with a crisis

Effective coping focuses on reducing distress, restoring stability, strengthening a sense of control and confidence, building support systems, and developing flexible coping strategies. Although crises can be difficult, research shows they can also lead to personal growth, greater resilience, and the discovery of new strengths.

Acute vs. prolonged crisis

An acute crisis typically requires short-term, focused intervention to stabilize the situation. A prolonged crisis, on the other hand, requires ongoing adjustment to a new reality, preserving emotional and practical resources, and preventing burnout over time.

When to seek professional help

Professional help is recommended if distress persists, daily functioning is significantly affected, severe anxiety or sleep problems develop, or coping remains difficult despite support from family, friends, or others.

A mental health crisis is a period of significant emotional or psychological distress that may cause feelings of anxiety, exhaustion, helplessness, or difficulty functioning in response to threatening or overwhelming life events. A crisis becomes more intense when the coping strategies that worked in the past are no longer enough to restore emotional balance, confidence, a sense of control, or the ability to adapt and move forward.

The Hard Things to Say: Episode 1 – Anxiety | A Podcast with Assi Azar

https://www.youtube.com/embed/BCLIm1TAUhk?si=bOOhdDyya6I0Hn4X?rel=0

Important to know<p>It's important to understand that a mental health crisis is not a mental illness. It is a natural human response. Everyone experiences crises at different points in life—personally, within the family, in the community, or even on a national level. How well someone copes depends largely on their inner resilience, personal strengths, and the support available to them. The severity of the crisis, how long it lasts, and whether several crises occur at the same time can also affect a person's ability to cope. If the distress is severe or begins to interfere with daily functioning, it is recommended to seek professional advice and treatment.</p>

Important to know

It's important to understand that a mental health crisis is not a mental illness. It is a natural human response. Everyone experiences crises at different points in life—personally, within the family, in the community, or even on a national level. How well someone copes depends largely on their inner resilience, personal strengths, and the support available to them. The severity of the crisis, how long it lasts, and whether several crises occur at the same time can also affect a person's ability to cope. If the distress is severe or begins to interfere with daily functioning, it is recommended to seek professional advice and treatment.

It's important to understand that a mental health crisis is not a mental illness. It is a natural human response. Everyone experiences crises at different points in life—personally, within the family, in the community, or even on a national level. How well someone copes depends largely on their inner resilience, personal strengths, and the support available to them. The severity of the crisis, how long it lasts, and whether several crises occur at the same time can also affect a person's ability to cope. If the distress is severe or begins to interfere with daily functioning, it is recommended to seek professional advice and treatment.

What characterizes a mental health crisis?

During a mental health crisis, a person may experience one or more of the following:

  • A sense of threat and loss of control
  • Cognitive overload, difficulty making decisions, and trouble concentrating
  • A sense of detachment and emptiness
  • Mood swings
  • A sense of tension, a lower frustration threshold, and angry outbursts
  • Changes in daily habits, including sleep patterns, wakefulness, appetite, and eating habits
  • Feelings of fatigue and lack of energy
  • Difficulties with daily functioning

In the field of mental health, a crisis is commonly viewed as an acute and temporary state that develops following an internal or external event, such as a loss, trauma, worsening mental health condition, or a sudden change in life circumstances.

What all crisis situations have in common is that a person's usual coping strategies are no longer sufficient. As a result, they may experience complex emotions, mental difficulties, and impaired functioning that require energy and personal effort to manage. The goal is to cope, experience relief and support, find understanding or meaning, and ultimately improve functioning, resolve the crisis, and even experience personal growth as a result. In significant cases, support from people in the person's environment may also be needed.

Types of crises

  • Developmental crises

    Developmental crises result from life transitions and normal stages of development that are a natural part of life. These crises require readjustment and involve changes in identity, roles, or relationships. Examples include the transition from childhood to adolescence and adulthood, becoming a parent, a midlife crisis, and aging.

  • Situational crises

    Crises caused by sudden, unexpected, or threatening events that are not a typical part of the life cycle, such as job loss, divorce, financial hardship, acute illness, or an accident.

  • Traumatic crises

    Crises that develop following exposure to an event that threatens life, physical integrity, or a basic sense of safety—for example, experiencing war, a terrorist attack, natural disasters, or being a victim of violence or sexual assault.

  • Psychiatric and mental health crises

    A crisis situation that develops as a result of coping with an exacerbation of a mental health disorder, such as major depressive disorder (clinical depression), anxiety, or an acute psychotic episode.

  • Existential crises

    Existential crises are related to a disruption in a person's sense of meaning, identity, values, or direction in life. This type of crisis may involve feelings of emptiness and loss of meaning, questions about identity, beliefs, and purpose, or a sense of not belonging.

  • Systemic and community crises

    Crises that are caused by large-scale events that affect communities, organizations, or entire populations, such as pandemics, prolonged wars, displaced populations, or national disasters.

    Each type of crisis has unique characteristics. For example, crises related to traumatic events may be characterized by heightened arousal, while existential crises may lead to feelings of alienation and emptiness.

Stages of coping with a crisis

When an event is perceived as threatening or disrupting a person's sense of balance, they activate coping mechanisms they have used in the past in an attempt to regain control and stability. This stage is characterized by increased feelings of stress and anxiety, attempts to solve the problem using familiar strategies, and a temporary decrease in the sense of security.

When familiar coping strategies fail to reduce distress, the level of stress increases. At this stage, a person may have difficulty regulating or containing complex emotions and organizing thoughts effectively. This stage is often characterized by feelings of helplessness, frustration, increased anxiety, confusion, impaired functioning, and difficulty making decisions. Some people may also experience fatigue, lack of energy, and a sense of emptiness.

At this stage, the person attempts to mobilize additional internal and external resources to cope with the crisis. This usually involves actions such as:

  • Finding alternative ways to cope with the problem or difficulty—by gathering new information, organizing existing information, and developing new skills and tools. For example: reading information online about coping with a breakup and learning what may help.
  • Exploring coping strategies that may provide emotional support. For example: "What helped me in the past when I felt this way was painting once a week—could I return to that?"
  • Seeking help and receiving advice and support from family, friends, or community resources. For example: joining a support group for spouses of reservists.
  • Seeking professional help—whether related to the specific issue causing the crisis or for emotional, cognitive, and functional support in coping with the crisis itself.

Important to know: This is a critical stage in which informal support (for example, family, friends, a Facebook community, or a synagogue community) or formal support (such as professional assistance through an HMO or from a public organization, such as a resilience center or social services) may help prevent further deterioration.

In most cases, and especially in identifiable crises, most people are able to draw on their strengths, coping strategies, and sources of support. With the help of these resources, they adapt to the new situation, experiencing a sense of relief, calm, control, and confidence, and return to functioning—often with new strengths and greater resilience than they had before the crisis.

On the other hand, if the crisis remains unresolved and is significant and prolonged, the emotional challenges, repeated efforts to cope, and impact on functioning may affect both physical and mental health. It is important to remember that by strengthening personal resources and resilience, receiving support from friends, family, and the community, and seeking professional help when needed, a person can readjust to life, recover, and experience growth following a crisis.

Coping with a crisis is a process of stabilizing, restoring balance, adapting, and mobilizing coping resources. Its goals are to reduce distress, maintain functioning, and strengthen a person's ability to recover and build resilience. Effective intervention focuses on immediate stabilization and mobilizing personal, family, and community coping resources.

Key principles for coping with a crisis

At the first stage, it is important to reduce arousal, anxiety, and feelings of threat. It is recommended to become familiar with and follow the principles of the MaSaH model (an acronym in Hebrew for commitment, encouragement, questions, and structuring) Read more about the model.

Because a crisis is often characterized by feelings of helplessness, the intervention aims to restore a person's sense of influence and ability to take action. This includes breaking the problem down into manageable steps, setting short-term goals, identifying existing strengths and resources, and encouraging situation-appropriate decision-making.

The goal of the intervention is to help develop effective and flexible coping strategies. These techniques focus on providing tools for emotional regulation, such as relaxation techniques and mindfulness, problem-solving skills, and support for daily functioning through establishing a routine, setting achievable goals, and creating small, manageable steps toward reaching them.

Social support is considered one of the key protective factors in coping with a crisis. Research shows that social support reduces the risk of worsening mental health after stressful or traumatic events. Examples of social support include receiving help from family members and friends, connecting with treatment and assistance providers, and using community resources and formal support systems.

Professionals and recent clinical research show that alongside the harm it may cause, a crisis can also become an opportunity for change and growth. Coping with a crisis can lead to a stronger sense of meaning and hope, the development of a new sense of self-efficacy, and strengthened identity and relationships. This concept is sometimes referred to as Post-Traumatic Growth. Learn more in the full article about post-traumatic growth.

Worth knowing

Worth knowing

Crises cannot be prevented because they are a part of life. Regardless of the background of the crisis, the better we learn to cope with it, the more tools we gain for dealing with life's challenges. The focus is on providing coping tools, sources of support, and strengthening mental resilience. Sometimes, a crisis is extremely difficult, such as coping with trauma. Even then, the focus is not on whether the crisis or traumatic experience could have been prevented, but rather on how we can draw on our strengths and resources to recover and grow from the crisis.

The Difference Between an Acute Crisis and a Prolonged Crisis

In an acute crisis, the focus is on immediate stabilization and reducing distress. In a prolonged crisis, the main challenge is adapting to a reality that continues over time while preserving coping resources and preventing burnout.

Treatment for an Acute Crisis

Treatment for an acute crisis is usually short-term and focused. As mentioned, its goal is to provide immediate support in stabilizing the emotional state and reducing distress, while strengthening the person's sense of control and self-efficacy.

During treatment, people learn practical tools for coping with the crisis, including relaxation and emotional regulation techniques, identifying personal sources of resilience, and using formal and informal support systems. In addition, support is provided to help understand and process the emotional experience and contain difficulties while developing practical steps for addressing the challenges created by the crisis.

An important part of the process is setting achievable goals and making gradual progress toward reaching them. At the same time, emphasis is placed on maintaining functional continuity and daily routines as much as possible, continuing participation in everyday activities, maintaining social connections, and preserving employment continuity. These factors help promote emotional stability, reduce feelings of helplessness, and strengthen a sense of personal identity.

It is important to remember that an acute crisis is a temporary state, even when it feels difficult and overwhelming. The goal of treatment is not only to return to the state that existed before the crisis, but also to support a process of adjustment, growth, and development. At the end of this process, a person may emerge from the crisis with new insights, additional resources, and a stronger sense of resilience.

Coping with a Prolonged Crisis

Unlike an acute crisis, a prolonged crisis presents a completely different challenge. It is not a single event from which a person can recover within a short period of time, but rather a new reality that continues for weeks, months, and sometimes even years. In these situations, ongoing adjustment is required while coping with uncertainty, repeated changes, and continuing challenges.

Adapting to Reality

One of the main characteristics of a prolonged crisis is the need for repeated adjustments. While in a short-term crisis it may sometimes be possible to identify a clear beginning and end, a prolonged crisis requires flexibility and the ability to repeatedly update coping strategies. Many people find themselves changing plans, setting new goals, and learning to cope with a reality that is unstable or unpredictable.

As a crisis continues, coping itself may become a burden. Ongoing alertness, the need to make decisions under uncertainty, and the effort to maintain daily routines may lead to emotional and physical burnout. In many cases, people experience fatigue, reduced motivation, and emotional exhaustion, along with a sense that the resources they relied on at the beginning are gradually becoming depleted.

Ups and Downs Are a Natural Part of the Process

Coping with a prolonged crisis does not progress in a straight line. Periods of improvement and stability may alternate with more challenging periods. Sometimes new events or reminders of the crisis can bring back feelings of stress and anxiety. These fluctuations are a natural part of the process and do not necessarily indicate failure to cope or a setback.

Building Resilience Over Time

Alongside the difficulties, a prolonged crisis can also lead to the development of new abilities. Daily coping with challenges, adapting to a changing reality, and learning how to continue functioning despite difficulties can strengthen a person's sense of self-efficacy and resilience. In many cases, people report that in retrospect they discovered strengths they were not previously aware of and developed coping strategies that continue to support them even after the crisis has passed.

The Importance of Support Systems

The longer a crisis continues, the more important social, family, and professional connections become. Consistent support can provide a sense of security, reduce loneliness, and enable better coping with challenges. For some people, support from family members and friends may be sufficient, while others may benefit from ongoing professional support.

When to seek professional help

Consider seeking help from mental health professionals in the following situations:

  • Distress continues over time.
  • There is significant impairment in daily functioning.
  • Sleep difficulties or severe anxiety develop.
  • The person is having difficulty coping independently despite support from others.

In situations involving suicidal thoughts, risk of self-harm, or disturbances in perception and reality testing (also known as losing contact with reality), it is important to seek professional help immediately.

A crisis can be overwhelming, but in most cases it is not a permanent state. Even when it may feel impossible to cope, most people are able to find the strengths, resilience, and coping strategies that help them regain a sense of relief, control, and self-efficacy, while also developing the ability to process their experiences and find meaning and value. All of these, together with recognizing the importance of the presence and support of family, friends, and community, are essential components of overcoming a crisis and may sometimes also support growth afterward.

It is important to remember that when experiencing a prolonged or highly intense crisis, significant distress, or impaired functioning, it is recommended to seek professional help. Professional support can help people navigate challenging periods and emerge from them stronger.

Itay Levi – The Hard Things to Say

The song was created as part of a mental health and anxiety awareness campaign. "The Hard Things to Say" was written and composed by Assi Azar and Avi Ohayon, and performed by Itay Levi.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/OcOX2CqaI1c?si=EJsRr4viVURR-xqi?rel=0