People who have fallen into a crisis have lost confidence that their lives will change for the better again in the foreseeable future. Confidence is based on trust in other people, says psychiatrist Prof. Ulrich Schnyder. Because people are used to helping each other in difficult situations. Event and crisis management therefore has the task of promoting the confidence of those affected.
“Everyone is used to being exposed to burdens that they have to cope with. But he has experience with it and he learns new things every day,” says psychiatrist and psychotherapist Prof. Ulrich Schnyder. For decades, Schnyder has focused on the resilience, psychological consequences of serious accidents, the consequences of child abuse, rape, torture and the mental health of refugees. His practical work included treating victims of violent crime and torture.
In difficult situations, people draw on their experience and trust in their own abilities. As long as he remains confident that he will be able to overcome the situation, he will not be in an actual crisis situation, says Schnyder. “But when the usual mechanisms for overcoming difficulties are not enough, things get dicey: The feeling of not knowing what to do is spread.” If people lose their confidence, they face a crisis.
There is never just one crisis
Because people are very different, they react differently to events and crises. There are hardly any two people who react the same way to the same situation, even if they had exactly the same starting position. For this reason, there is never just a single crisis in emergencies and crisis situations, but one crisis per affected person, group of people or organization. It is the task of event and crisis management to contribute to these individual crises as far as possible with its management measures.
However, the actual management does not take place in the event and crisis organization; it is the individual affected persons who manage their individual situations. “Those affected are experts in their own crisis,” says psychiatrist Schnyder. In order to be successful in coping, they need confidence that they can manage this with the help of other people and that their lives will return to normal in the foreseeable future.
“Trust is the basis of all social relationships.”
Trust in other people is the basis of trust: “Trust is the basis of all social relationships. Without them, people would not have become what they are today,” says Schnyder. “People have learned to combine their talents and strengths and to help each other, because this enables them to better cope with the tasks that life throws at them.”
If the trust of those affected is destroyed in an event or crisis situation, their confidence dwindles and they can fall into a crisis situation. If they manage to regain trust and feel confidence, they can overcome the crisis. It is therefore one of the central tasks of every event and crisis organization to maintain and rebuild trust over and over again. Because the confidence and trust of those affected are the basis for the success of every event and crisis organization.
“My counterpart must trust me”
Those affected have a keen sense of how they are being dealt with and whether their challenges are being met by crisis management, says Ulrich Schnyder. “My counterpart must trust me as an expert, but also as a person.” Only if those affected know and understand the event and crisis organization and its activities can they trust it, support it and contribute themselves to overcoming the event and crisis situation.
The trust and confidence of those affected are central aspects of the new textbook Crisis management — refocused. It deliberately looks beyond traditional crisis management and encourages readers to incorporate lessons from related subject areas into their work. Numerous reports include not only crisis managers, but also experts from the fields of surgery, psychology, aviation, tourism and the media. Prof. Ulrich Schnyder is one of these experts.
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Professor emeritus Dr. med. Ulrich Schnyder
Swiss Ulrich Schnyder (*1952) is Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at the University of Zurich. He researches various aspects of psychotraumatology, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, resilience, the mental health of refugees and the consequences of child abuse. In his practical work at the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at Zurich University Hospital, Schnyder treated victims of violent crime and torture, among other things.
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