[Psychoanalytic aspects of crisis and crisis intervention]

"Crisis" is defined as the lack of the development of defense- and/or coping-mechanisms in the conflict between drive-claims or narcissistic needs versus the influences of the super-ego and/or conditions of outside reality. The term crisis, introduced by Erich Lindemann (1944), characterizes a state which was already known to Sigmund Freud. Central to his thought was an antagonism between the pleasure principle dominating the unconscious and the reality principle being directed toward the outside world. Different possible causes of crises are for example sudden and unexpected intrusions in a life situation which was previously experienced as stable, or a narcissistic trauma and loss that could not be worked through as grief and that lead to a reactive-depressive state, or a shock resulting from demands of the super-ego during inner or outer experiences. Principles of a psychoanalytically oriented therapy are discussed, the outcome of which is the better, the more there is a good working alliance and good development of insight.