Psychosocial crisis management : The unexplored intersection of crisis leadership and post-disaster psychosocial support

Abstract

Epidemiological research has documented the serious health issues that can affect the victims of disasters and major crises. Yet, the psychosocial dimension of crisis has received little attention in crisis management literature. This paper integrates psychosocial principles with a model of strategic crisis management.

The resulting model of psychosocial crisis management (PCM) describes how the tasks of strategic crisis managers can be guided by psychosocial support principles. This PCM-model helps public leaders, at society and local community level, to better understand typical psychosocial dynamics and obstacles as the crisis life cycle evolves. Although crisis management insights and psychosocial support principles stem from different disciplines and research traditions, integrating them helps to reduce foreseeable problems in the response and recovery phases.