Common Elements of a Crisis: A Hazardous Event
The first element is a hazardous event. This is some occurence that starts a chain reaction of events that culminates in a crisis.
Some examples of hazardous events are:
1) A college senior who gave himself to his sport during his entire stay at school in order to be selected by the pros gets a major injury during an outdoor event
2) A young wife who prepared for her career for six years now discovers she is about to become a mother
3) A widow raising five pre-adolescent children loses her job in a very specialized profession
All these people in the examples and those who want to help them need to identify the precipitating events as the crisis is dealt.