Crisis lines subject of study
By Jon Ellison
0#gon f menUd
Andrea is a menially ill woman living in the
community She want* to break up with her lover,
hut is having a hard time keeping herself from
him. She calls the crisis center for help.
"What usually helps you when you're feeling
like this?," the counselor on the other end says
"Well, going out for a walk or sitting to watch
TV." Andrea replies. "It would help if I knew that
I could call track later."
There is a significant pause.
"You t an call hock if you had an emergency."
said the counselor.
"1 can't. I won't watch TV. so it would really '
help if I could call bock later." Andrea said.
The counselor went on to discourage Andrea
from calling back if it wasn't an emergency and
tried to help Andrea come up with something else
she could do besides call back. Andrea hung up on
the counselor.
Mentally ill women living in the community,
outside of institutions, are trying to lend normal
lives One of their major sources of support is a la
bour crisis line they can call in emergencies.
However, more clients of crisis centers around
the country are becoming increasingly unhappy
with the services they receive from the counselors.
To help find the cause of the dissatisfaction of
the clients. University Assistant Professor Marilyn
Whalen took an 18-month post-doctorate fellow
ship in a Midwestern town, whore she worked at a
crisis line for the mentally ill. Supported by the
National Institute for Mental Health. Whalen
recorded 33 hours of conversations between
clients and counselors.
Whalen received the $4,000 Junior Professorship
Development Award from the College of Arts and
Sciences to research why clients are unhappy and
what can let done to better the crisis line services
Whalen will use the award to hire a research
assistant this summer to help her analyze these
calls for the root of the conflict*.
Whalen and her assistant will analyze the tran
scripts of 20 call* where conflict arose to discover
the communication problems and offer solutions
to keep conflict from arising.
"It is possible that the conflict is rooted in the
little inter-actional events." Whalen said.
The conversations are broken into four parts —
Marilyn Whalen
the opening, prob
lem presentation,
problem solving and
the closing.
The majority of the
conflicts are taking
place in the problem
solving and closing
stages. Whalen said
“The client feels
the most comfortable
talking about the
problem, but the
counselor wants to
work out the solu
tion.'' Whalen said
"Then the counselor wants to get off the phone
while the client still wants to talk
There is mis* oniimmu ration and the client feels
rejected. Whalen said.
In Andrea’s i ase. Whalen believes Andrea was
looking for a chance to call Imm k and get better sup
port from someone else The counselor didn't
understand and kept discouraging Andrea from
what she thought was a solution
Whalen is the first person hi the nation to study
the conflicts between clients and counselors on a
crisis line, she said Her goal is to better the ser
vices of crisis tines to clients by identifying what
causes conflict and teaching counselors how to
avoid those behaviors
Pick up your free copy of
the bulletin at the
Summer Session Office,
333 Oregon Hall, or call
(503) 346-3475.
All students pay in-state
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Duck Call
summer session
registration, starts
Tuesday, June 1.
1993 UO
Summer Session
Bulletins with
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