People ask me what skills a person needs for "nondirective" crisis response.

Here are some: the ability to improvise, to let the other person set the scene, to respond in a way that offers options for meeting the need they are trying to meet. 1/

Ability to move between the way of being that is comforting to the person in crisis and the way people in the environment in which you are mediating expect people to act; ability to identify and alter upsetting stimuli; knowing when to back off. 2/

Awareness that the "person in crisis" might actually be the observer who called, not the person acting "strangely". Ability to support the caller while respecting and keeping a distance from the person the caller does not understand.