Abstract

Objectives: A solid evidence base regarding the impact of Crisis Resolution and Home Treatment (CRHT) teams on service user experience is still lacking. Further, while research is emerging, there remains an inadequate focus upon the experiences of those delivering and receiving care specifically for service users with CEN within CRHT. This research study aimed to fill this research gap.

Design: This study used hermeneutic phenomenology to examine the lived experience of both those providing and receiving care in within CRHT settings.

Methods: Data were gathered via semi-structured interviews with 14 participants (7 MHNs working within CRHT settings, and 7 service users with CEN who have received CRHT intervention). Transcripts were analysed using van Manen’s phenomenological approach.

Results: A synthesis of experiential accounts across both participant groups revealed several areas of convergence, highlighting those ‘core structures’ of mental health crisis care from the perspectives of both those delivering and receiving this. At the core of the synthesis, fear and anxiety as arising from structural vulnerabilities were illuminated as the ‘essence’ of the crisis encounter in CRHT settings. Where encounters fail, it is not necessarily due to individuals alone, but because the system propagates a state of reciprocal insecurity; whereby both parties’ attempts to secure their own safety within the encounter, inadvertently (and paradoxically) threatens that of the other.

Conclusions: This research shifts the focus from individual professional performance to the systemic and relational mechanisms at play during crisis interventions. The results highlight an urgent need for structures that provide the emotional space and containment necessary for both parties to feel safe.