1. counseling or psychotherapy for patients in a life crisis that is directed at supporting the patient through the crisis and helping the patient cope with the stressful event that precipitated it.
2. in the nursing interventions classification, a nursing intervention defined as use of short-term counseling to help the patient cope with a crisis and resume a state of functioning comparable to or better than the pre-crisis state.
nursing intervention an action for which nurses are responsible that is intended to benefit a patient or client.