ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the nature and craft of caring for persons who are extremely disturbed or distressed. It focuses particular on the prevention and management of aggression and violence using multi-modal indictors and approaches. The importance of employing strategies that are underpinned by ‘trauma-informed care’ is highlighted with a view to minimizing the need for reactive and restrictive practices, which can be harmful to both service users and staff alike. An advance directive is a document used to register advance instructions about future treatment in the event of an incapacitating psychiatric crisis. They are intended to support patients’ self-determination at a time when they are vulnerable to loss of autonomy, to help them ensure their preferences are known and to minimize unwanted treatments. Trauma-informed care is emerging as an essential value that is seen as fundamental and essential to contemporary, caring mental health practice. It is an integral part of the craft of caring.
