Our Mission
The Life Space Crisis Intervention Institute trains professionals and parents to turn problem situations into learning opportunities and build trusting relationships with children and youth.
Background and Development of LSCI
Life Space Crisis intervention grew from the creative contributions of Fritz Redl and David Wineman’s theory of Life Space Interviewing (LSI) developed for treatment of delinquent youth in the 1950s. Redl and Wineman were the first to document using crisis as a core therapeutic component of treatment. To accomplish this goal, they trained the staff who spent the most time with young people to use LSI during a crisis and to become central professional members of the treatment team. The interest in LSI grew, gaining key contributors who shaped the concepts for broad applications across a variety of settings.
William Morse and Nicholas Long brought LSI into the schools. These skills were found essential as students increasingly bring intense emotions into the classroom. Mary Wood integrated LSI into Developmental Therapy-Teaching and, in collaboration with Nicholas Long, authored the first LSCI textbook, in 1991. Today, Talking with Students in Conflict, is now in its 3rd edition!
Nicholas Long and Frank Fecser took the next step and developed a certification program in LSCI, creating the professional structure and standards for future training. This training program also involved making some refinements and modifications to LSI theory to facilitate teaching this model. The name was changed from “Life Space Interviewing” which was too restrictive a term to “Life Space Crisis intervention” which was more inclusive of other therapeutic methods now incorporated with the psycho-educational model. Long and Fecser also produced a video series that shows the concepts being used in real-life crisis situations.
Today, more than 75,000 professionals and parents working and living with young people who exhibit challenging behaviors have been trained and certified in LSCI by the Life Space Crisis Intervention Institute. Seminars are conducted throughout the United States and in Canada, Germany, Scotland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Georgia, France, New Zealand, Portugal, South Africa, and Australia.
We hope you will join us to learn the brain-based, trauma-sensitive, relationship-building skills of LSCI, available in-person, online, and via Zoom training (during COVID). For inquiries, please email signewhitson@lsci.org