Psychological First Aid: Help Someone Through a Crisis
Signature Course No. 304 — A Signature AI Socratic Coaching Course.
No experience needed — your coach starts where you are.
A New Kind of Learning
Socratic coaching, delivered by an agentic AI coach.
Not a course you watch. An AI coach you work with.
The Lighthouse Coach begins by discovering how you think about the subject, teaches what is missing, and gives you realistic practice before asking you to prove that you can use it. You may test out of concepts you already understand, while capstones turn the learning into a practical plan, decision, conversation, or other real-world result.
The curriculum is deliberately authored; the AI delivers it through coaching. It is not an AI randomly generating lessons.
A coach that teaches by asking — not by lecturing
The Lighthouse Coach is an AI Socratic coach built on Cognosco Learning's Psychological First Aid: Help Someone Through a Crisis course, in the Personal Effectiveness & Well-Being category. It does not play videos at you. It holds a conversation: it asks you a question, listens to your answer, names the misconception it hears, affirms what you got right, and asks the next question — the way a great coach works in the room.
Sooner or later, you will be present in the first hour after something terrible — a phone call taken in a foyer, a collision witnessed on a platform, a neighbour's door opening onto news no one should receive alone. In that hour, most people do one of two unhelpful things: they freeze or drift away, or they rush in with everything they have — questions, advice, embraces, promises — and leave the person more alone than before.
This course replaces both responses with a protocol: look, listen, link. Look: read the scene and the person before you act. Listen: hear what the person offers, at their pace, without digging. Link: connect the person to real support — a trusted person, a service, a crisis route — and stay until the connection holds. The helper is not a manager using authority, not a clinician using a method, and not a rescuer using force of personality. The helper is the person who happens to be there, and who knows what to do first.
It works in two movements. First, Module 1 — Look, Listen, Link: The Protocol Itself — work through Concepts 1–9, finishing with The Foyer at Citygate; then, Module 2 — The Protocol Under Pressure: People, Crowds, Distance, and Limits — work through Concepts 10–18, finishing with The Night the River Rose.
Both capstones produce real artifacts — a look–listen–link response plan another helper could continue from cold, and a coordinated helper plan a helper joining at midnight could run their part of the night from.
The honesty standard is part of the course. This is first aid, not treatment. The helper stabilises, protects, and links; the helper never treats. The course teaches no naming of conditions and no counselling technique as treatment — the listening here is human listening, not therapy delivered by an amateur. The crisis routes are real, and they are carried in one exact form everywhere they appear in full: Crisis routes, stated in full: in the United States, call or text 988 (Suicide and Crisis Lifeline); text HOME to 741741 (Crisis Text Line); in the United Kingdom and Ireland, call Samaritans free on 116 123; if anyone is in immediate danger, call 911.
The course is self-paced and always on — roughly 30 minutes per concept, about 9 hours in full, taken in as many sittings as you like. You can type your answers, or talk out loud: the Voice Coach speaks its questions and listens to your spoken replies. Learners who already know the material can test out concept by concept.
Psychological First Aid: Help Someone Through a Crisis is part of The Lighthouse Signature Series — the online counterpart to the one-day, in-person learning Cognosco Learning has delivered since 2002.
Course Facts
One full concept, coached end to end — free: verify your email and we’ll send you a link to start.
Already enrolled? Enter the course →
Diagnose → Learn & Practice → Prove → Capstone
Every learner moves through the same discipline a Cognosco instructor would insist on in the room.
Diagnose
The Coach starts where the course starts: with the size of the job. Your work is to stabilise, protect, and link — make the moment less overwhelming, shield the person from further harm in the scene, and connect them to support that outlasts you — and everything else, however kind it feels, is not your job. Every concept opens with three questions that locate where you actually stand, and your answers shape how deeply the Coach works the concept with you. Everyone begins with Module 1 — no skipping the foundations you only think you have.
Learn & Practice
Work each concept in conversation with the Coach — spoken or written — then practice it against realistic situations until it holds up.
Prove
Every concept ends in proof: answer the check cold and demonstrate the skill. Know it already? Test out and take credit immediately.
Capstone
Finish with two capstones — The Foyer at Citygate for Module 1 and The Night the River Rose for Module 2 — that pull the whole course together, and earn the certificate.
What You'll Learn
A smaller job, done exactly. The helper's role is stabilise, protect, and link — and the discipline to refuse everything beyond it: no diagnosis, no treatment, no promises that are not yours to keep.
Module 1 builds the protocol. The role held exactly; the scene and the person read in observable facts; the approach with permission and choice; a steady presence; listening without probing; words that help and words that harm; safety asked plainly; practical help first; and linking done properly — real, chosen, warm, and confirmed.
Module 2 works it under pressure. Distress in all its presentations; children helped with honesty scaled to their years; access and difference; high arousal; sudden loss; crowds sorted by need; helping at a distance; your own limits; and the prepared helper, routes verified and sentences rehearsed.
And it holds its boundary throughout. The one exception to consent and privacy is immediate danger to life — bounded, temporary, and handed to professionals the moment they hold the scene.
What you will learn
- Hold the helper's role exactly: stabilise, protect, and link — never diagnose, never treat, never promise what is not yours to promise
- Look before you act: read the scene for danger and injury, and read the person in observable facts, not labels
- Approach and steady: introduce yourself, ask permission, offer choice, and calm the moment with your body, voice, and pace
- Listen without probing, speak without harming, and meet practical needs first
- Ask about safety plainly, act at once when life is in danger, and use the crisis routes at full strength
- Link every person to real support — and run the whole protocol for children, for people you must adapt to reach, in crowds, at a distance, after sudden loss, and within your own limits
Everything in the course
- All 18 concepts of Psychological First Aid: Help Someone Through a Crisis, in 2 modules
- A starting-point check first — the Coach finds where you actually stand before teaching
- Learn, Practice, Prove for every concept — no passive video watching
- A test-out on every concept: prove you know it and move on
- The Voice Coach: talk with the Coach out loud — it speaks, listens, and replies
- A personal Learner Record of your work across the course
- Two capstone exercises: The Foyer at Citygate and The Night the River Rose
- A printable session summary whenever you pause
- The Lighthouse Coach completion certificate (Signature Series)
- Your progress is saved as you go — stop anytime, resume where you left off
Built for the person who happens to be there
Anyone who works where the public gathers — venues, events, transport, hospitality, sport, faith and community settings — who may be the nearest adult when crisis lands.
Volunteers and community helpers — shelter teams, event stewards, neighbourhood responders, support-group hosts — who are given a hi-vis jacket or a lanyard and, too often, nothing else; and colleagues, neighbours, friends, and family members who want to be genuinely useful to a person in acute distress without pretending to a qualification they do not hold.
People who have already been in the moment and felt it go wrong — who asked one question too many, promised one thing too much, or still wonder whether they should have acted sooner. This course assumes no clinical background of any kind, and it will not give you one. It assumes only that you are willing to be the person who stays, looks carefully, listens properly, and links deliberately — and who knows, precisely, where helping ends.
Prefer to learn live and in person? The same material anchors Cognosco's one-day programs — browse the in-person catalog.
Start with The Foyer at Citygate
$195 — introductory price. One payment. No subscription, no password to manage.
Here is exactly what happens when you enroll:
- Pay securely with Stripe — you are taken straight into the course
- Create your learner profile and begin the Module 1 starting-point check
- Save the access key you are given — it restores your enrollment on any device
- Learn at your pace; your progress is stored in your browser on your device
For the full voice experience, use Chrome and allow the microphone when asked. Typing your answers works everywhere, all the time. Questions before you enroll? Email hello@cognoscolearning.com.
Before you enroll
What is a Socratic coaching session?
A conversation, not a video. Your coach asks a question; you answer — out loud by voice, or by typing — and the coach responds to what you said: naming the misconception it hears, affirming what you got right, and asking the next question. You advance only when you have mastered each concept, so a finished course means the learning held.
How long does it take — and how long do I have?
About 30 minutes per concept. Learn in sittings of any length; your progress is saved as you go. You have a full year from purchase to finish, and you can revisit and retake within that year.
What does the certificate verify?
That you completed every concept and both capstones of this course. Anyone can confirm a Cognosco certificate online — enter its certificate ID on our verification page.
What if it isn't for me — what are the refunds?
If you have not started, cancel for a full refund within seven days of purchase. Once you have started, there is no cash refund — stop before finishing and we credit the full amount you paid toward any other course in the library (credit valid one year from your original purchase). Once you complete the course, no refund or credit applies.
More Signature Courses are coming
Psychological First Aid: Help Someone Through a Crisis is Signature Course No. 304. Leave your email and we'll send you news of future Signature Courses and Lighthouse updates as they are announced — nothing else.