(Adherence), Communication and Collaboration," Carter and von Weiss characterize the activities of pediatric-liaison services according to overlapping arenas of intervention and practice under which the majority of referrals can be categorized. Crisis Following diagnosis of a potentially serious illness or injury, patients and their families are often in a state of shock and disbelief. At this time, the details and decisions of medical evaluation and treatment may be overwhelming and bewildering. Very focused interventions are often needed to help them achieve some sense of basic understanding and control of the situation. Consultation-liaison skills that enable psychologists to act in crisis situations include crisis intervention, needs assessment, providing direction, mobilization of social supports, identifying areas for parental or child control, and interpreting and reframing child or family reactions to staff. A medical crisis counseling model that lends itself particularly well to pediatric crisis situations has been developed by Pollin. In this model, the consultant focuses on the patient's medical condition, and directs interventions toward normalizing the patient's and the family's state of emotional distress while helping the patient and family identify concrete actions they can take in order to cope successfully. Coping Children are exposed to many stressors associated with acute and chronic illness and injury during the course of evaluation and treatment. Acute stressors include short and lengthy medical procedures such as venipunctures, injections, hospitalizations, surgeries and chemotherapy, among others. Other stressors accompanying chronic illnesses may impact the child and family for months, years, or even a lifetime, often with an uncertain prognosis. Pediatric consultation-liaison psychologists need to be aware of individual and developmental factors when designing interventions to help children adapt to the stressors of illness or injury and treatment; for example, limited linguistic and cognitive abilities limit the knowledge and understanding of health concepts of younger children, thus limiting their ability to use internal coping resources and reach out to external supports when compared to older children or adolescents. Children's coping styles also differ; for example, some children attempt to gather information and familiarize themselves with upcoming procedures, whereas others avoid discussing stressors and refuse to look at or distract themselves from stressful stimuli. Differences in coping styles have been shown to be associated with the child's adaptation to surgery and hospitalization, lower physiological stress response, and child cooperation pre- and post-surgery. There is evidence suggesting that primary control, strategies whereby a child modifies the objective situation, are