Background Medical interventions have a place in crisis support; however, narrow biomedical and risk-driven responses negatively impact people seeking crisis care. With increasing shifts towards involving people with lived experience (service users) in designing services, foregrounding people's desired responses is critical. Accordingly, the aim of the study was to explore the wished-for crisis responses from the perspective of people who have experienced crisis and accessed crisis care.

Method Using a hermeneutical phenomenological approach, in-depth interviews were conducted to determine the desired crisis responses of 31 people who self-reported experiencing mental health crises and accessed crisis services at ED, phone lines and/or crisis alternatives.

Results The findings identified wished-for responses that gave a felt and embodied sense of their own safety influenced by a human-to-human response, emotional holding, a place of safety and choice within holistic care. For such responses to be possible, participants identified organising principles, including recognising crisis as meaningful and part of our shared human experience, understanding risk as fluid and a whole-of-community responsibility for responding to crises.

Conclusion This paper proposes how insights from people who have experienced crises can be translated into more beneficial crisis care.

Patient or Consumer Contribution Most authors are in identified lived experience roles. The first author engaged with participants during the recruitment and interviews and was explicit regarding their lived experience. Service users were involved as advisors, providing input throughout the study.