Although it may generally be true that you can put people in two camps in response to some sudden and major event, I agree that longer-term, there are all sorts of different ways and timelines that people react and recover. That's why something like MHFA is not just for the minutes and hours immediately after some event since the worst emotional/psychological crises may not appear until much later.

And for non-disaster crises related to mental illness, substance abuse, etc. those can spring up anytime.

And I'll just throw this out since it just happened to pop into my head just now. I remember reading not long ago that in general, the mentally ill tend to be no more violent towards others than "normal" people. However, their odd behavior or lack of expected responses may lead surrounding people to act or talk in ways that provoke them to violence. So, it's important to be able to identify these situations and know the appropriate way to handle them otherwise "bad things happen".

A recent police scandal here in Fullerton, CA is when a schizophrenic guy had trouble complying with officers' orders and was beaten and killed even though audio and video show that he was no immediate threat to anyone. The officers will stand trial for murder and manslaughter. Could MHFA-type training turned this situation into something totally different? Perhaps. The Memphis Police Department's Crisis Intervention Team program seems to be the model for training officers to deal with the mentally ill and other people in emotional crises in a safe and humane manner, so it can be done. I remember watching a segment about CIT on...maybe 60 Minutes?--a long time ago and being very impressed. There's no reason why civilians shouldn't also get similar training since we're usually the people who initially have to deal with people in crises.