De-escalation

De-escalation Techniques – Non-verbal Communication

Non-verbal de-escalation techniques can help you to encode your behaviour in response to someone’s undesirable action and negative emotion. By observing others, you may also be able to recognise the early signs of a problem before it further escalates.

The Seven Cs:

·       Calm

·       Changes

·       Cluster

·       Cues

·       Context

·       Culture

·       Congruence

Be CALM

What you say matters, but what you do may matter more. In a heated situation, it pays to convey calmness and empathy. It matters less at this point what triggered their reaction. What is important is how you respond. And if you can’t be calm, appear calm. It is natural to feed off another person’s anger and become defensive, and they may be expecting or provoking you to do so. Be aware that emotions are contagious and use this to your advantage. By remaining calm and respectful in the face of disrespect, you can encourage the other person to gradually follow your lead. Instead of you matching their heightened emotional state, you want them to match your regulated one.

To appear calm, and therefore nonthreatening, here are some things that you can and shouldn’t do in the presence of hostility.

DO:

·       Breathe slowly and deeply.

·       Speak slowly.

·       Use slow/steady movements and gestures.

·       Gesture with open hands, displaying your palms and thumbs, and when not gesturing keep your hands to your sides or cupped in front of you.

·       Adopt a neutral facial expression with a relaxed mouth.

·       Use eye contact but break it intermittently.

·       Keep a relaxed posture with your shoulders down.

·       Respect the other person’s personal space, maintaining a distance of over an arm’s length.

·       Spread your weight evenly on both feet.

·       If standing, orientate yourself at a 45-degree angle to the other person.

·       If the other person is sitting, sit to their side (not opposite them).

DO actively listen and use empathetic responses:

·       Nod

·       Slightly tilt your head (lending an ear)

·       Arch/lift your eyebrows slightly (showing interest)

·       Allow for moments of silence (don’t talk-over them)

Also: Validate their feelings through clarification, perhaps repeating back key phrases of theirs verbatim. Remember, it’s not their feelings that is the problem, it’s their behaviour.

DON’T:

·       Match or mirror any negative behaviour.

·       Invade their space, tower over or stand behind the person.

·       Glare.

·       Block exit routes or ‘corner’.

·       Stand face-on (competitive).

·       Raise your voice or speak quickly.

·       Cross your arms or legs, or display barriers such as holding objects.

·       Raise your hands above chest height.

·       Point at them.

·       Touch them (unless necessary to prevent harm).

·       Touch their belongings.

CHANGES

It is important to notice changes in a person’s behaviour that could indicate a situation is escalating. These changes may include a noticeable increase in certain actions or physiological responses, such as respiratory rate or blink rate. Perhaps they were calm but you notice they are now releasing energy (pacing, fidgeting, rubbing) or displaying other behaviours they wouldn’t normally do. It helps to know how the person usually behaves (their baseline) as could be recorded in a profile. Perhaps they have an existing issue that you can be made aware of, better preparing you to monitor their mood, spot patterns or triggers, or have knowledge of their coping mechanisms. You may even trigger new ‘wanted’ changes in behaviour through the use of distraction or diversion, perhaps offering different options or routes for their attention to focus on.

CLUSTERS

It is important to notice a problem as early as possible but, whereas one action may display an obvious issue, such as someone intentionally kicking over a chair, most cues will be subtle and, taken in isolation, they are not warning signs. Whilst eye-narrowing might signal an issue, it is more likely to be that the person is concentrating, has light in their eyes or is straining to see. It typically requires several cues in a short period of time for any inference of negative emotion to be accurate. It is also the case that these cues won’t tell you why the person is feeling the way they are, or even the nature of their emotion. For example, depending on the cues, what you might assume is anger may be fear.

CUES

When several of the following cues occur together, this may be a warning sign that a person is experiencing anger or hostility:

·       A tightened jaw and mouth.

·       A person’s lips disappearing inwards.

·       Tense muscles or a rigid posture.

·       Squinting or lowered eyebrows (if staring – who/what are they staring at?)

·       Thumbs disappearing (into closed hands or fists)

·       Protruding jaw or chest.

·       Dominant leg steps backwards (boxer’s stance)

·       Dominant shoulder juts backwards

·       Arms raised above the waist

·       Stomping

·       Eye rolling (could be contempt).

·       A significant change in blink rate

·       Nostril flaring.

CONTEXT

After entering a venue, many people will feel some mild stress, especially if they don’t know everybody there. It is important to understand this and to make arrivals feel welcome and safe. Establishing the right atmosphere and shared/agreed values can help, as can ice-breakers, after which you should expect fewer cues for stress rather than an increase. The environment should also be considered. For example, a low room temperature may be the cause of closed body language with hand-rubbing, rather than any psychological issue. Alternatively, someone could be hot and flustered because they arrived late only to find that the only chair left has its back to the door of a busy and noisy building! If a room is not tidy, clean, ventilated, familiar, or presenting a visible exit with enough space to leave, then it may be contributing to the problem.

CULTURE

Cultural identity is made up of values, beliefs and practices pertaining to a family, group, community, race or religion. In specific contexts, a person's cultural identity can affect how they behave. You may know little or nothing about someone’s upbringing, background or cultural influences but these provide a framework for behavioural and affective norms. Cultural factors can mediate behaviour leading to variations in actions and reactions. A greater understanding of cultural norms can help you to better decode behaviour, with different levels of expected eye contact being an example. Culture also plays a role in how emotions are expressed.

CONGRUENCE

Are a person’s words and actions congruent? If not, there may be an issue that warrants further consideration. For example, someone may say that they’re “OK, well or calm” but their body language might say otherwise. In most cases, a person’s unconscious actions are more believable than their words. Don’t assume from words alone that everything is fine.

This is a good video on Calming and De-escalation Strategies:

This second video relates to a psychiatric ward but the advice can be applied widely:

There’s a final, bonus C to consider, CAUSE.

Don’t rush to assumptions as to the cause of any behaviour. What seems to be the trigger may be a final straw. The real cause may be something that happened earlier, pent-up frustration or an existing trauma. If a person is hostile and angry it may be better to focus on de-escalation rather than trying to uncover the cause. Regulating emotions can take time and it may even have gone past ‘fixing’ their original issue. A person experiencing heightened emotion may also struggle to articulate their need or problem so be patient. Give them every chance to talk/vent while you listen. They will find it difficult to be hostile to genuine empathy. Acknowledge that you understand and validate their feelings (which isn’t the same as condoning their behaviour) and consider saving any solutions or counter arguments until they are better able to listen. Regulate don’t educate!