De-Escalation Techniques: How To Take The Wind Out Of Their Sails
Have you ever been involved in a situation with an angry person when you felt defeated? Either you escalated to their level of aggression or you allowed yourself to get lambasted and felt battered in the end? There are some easy techniques to work with an angry person to take their level of volatility down to a manageable level so you can intellectually process the problem with them.
Attempting to reason with those who use anger to intimidate, control, get attention, avoid responsibility, or pump themselves up will generally further add to the aggression or at the very least, be ineffective. Your first order of business is to de-escalate the level of anger.
Often in our work environment, we are confronted with angry people, co-workers, those we supervise, customers, supervisors and stakeholders. In the majority of the situations, it is to your benefit to reduce the level of anger in the other person.
Before intervening, do a quick assessment to see if you are in the proper frame of mind for an intervention. This generally means can you view this person as someone who is doing the best he or she can to gethis or her needs met at that point in time? Are you of the mind frame that you will not be reduced to his or her level of anger should you intervene? Can you allow that even if you do everything correctly, people may still maintain their anger because it is what works best for them without feeling as if you failed? If the answer to these questions is yes, then proceed.
De-Escalation Techniques
1. Simple Listening: Sometimes all that is needed is to allow the angry person to vent all their anger and frustration to someone who is actually attentive to what they are saying. Do not attempt to say anything. Just listen attentively, nod your head and sometimes give encouragers, such as "Uh huh," "Go on," or "Yes. . ." When a person is attempting to get attention with their anger, sometimes all you need to do is to listen until their anger is spent. At that point you may ask a simple question such as, "How can I help you?"
2. Active Listening: Active listening is the process of really attempting to hear, acknowledge and understand what a person is saying. It is a genuine attempt to put yourself in the other person's situation as best you can. Active listening means you are attending not only to the words the other person is saying but also the underlying emotion, as well as, the accompanying body language.
3. Acknowledgement: Acknowledgement occurs when you can legitimately understand the person's angry emotion. You could then honestly respond with, "Wow, I can see how something like that could cause some anger!" You might say, "Man, if that happened to me, I might be angry, too." The tone of your voice is critical in this circumstance. You don't want to use an excitable tone, as it could further incite the angry behavior--rather use a calming and respectful tone of voice designed to help the other person let go of their angry emotion.
It confirms the legitimacy of the emotion, but not the behavior. You want the angry person to realize that being angry isn't the problem, the problem is the way he or she is choosing to act out those angry feelings.
4. Apologizing: Apologizing is the fourth of the de-escalation skills. I'm not talking about apologizing for an imaginary wrong. I am talking about sincerely apologizing for anything in the situation that you believe was unjust. It's simply a statement acknowledging that something occurred that wasn't right.
I am not asking you to take responsibility for something that wasn't your fault. For example, if you can't find anything for which to apologize, you can always say, "I'm so sorry you having such an awful day" or "I'm sorry the situation has you so frustrated." You can apologize without taking on the blame.
5. Agreeing: Often when people are angry about something, there is at least 2 % truth in what they are saying. When attempting to diffuse someone's anger, it is important to listen for that 2 % of truth and agree with it. When you agree with the 2% of truth in the angry person's tirade, you take away the resistance and consequently eliminate the fuel for the fire.
6. Inviting Criticism: Inviting criticism is the final of the de-escalation skills. In this instance you would simply ask the angry person to voice his or her criticism of yourself or the situation more fully. You might say something like, "Go ahead. Tell me everything that has you upset. Don't hold anything back. I want to hear all you have to say."
This invitation will sometimes temporarily intensify the angry emotion but if you continue to encourage the person to vent their anger and frustrations, eventually, they will run out of complaints. Just let them vent until their anger is spent. In essence, this is a combination of inviting criticism and simple listening.
You have been presented with six powerful and effective techniques of de-escalation. However, there may be a rare occasion when you are unsuccessful in your attempts to decrease a person's anger. Your safety should be the primary concern. Don't get between the angry person and his or her only means of escape and similarly, don't allow the angry person to block your only means of escape.
Always have a plan or an established way to get help if needed and remember to stay calm. An angry person is generally someone capable of getting out of control. When an out of control person senses they are intimidating and scaring others, it can increase their sense of power and control, resulting in an escalation of the situation. You must stay calm at all times and recognize when it is important to seek assistance.
(ArticlesBase SC #92797)
Article Tags:
anger
,anger management
,de-escalation skills
,angry people
,controlling anger
,handling anger
Anger Management Tips
Blowing up at your boss will feel good for a few seconds - until you get fired. Here, some office-friendly alternatives to losing your cool. (00:46)
Dante's Inferno The Fifth Circle: Anger
Put on your angry eyes, Dante's Inferno ventures into the angry fifth circle of hell with developers previewing weapon-based combat and more. (04:34)
Anger Terminal Lung Cancer - Melissa's Story
Melissa shares if she is angry that she has terminal lung cancer. (01:24)
Everyday Anger
The original "hyper-chondriac", author and humorist Brian Frazer explains why it’s so easy to get angry (01:07)
Coping with Personality Changes After Trauma
The personality of a survivor of a traumatic brain injury can change drastically following injury. This video helps explain how friends and family should try and act and care for their loved ones, as well suggest ways of dealing with the difficulties (03:02)
It may be difficult for an individual, no matter what age, to admit they need help in controlling their problem with anger. However this is the initial step to treatment and learning how to control these emotions. Effective anger management help is assistance in discovering methods or strategies for managing
Having trouble controlling anger is a major issue in many individual's lives. Addressing this issue can be difficult if the person is unwilling to admit to their problem and seek help. It is imperative that people be supportive and encouraging to those with anger issues. At times it may seem impossible since
Anger management teaches the individual to slow down their thinking, think before they speak or react. Angry feelings and emotions can be calmed by relaxing exercises such as deep breathing, relaxing imagery and slow nonstrenuous exercise similar to yoga.
Breathe deep and long breaths. Be sure to open your belly and breathe deep into your abdomen. You may not know it, but when you're angry you're panicking. This will help you to calm down. If you know how, pray. Pray for God to guide you through this dark time.
Breathe deep and long breaths. Be sure to open your belly and breathe deep into your abdomen. You may not know it, but when you're angry you're panicking. This will help you to calm down. If you know how, pray. Pray for God to guide you through this dark time.
Anger is a natural emotion. It is not possible for anybody not to be angry. Some people may react very harshly to their feelings and hence their expression creates problems.
Openly displaying anger by "blowing off steam" was once considered a healthy form of anger management. However the evidence firmly suggests that such blow-ups do not solve problems and instead cause trauma for everyone involved.
Anger is known by everyone. Everybody has felt it: whether as an annoyance or as full fledged rage. It is completely normal, healthy human emotion. It is dangerous when it gets out of control and turns destructive.
Speed reading helps you to read and understand texts more quickly. It is an essential skill in any environment where you have to learn bulky pieces of information fast.
Joe Vitale and other advocates of Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) claim that EFT tapping sessions help people to achieve freedom from limiting financial beliefs and eliminate subconscious blocks toward making money. According to Gary Craig Emotional Freedom Technique often works where nothing else will. But the question is, whether and how does it help people to get more money?
Mental illness is always much harder to deal with than physical ailments, as it can rob people of their very selfhood. When your loved ones cease to recognize you, there can be nothing more painful than watching them struggle to find a sense of identity amidst the memories that keep slipping away.
The advances in medical science since World War II have seen life expectancy rise by several decades. Now, the challenge faced by medicine is - how do you maintain a person's quality of life, for a span of 80 years or greater?
With its headquarter locate in the National Capital Region (NCR) of India, SynapseIndia is a prominent name in the global outsourcing and offshoring arena. Catering to the various industries namely finance and investment, sports, medical and healthcare, and others, the company is a trusted outsourcing partner for clients based in the USA, UK, Canada, Australia and other parts of the world.
Improving memory is not something that is done by magic. If you don't use it, you will truly lose it. That's why it's a good thing there are professional cognitive development services such as those offered by Happy Neuron to help you take charge of your mental health.
An emotional belief is a very powerful part of who we are as people. These emotional beliefs dictate what we experience in this world. So why would anyone want to re-pattern or change one of these beliefs?
Debt elimination and financial security are two areas that go hand-in-hand and everyone needs to prepare for continued difficult times by focusing on improving their own financial situations this year. Relying on the same old credit system will only make things worse. No matter what any government does, you will only become secure if you personally start living with a cash system again. Credit Cards are actually DEBT cards; but that sounds bad so that term is never used. Think about it. Every ch
I have received a lot of inquires lately about how to discipline teenagers. It's an interesting topic and one that bears consideration. I believe most of the issue lies in how one identifies the problem. There are three major considerations. When children enter the teen years, their developmental stage is of...
About three years ago, I wrote a three-part series on Creating an Effective Online Presence but that was before I understood anything about social media. Now if you are going to have an effective online presence, social media is one aspect that can help put you on the cyber map. I...
Whether you are a teacher, counselor, therapist, doctor, receptionist, sales person or friend, you know the power of instant rapport. I was recently asked to give a talk about it and it challenged my thinking. I thought to myself, "I know how to build rapport. I do it quite naturally,...
Is it true that Dr. William Glasser's Choice Theory doesn't believe in mental illness? Of course not! However, that is what many believe and some don't give his ideas credence because they think he is wrong about that. This article is my humble attempt to explain exactly what Dr. Glasser...
How important is physical compatibility in relationships? Well, it depends on the couple. For some people their physicality is of utmost importance to them. When it is, they often want their partner to engage in many of their activities with them. For some couples the physical nature of their relationship...
One of the first things in learning to change a behavior is to bring into conscious awareness why you do the thing you are attempting to stop doing. Losing weight is a theme common to many who have enough in their lives that their own starvation is not something that...
I have received enough questions from people over the years asking about how to get past an affair that I wanted to write about it. There are so many intricate details of your personal relationship that factor into this decision that it is challenging to make generalizations but I will...
How many times in a day do you use the word "my" to describe a particular relationship you have with someone in your life? For example, you might say "my husband," "my child," "my friend," or "my parents." While the possessive pronoun "my" helps to explain certain relationships, it can...
0