Realistic Practice of What We Can Control Leads to Verbal Deescalation Success

The fourth unit in the CPI Nonviolent Crisis Intervention course is based on “Verbal Intervention.” Among other things, this unit strives to teach participants the power of knowing the Verbal Escalation Continuum, a model that enables us to recognize the range of verbally “defensive” behaviors that clients may exhibit. If we can recognize the specific defensive behavior being exhibited, we can likely identify an appropriate response that can deescalate this person back into the stage of tension reduction.

To teach this model, the unit begins with a three or more activities that require participants to model the behaviors of the different behaviors on this Verbal Escalation Continuum. For instance, “questioning” is one way that our clients respond when we make a request of them that they don’t like. They ask information-seeking questions and challenging questions…anything to keep from doing the thing that we need them to do. So, the unit has an activity that requires some participants to role play as a client who is “questioning” a staff member who has made a request.

To make this a powerful activity, the video series at crisisprevention.com has a series of recommendations, including...

• Make it realistic: When role-playing, it is important to ask questions that a client may actually ask. We want participants to have fun with the exercise, but we also want it to be real enough that those practicing as staff members learn something about how to handle “defensive” individuals in the process.

• Adapt the exercise for non-verbal clients: Not all “defensive” actions are verbal, so it is important to have the “clients” in these exercises do things, such as crossing arms and facing walls, among other things.

• Focus on what we can control: It is important that instructors highlight this piece of the activity. We have a choice, as staff members, to control our behaviors. So, even if the person in-crisis is using irrational questioning to stay off-task, we can still set limits and be cognizant of our non-verbal and paraverbal communication to keep the person in-crisis from escalating even more.

After these activities, participants breakdown the experience while building their understanding of the Verbal Escalation Continuum. Activity 1 focused on questioning, so now we show where that behavior falls on the Verbal Escalation Continuum, and how to respond to it. During this portion of the training, I like to use a T-chart to help participants recognize that each of the behaviors on the Verbal Escalation Continuum are our clients’ attempts at communicating something. However, because they have moved into a “defensive” level of crisis behavior, they may not know how to communicate their needs rationally.

For instance, when I talk about “information-seeking” questions, I like to share a question that I sometimes got when I was an assistant school principal. I remember one time when I was speaking to a student’s parent about a suspension from school and she asked, “When can I speak to the principal?” So, on my T-chart, the “Behavior” on one side of the chart is represented by this question. What that person was trying to communicate – aside from a challenge to my authority – was disappointment, or a feeling of powerlessness. This is what I wrote on the other side of the T-Chart under the heading: “What is this person trying to communicate?”

In my job, when I got questions like this, I did what CPI told me to do. I “downplayed the challenge,” “stuck to the topic,” and “set limits.” Usually, if I let that parent know that the principal was available after the school day ended at 3, and if I reminded the parent that the consequence I had given was prescribed the handbook, I successful downplayed the challenge, set a limit, and that person did not return after school to speak to the principal.

Using the T-chart helps participants to recognize that our clients are trying to communicate something when they are defensive and challenging. If we can rationally try to figure out what they are trying to communicate, we can successfully stop ourselves from becoming “defensive” along with them. I hope you can also use this unit to help your staff understand ways to avoid escalated conflict in your facility.