De-escalation
What is de-escalation at the Baltimore Wisdom Project?
De-escalation is a life course that helps us make peace, foster healing, and enact justice when discomfort, anxiety, traumatic incidents, unregulated feelings, or adverse circumstances arise.
At the BWP, de-escalation is embodied. In other words, it flows deeply within our bodies and minds. We sense de-escalation deeply. We feel it working on anatomical levels in the calm functioning of our body's 12 systems. We value and practice de-escalation on experiential levels as we think and act peacefully. Thus, for us, de-escalation is a "whole person" and "whole community" endeavor.
Our emphasis on de-escalation as an embodied life course instead of only as crisis intervention may depart from other strategies. We believe that barriers to de-escalation are everyday problems requiring both prevention and intervention.
De-escalation is a life course that helps us make peace, foster healing, and enact justice when discomfort, anxiety, traumatic incidents, unregulated feelings, or adverse circumstances arise.
At the BWP, de-escalation is embodied. In other words, it flows deeply within our bodies and minds. We sense de-escalation deeply. We feel it working on anatomical levels in the calm functioning of our body's 12 systems. We value and practice de-escalation on experiential levels as we think and act peacefully. Thus, for us, de-escalation is a "whole person" and "whole community" endeavor.
Our emphasis on de-escalation as an embodied life course instead of only as crisis intervention may depart from other strategies. We believe that barriers to de-escalation are everyday problems requiring both prevention and intervention.
Values for Our Life Course Approach to De-Escalation
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Listen before labeling.
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Step back, move away, and/or find stillness, and take a wide-angled, calm, patient view of the experience. See, hear, and sense what is happening from multiple vantage points. Before making judgements or assumptions, observe and describe the facts so you have emotionally neutral and fair bases for a response.
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Connect before correcting.
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Pause. Step back. Find calm. Discern the advantages—what's good—before ascertaining disadvantages. Connect with the person, place, or thing based on what's working well. Affirm what's working well. Let an affirmative connection be a neutral and fair basis for offering advise or stating behavioral requirements.
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Respond before reacting.
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Slow down. Pause. Think it through. Control impulses. Instead of always reacting suddenly to stimuli, adopt a careful and aware response. Allow this sensitive, thoughtful approach inform your mindset and actions even when a quick, timely, decisive response is needed.
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Goals & Outcomes
- Ensure the safety of everyone present, including oneself.
- Ensure that the persons, places, and things are restored to a calm, well-functioning state to the best of everyone's abilities.
- Ensure that the effected person (the person in crisis) gets immediate medical and/or mental health help if needed.
- Ensure that appropriate follow-ups, check-ins, and/or medical/mental health treatment are carried out to reduce repeated escalating problems.
- Ensure that bias and discrimination are free from de-escalating strategies.
- Ensure that escalating strategies are culturally responsive without being culturally essentialist (meaning, without being open to diverse experiences within cultural groups).
- Overcome barriers to peace through sound prevention and intervention.
Communication and Engagement in Moments of Traumatic Crisis
Attitude
Words
Posture
Space
- Remain calm—nothing that a person in crisis says or does should rankle you or deter you from your professional goals and outcomes.
- Adopt an open, neutral, non-aggressive attitude (or self-projection).
- Monitor facial expressions so as to appear non-threatening.
- Avoid direct, sustained eye-contact.
- Adopt a neutral, calm, nonthreatening tone of voice (avoid yelling, but project one's voice to be heard in a non-toxic manner if necessary).
Words
- Say only what is absolutely needed, no more and no less.
- Say uncomplicated, straight forward phrases and sentences.
- Avoid giving false impressions or making promises that cannot be kept.
- Avoid toxic, aggressive statements or demands. These words and phrases raise the tension to the highest stakes and lead to devastating, unsafe conditions.
- Avoid over-corrective demands.
- Avoid statements that may seem superficial or untrue like, "It's going to be okay."
- For children, saying "I care about you" may be appropriate if there is a prior positive connection, but for adults, remain emotionally neutral because the stress and trauma of the moment may make persons distrustful of overly emotional statements.
- Say words that encourage cooling down in the "we" mode so that a person feels that they are not being singled out like, "We're cool. We can be cool. We're getting calmer. We can work on it. We can work it out."
- Use "when/then" statements like this: "When we ____, then we will be calm and able to do ____" or "When we do ____, then we will be safe and we can do ____."
- Say words that prompt the person to move from toxic, hyper-emotionalized expression, to a thoughtful mindset: "Take a moment. Think it through. Pause. The consequences may be _____ and do we really want that?"
- Appeal to a person's better nature: "We're better than that. We all make mistakes. We are not our mistakes. We don't have to be ____. We can be ____."
- Do not talk about yourself. Keep the focus on the person in crisis. (Personal storytelling is very effective and welcome in other educational and health situation, just not when de-escalating in a crisis most of the times. Some forms of hostage negotiating do allow for rare moments of personalized appeals.)
- Offer honest, genuine support and help or ask if you can help. If a person's demands are unreasonable, say words that shift the person towards reasonable aid: "I may not be able to do ____, but I can do _____."
Posture
- Avoid body positions that appear to be over top of a person, block a person's body, vision, or exit, or are in any way threatening.
Space
- Give a person space. Back away. Remember: there are ways to track a person even if they have done harm and, unless they are going to harm someone immediately, sometimes just letting a person leave a place so that they can cool down in their own way, or leaving them alone so they have space and time to cool down may be the best forms of de-escalation.
Barriers
What are barriers that impede peace and that motivate de-escalation?
Receiving timely help and support for these barriers helps reduce moments of crisis and the need for de-escalation.
Active Listening
What are barriers that impede peace and that motivate de-escalation?
Receiving timely help and support for these barriers helps reduce moments of crisis and the need for de-escalation.
- Mental health issues.
- Medical issues or illness.
- Familial trauma.
- Workplace trauma.
- Cultural bias (implicit or explicit).
- Financial problems.
- Anger mismanagement.
- Lack of control of impulses.
- Mismanagement of emotions.
- Access to weapons.
- Catastrophizing—a sense that a cascade of problems are "raining down" on a person.
Active Listening
- Listen carefully.
- Repeat and paraphrase what a person said and inquire if your paraphrase is correct.
- Inquire what the ramifications or consequences of their statements may be.
- Do not compare.
- Do not judge.
- Do not argue.
- Stay focused on the goals and outcomes, and the best practices for communication in a crisis.
Sources
Hi! My name is Miss tree turtle. I am the Director (CEO) of the Baltimore Wisdom Project (BWP). I am dropping into this web page to explain the sources of our approach to de-escalation.
(1)
During the early to middle 1990s, I took workshops with a clinical psychologist named Dr. Teresa Bolick (1953-2017). Dr. Bolick is most known for her extensive clinical healing work with autistic children. Two of her formulations are particularly important.
Dr. Bolick advocated for a "low and slow" approach to intervening in moments of escalated behavior—slowing down the engagement; lowering one's voice; and eliminating toxic attitudes or expressions.
(2)
Dr. Bolick's methods in her "House of Human Development" approach were based on a powerful notion: sensory regulation—the management of how we sense and feel in the world—must be the foundation of the development of communication, cognitive skills, and social and emotional skills, especially in children.
(3)
Dr. Bolick's methods aligned with my studies of Body Mind Centering with Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, the author of Sensing, Feeling, and Action: The Experiential Anatomy of Body-Mind Centering® (BMC).
Embodiment
Both Dr. Bolick's methods and BMC helped me develop an approach to de-escalation that flows from an embodied understanding of peacefulness within ourselves and in our relationships with others.
I came to understand the importance of sensing and feeling peacefulness and release deeply in our body's 12 major systems and acting (moving, speaking, doing) in a manner commensurate with the management of our senses and feelings.
Justice
In the early 2000s, after working for an organization that mediated between Black youth and police, I learned all over again that there can be no de-escalation in the United States without a deep commitment to justice for Black people centered on our thriving and prosperity.
Too many national de-escalation strategies in the U.S. are, in fact, not chiefly about elevating the leadership, voices, vision, health, and safety of grassroots, historically marginalized communities (including Black communities). Rather national de-escalation adopts a "public safety" approach that funds, gives resources, and favors the leadership of law enforcement.
I support just enforcement of laws and I support the many law enforcement and correctional officers that do good. At the same time, we must be critical about the deep, longterm patterns of violence and corruption within much American law enforcement and we must be clear that de-escalation cannot be realized without society-wide changes in violent, corrupt, and bigoted policing, prosecuting, and incarcerating.
Hi! My name is Miss tree turtle. I am the Director (CEO) of the Baltimore Wisdom Project (BWP). I am dropping into this web page to explain the sources of our approach to de-escalation.
(1)
During the early to middle 1990s, I took workshops with a clinical psychologist named Dr. Teresa Bolick (1953-2017). Dr. Bolick is most known for her extensive clinical healing work with autistic children. Two of her formulations are particularly important.
Dr. Bolick advocated for a "low and slow" approach to intervening in moments of escalated behavior—slowing down the engagement; lowering one's voice; and eliminating toxic attitudes or expressions.
(2)
Dr. Bolick's methods in her "House of Human Development" approach were based on a powerful notion: sensory regulation—the management of how we sense and feel in the world—must be the foundation of the development of communication, cognitive skills, and social and emotional skills, especially in children.
(3)
Dr. Bolick's methods aligned with my studies of Body Mind Centering with Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, the author of Sensing, Feeling, and Action: The Experiential Anatomy of Body-Mind Centering® (BMC).
Embodiment
Both Dr. Bolick's methods and BMC helped me develop an approach to de-escalation that flows from an embodied understanding of peacefulness within ourselves and in our relationships with others.
I came to understand the importance of sensing and feeling peacefulness and release deeply in our body's 12 major systems and acting (moving, speaking, doing) in a manner commensurate with the management of our senses and feelings.
Justice
In the early 2000s, after working for an organization that mediated between Black youth and police, I learned all over again that there can be no de-escalation in the United States without a deep commitment to justice for Black people centered on our thriving and prosperity.
Too many national de-escalation strategies in the U.S. are, in fact, not chiefly about elevating the leadership, voices, vision, health, and safety of grassroots, historically marginalized communities (including Black communities). Rather national de-escalation adopts a "public safety" approach that funds, gives resources, and favors the leadership of law enforcement.
I support just enforcement of laws and I support the many law enforcement and correctional officers that do good. At the same time, we must be critical about the deep, longterm patterns of violence and corruption within much American law enforcement and we must be clear that de-escalation cannot be realized without society-wide changes in violent, corrupt, and bigoted policing, prosecuting, and incarcerating.