Understanding Personal Safety and Communication

We believe that if an angry, frustrated or aggressive person can be engaged with compelling verbal strategies, congruent body language and confident presence, they will more often than not choose alternatives to violence in order to resolve their situation.

By taking a behavioural approach to confrontation, we see that in most cases, the majority of people who are experiencing confrontation are merely trying to have their basic needs met.   They would much rather that they were somewhere else, doing something else!  Most would rather not be experiencing the corrosive, heightened states which arise, unbidden and unwanted, in the midst of conflict.

Scientific research on the effects of brain function on behaviour help us to understand what happens in emotionally-intense moments.

When faced with an imminent threat, as a species we are behaviourally-wired to experience:

- a strong ‘away motivation’

1. -perceptual distortion (changes in time-sense, visual field and hearing)
   

2. -difficulty in completing tasks requiring cognition (such as negotiating!)
   

3. -intense phsyiological arousal
   

Our human survival system is extraordinary.    It works faster than the ‘plodding of logic’ and can “hijack” our higher-level thinking in the pursuit of safety, security and control.  This genetically wired neurology will always try to protect us in the face of perceived threats.  It is an amazing gift, however it is often also the cause of irrational and impulsive behaviour!

Most people who exhibit frustration, anger or aggression are in fact attempting to find a non-violent way to have their needs met. 

This realisation can be hugely empowering.  It allows us to approach confrontations with a positive attitude that if we can identify the unmet needs in the situation, then we have the potential to resolve conflict without escalation of aggression or violence.

We encourage staff to exercise their empathy, to refine and elaborate upon their natural inclination to co-operate, to console and to reciprocate with those they interact with.

Research underlines the fact that human beings employ empathy at a neurological level - that certain parts of the brain are, in fact, dedicated to modelling and fine-tuning our awareness of what it means to be “in the mind of another”

Decision-making processes and emotional tools help us to channel this ability and produce the kind of confidence needed to successfully deploy verbal de-fuse strategies in critical moments.

The tactics which make up a communication toolbox are aimed at gaining voluntary compliance within the situations they are applied to.  Utilising easy-to remember strategies and approaches, they are driven by empathy and fuelled by confidence. 

Knowing which strategies to use and when is a product of experience, knowledge and personal creativity.   Knowledge - about brain function under stress, about patterns of behaviour, about rapport-building - is a critical factor in determining how far a confrontation may escalate.