Deëscalation tip #68: Deëscalation goals

On a peace team--unarmed civilian protection or vibeswatching event crew or unarmed professionals sent to 9-1-1 call emergencies with no weaponry in view and no violent felonies in progress--the overarching goal is for every human on the scene to exit safely, uninjured, and in a calmer state than before.

When police practice their version of deëscalation, the overriding goal is voluntary compliance.[1]

Understanding the difference and bringing that discussion into police training can help improve the effectiveness of that in practice. Confronting the seeming übergoal of mandatory compliance--by any "realistic" means--may lead to better community policing practice. If, for example, a police officer feels it is professionally required that he achieve compliance with some command, it can alter the approach and the ensuing circumstances. He may feel urgency to get that command issued and urgency to close out the encounter. This default setting can prevent deëscalation in some cases, leading to unnecessary use of violent compliance techniques by officers acting in what they feel is best professional practice. 

If instead police were trained to seek public safety for all, without the mandate to achieve compliance, they would more likely be willing to simply establish the goal that nobody hurt anyone else, and everyone has the opportunity to simply leave, or remain, without physically harming or threatening others. 

This is not to claim that all situations will legally or even legitimately end with a nonviolent outcome. A police chief told me many years ago that police will continue to carry guns and use them as long as the US has a Second Amendment and guns are ubiquitous. He is of course correct, in realistic societal norms. We on peace teams do not attempt to train anyone in nonviolent responses to active shooters or even drawn guns, even if some peace team members have dealt with such scenarios in real life. Such training would be only for the most advanced practitioners and would need to be conducted in a highly informed, clear-eyed fashion with disclaimers around likely dangers. 

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[1] https://www.forcescience.com/training/de-escalation-instructor/

 

Philosophy vs values

Philosophers argue, which is great--until it isn't. Conflict Transformation is a discipline with values. Philosophers can use their instruments to agree with or disagree with those values. 

Philosophers argue for and against violence. Great. In Conflict Transformation we have a value, a starting place from which we develop solutionary options: nonviolence.

Philosophers argue for and against peace, freedoms, and rights. Wonderful. In Conflict Transformation we hold to a value: positive peace, which means peace and justice by peaceable means.

Philosophers may use a notable philosopher's arguments to produce conflicting conclusions. For example, two philosophers can develop arguments for and against society permitting abortion, both leaning into the conclusions offered by a significant theoretician in their discipline, John Rawls (Colgrove, 2024). These arguments may be elegant, intellectually, but in the discipline of Conflict Transformation, we would turn to our values and likely listen first to a person who has been, or might be, pregnant, rather than to two male philosophers making sophisticated arguments about women's bodies and who should control them. May the cosmos bless John Rawls, but may male philosophers one day finally learn to listen to the affected or potentially affected people instead of pronouncing on their fate from an imperious academician's perch.

Reference

Colgrove, N. (2024). Abortion and Public Policy: A Defense of “Naive” Rawlsianism. Independent Review, 29(1), 101–112.

Deëscalation tip #67: I think you're pathetic, ignorant, cruel, and wrong. That's why you should listen to me.

Yeah, when my comments to you make you feel like I'm slamming you and disrespecting you, the chances you'll be interested in what I have to offer are slim to none. When we teach deëscalation using the CLARA method (Calm, Listen, Affirm, Respond, Add information) we are using each step in that method to overcome the natural tendencies toward defensiveness built into the neural pathways of many, if not most people engaging in conflict. 

Calm and center ourselves first, preferably before entering the conflict as a party, as a mediator, or as someone merely trying to keep everyone safe. This self-talk can help us ward off the most ad hominem, negative, even hateful attacks on our character, our personality, even our identity. For many of us, our self-talk includes a promise to ourself that this calm, this grounded centered self is not something we will demand of ourselves in some permanent, inviolable fashion; we recognize that we are not saints, and that this idea of being unflappable is most easily achieved by making it a time-limited self-negotiation. As long as I'm in this interaction, I tell myself, I have no triggers, I am in touch with my Inner Buddha, my Inner Perfect Sanguine Self. I can revert to my irascible old hockey coach self later. But even I can achieve perfection for short bursts, and I'm committed to a short period of unshakable beatific behavior. 

Whose truth?

In all conflict situations, in all difficult dialogs, in all tough conversations, there are multiple truths. Every party has a vantage point, a history, and education, making each party unique in seeing their truth. It is thus very likely to have sincere expressions of "the truth" which are, in reality, "a truth." Honoring those possibilities is an important and productive step toward progress. 

As an exercise in this, I will sometimes place several objects in the middle of a circle of chairs, at least some of which are big enough to hide smaller objects on the other side of them. I will put a sheet over it all and call folks into the room or have it ready before the start of the workshop. 

When folks sit in the circle I will ask them to not stand or move their position until after this exercise. I will either hand out paper and pens to ask everyone to write a one-sentence description of what is in the pile of stuff in the middle of the circle, or I will ask them, one at a time, to describe the facts as they see them about the items in the middle.

The point here is obvious. They each have a unique perspective and each have a real, factual, accurate truth--one that may legitimately and authentically be shown as quite different from someone in another position in the circle of observers. While this is a simplistic exercise, it can remain a visual to those who are learning about managing conflict--literally each of us has a genuine, provable, observable truth that may be quite different from that equally authentic truth from someone else. It's okay. 

When everyone is done we of course discuss it and now everyone has a much fuller idea of a more complex, nuanced truth. Then, once everyone is convinced they now hold the real complete set of facts, I reveal some object in the center of the things that no one could have seen. I ask them to remember that even complex, nuanced, highly informed truths from all identifiable parties might still be incomplete, and to allow for that possibility at all times. 

Sometimes the most rudimentary exercises can have lasting lessons for all. 

Set the table

Every conflict transformation authority says it in some fashion: if you fail to invite all the stakeholders to meetings you will more likely fail in your project because you convince the neglected parties that you don't respect them or you intend to deceive them. 

What?! You do not disrespect them! You have no intention of deceiving them! Why would they jump to either or both of those erroneous conclusions?

Say it: Human Nature. If Mom gives your brother a big grilled cheese and only gives you a half, or a small one, you feel left out and you will often wail until you are treated better, but that may just as easily lead to you being punished or treated even worse. This can set up some lifetime issues, especially when you begin to socialize outside the family and a couple other children ignore you and clearly just want to play together without you. Hateful!

Yes, there are those who are either extraordinarily well adjusted or who have been trained not to jump to ill-informed conclusions, but most days they feel like the minority. 

If you are part of a planning group, double check with your colleagues. Who needs to be in the loop? Who needs a voice in the deliberations as we make our group decisions? Make sure you've really given this full consideration.

So what if someone mistakenly feels disrespected or left out? Why is that your problem?

From business deals to neighborhood initiatives to peace accords to any number of decision-making processes, those who feel scorned can become spoilers--the ones who manage to halt all forward motion. They might do so in any number of ways and, by the time they do, you may not understand that all you had to do was include them from the beginning and they would have been just one voice in the negotiated goals of the group, rather than the one who felt humiliated and whose blood was up seeking to inflict hurt in return. 

Bill Ury writes about the various "tables" that stakeholders should be at. One is the general table of parties who may ultimately be affected by whatever project we devise, but the other, earlier table is the internal parties as we contemplate what sort of possible project we wish to launch.

Deëscalation tip #66: Getting physical

When we try to deëscalate an enraged person, do we use words to finesse them? Sure, but that's not all.

Do we listen well so they feel heard? Absolutely, but we cannot call that enough. 

Do we offer to help so they feel supported? Clearly, that can make the tipping point cascade into a new calm. 

But there is one more aspect to complete our approach: we need to know the physical side of emotional work. Briefly:[1]

·       Be aware of eye contact reactions. Some regard direct eye contact as challenging, threatening, an attempt to dominate. Others regard no eye contact as an indication that you are lying and cannot be trusted. Be very cognizant constantly of the reactions you are getting and adjust. 

·       Keep hands open and visible, not in pockets, not behind your back, not clenched. 

·       Relax your arms. Do not fold them across your chest. 

·       Generally try to be at a bit of an angle, not a direct facing posture. 

·       Keep your distance, possibly at least six or eight feet, as the situation seems to require. That makes you less threatening and makes your subject less threatening. 

·       Never shake your finger or point at the person you wish to calm down. 

·       Be very wary of touching. In virtually every case, touching a hand on a shoulder or upper arm is only possible and even advisable after the person is deëscalated enough to largely render that no longer regarded as a potentially emergency threatening move. 

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[1] https://osas.wisc.edu/guide/verbal-de-escalation-techniques/

Deëscalation tip #65: Slouching toward standardization

Frequent studies of aspects of deëscalation are found in the medical literature; it is a high-conflict environment at many times, with high stakes for all, with high pressures on patients and family members in crisis, and all medical staff from physicians to orderlies to administrators. Still, there is no one standard deëscalation method generally accepted and taught in medical schools (See, et al., 2024). 

Thus, in the many scenarios in which high levels of conflict, including violence, are present, the affected areas of society are slowly groping toward a combination of preventive and responsive methods, from the classrooms to the emergency rooms, from school board meetings to cafes, from homeless shelters to law enforcement and all imaginable arenas in-between and in addition.

See, J., Van Deusen, R., Claxton, R., Shenai, N., Rothenberger, S. D., & Donovan, A. K. (2024). CALMER Conflict: A Novel Curriculum for Graduating Medical Students to Manage and Defuse Patient-Provider Conflict. Journal of general internal medicine, 10.1007/s11606-024-08975-5. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-024-08975-5

Speak softly and carry a big BATNA

Guns. 

Does any country on Earth have a Second Amendment, a constitutional protection for those who want to own a gun?

Just US.

And so even though we slaughter scores of innocent civilians, including so many children that it is the number one cause of death[1] for certain age groups of minors in the US, the gun rights groups use that Second Amendment to make it perpetually allowable. 

Side note: how ironic to think the US electorate might care about thousands of children blown up in Gaza when we clearly have so little regard for our own children's lives compared to gun rights. 

I would personally suggest the gun control groups develop a BATNA to help induce more good-faith negotiating. 

BATNA? Yes. It's the best alternative to a negotiated agreement. It's a term coined by William Ury and others at the Harvard Negotiation Project back in the late 1970s and first published in their little 1981 popular book, Getting to Yes. It simply means that, if you are trying to negotiate with anyone, it's important to not only think about "what if these negotiations fail," but to let the others know what you will be forced to do in that case. If you are transparent about your BATNA, the other side has a couple of ways forward. Either that motivates them to keep talking because they didn't understand how strong your BATNA is, or it tends to make them less inclined to negotiate because they are prepared for the most robust action you can imagine taking. 

If the latter is the case, you may be headed for Getting to No. 

If your announced BATNA is an unpleasant shock to them, however, they will likely want to negotiate in good faith. 

So, back to gun control vs gun rights. My choice of BATNA would be, "Look gun rights people, we want to negotiate common sense regulations with you. However, literally every time we pass such measures at the local or state level, you work to overcome the will of the people by challenging those commonsense measures in court, with your lawsuits, and it's all based on the Second Amendment. 

No other country has anything like the Second Amendment and other countries that have dealt with this issue have passed commonsense restrictions, such as the assault weapon ban in Australia virtually immediately after a mass shooting there. 

So we have a best alternative to a negotiated agreement. Our BATNA is that we are going to stop all other gun control work and focus all our resources on a campaign to repeal the Second Amendment. We have a template for that; the amendment outlawing alcoholic beverages was passed and a decade later that Amendment was repealed. We are either going to get your commitment to allow our democratically produced local and state laws honored or we will end our negotiations and begin a massive campaign to overturn the Second Amendment.

We have commitments for this focus from literally hundreds of nongovernmental organizations plus many state and local governmental units that you've frustrated over the years. We've organized these commitments from all the gun control groups you know about, plus public safety and public health organizations--including scores of local and county police chiefs and their officers--as well as healthcare workers' unions, teachers' unions, and PTAs. This is a nationwide commitment and we are ready.

Everything else is regulated as various jurisdictions see fit, from standards for ladders to tools to children's toys, to clothing, etc., as common sense and the voters decide. We are going to regulate guns too. Child toy safety law is to protect the lives of children and gun control is for the same purposes. Think this over and get back to us within the month or we begin our massive shift of people energy and resources toward our new goal."

That's how a BATNA can change the trajectory of a conflict. 

That's how "unwinnable" can flip to winnable. 

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[1] https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2201761 

Deëscalation tip #64: Smart cops, emotionally regulated cops

One study of factors leading to incorrect answers in shoot/don't shoot questions posed to officers who were tested hypothetically during watching videos showed that two factors in particular contributed to poor results.

"Results indicated that lower working memory capacity was associated with a greater likelihood of shooting unarmed targets and a failure to shoot armed targets. Moreover, an interaction effect indicated that these associations were only significant for officers who experienced heightened negative emotionality in response to the video" (Kleider, Parrott & King, 2010, p. 707).

Thus, while such studies pose possible answers to some questions, they raise intriguing questions of their own. Does prior military service relate to "heightened negative emotionality" in response to watching a video they know may include threats from an armed assailant? Does tested IQ relate to "lower working memory"? Are smarter people generally more able to avoid the amygdala hijack that impairs deëscalation? Are there testable cutoff points in police training and assessment that might preclude a person from becoming a sworn (armed) officer? Might some aggregate of such studies contribute to a new corpus of realignment factors and associated tests in police recruit placement or even rejection?

Kleider, H. M., Parrott, D. J., & King, T. Z. (2010). Shooting behaviour: How working memory and negative emotionality influence police officer shoot decisions. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 24(5), 707–717. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/10.1002/acp.1580

Dialog across difference #37: You do you

One fatal flaw in how intercultural communications can tank is acting more culturally literate than I actually am. When I was 17 years old I went through a "whigger" phase, a term with multiple horrible connotations, and with no positive outcomes. When a white person acts black with no legitimate basis, that pejorative term is meant to scorn that inauthentic appropriation. 

It took a fellow young person--a black co-worker in a restaurant in Chicago--to straighten me out. He did it in a good way, kindly, with an open question, giving me a chance to learn. 

After one pithy attempt to "talk black" by me, he just said, "I gotta ask, are you colored?" This was in 1968, when many black people from the poorest parts of the South Side of Chicago were still using that term, whereas I was pretty political (or tryna be), so I was using the most recent permutation of the language, Afro-American. 

"No," I said. "I live in the South Side Christian Center down on 36th and Michigan. I'm the only white boy." 

He laughed. "OK, go'head then. But you are overstepping it, you need to know this." 

He educated me in that moment about cross-cultural fluency and posing as knowing more and being more than I really knew and really was. I was not raised in poverty in the South Side of Chicago, but rather in a middle-class community in Minneapolis. Yes, I was re-inventing myself, but I was also way ahead of my skis, applying an unearned veneer to my attempt to create an image of someone other than who I genuinely was. 

The consequences to me were really all positive. My co-worker compassionately inquired and then gave helpful assessing advice. But when the stakes are much higher, consequences can be daunting. 

For instance, say digital campaigners,[1] Hillary Clinton made a significant blooper in her 2016 campaign, attempting to show off her familiarity with youth culture: 

"In an appearance on the Ellen Show, Clinton called the American people to join her at the polls in November, and made a flailing reference to Pokémon Go, the then-trending phone app.

The segment was clipped and strewn all over the internet. While some were laughing along with Clinton, many more were laughing at her."

As the famous lawyer advice goes, "Never ask a question in court to which you don't already know the answer." Similarly, never make cultural references that are far beyond your actual knowledge unless you simply phrase it as an invitation to help you learn more. "Can you explain this cultural reference to me please? I need help understanding it." Give the power to educate you to someone who will almost always take that as a real invitation made with respect, and give you respect in return. 

This is different than ham-handedly asking a black person, "How do black people feel about this?" It's also different from asking for a long disquisition--which many in historically marginalized cultures regard as a labor equity issue and have increasing answered with curt advice like, "There are many good books that can help you understand." 

A sincere and respectful request for a quick explanation or even a request for direction to some source will usually be met with a grace matching the grace with which you approach it.

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[1] https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4819006-harris-campaign-digital-strategy/?email=f095a04aedd6a52ac7779d3e647a3b2a757ce9f8&emaila=9f521d891617441ceb56f3fc880b25b2&emailb=de76389448a696aa2d0188108371634618a621c0e1cc0c69693020dd5d8001f1&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=08.10.24%20SP%20tipsheet

 

Deëscalation tip #63: Intercultural calmatives such as talking about dumb stuff together

The Harvard Program on Negotiation offers some sound advice,[1] with illustrations, of doing some intercultural work that can deëscalate violence or potential violence. For example, they note, one of the officers at the North Korean/South Korean DMZ routinely chats with his counterpart on the North Korea side on a hotline installed back in 1976. They talk about mundane matters that they slowly identified as of common interest, from baseball to whiskey. When they are talking, he said, they aren't shooting. 

Sometimes the commonalities relate to the escalated behavior. At one Climate Strike Friday in Portland, Oregon, with thousands of kids in the streets demanding climate justice for their generation, a MAGA-type father was yelling, very escalated, apparently furious that the event was happening but using his daughter's presence there as his hook toward his rage. I was able to intercept him just as he was about to engage physically with a group of high school boys who looked quite prepared to fight him. 

I interpositioned myself between them, facing the man and said, "Hi, how can I help?" He started making accusatory claims about his daughter missing school to engage in this frivolous day of skipping, claiming this was going to interfere with his goal of getting his daughter into an Ivy League school. 

Rather than dismiss the obvious illogic of that, I focused on his role as a loving Dad. "I get it," I said. "I'm a Dad too. There are thousands of kids here. Do you want help finding your girl?" 

He deëscalated, much to my relief and likely to the hidden relief of both the boys he was confronting and his own hidden relief at not being drawn into a knockdown brawl. We did find his daughter eventually and it broke my heart. She was 11 and was made up to look like a forest animal with painted whiskers and the sweetest little presence, with the makeup running because she was crying once she saw her father. I commented on how she looked so compassionate, trying to convince the father to let some of his daughter's best traits rub off on him. They left and I could only hope she'd be okay. 

In the domestic US, there is no cultural group further from me than the Trump types, but when they share something with me, that's what I fasten on when trying to deëscalate them. There is no guarantee of success, of course, but debating them is a virtual guarantee of failure, so playing the odds is literally the best bet. 

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[1] https://www.pon.harvard.edu/daily/international-negotiation-daily/how-to-solve-intercultural-conflict/

Deëscalation tip #62: Whose street? R Street!

 

Seeking standards

US Senators Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) introduced the Law Enforcement Scenario-Based Training for Safety and De-Escalation Act of 2023 on 9 September 2023, in an effort to reduce threats to police and citizens alike: 

The curriculum would focus on improving community-police relations; officer and community safety; de-escalation and use of force; situational awareness; physical and emotional responses to stress; critical decision-making and problem-solving; and crisis intervention. The bill would also create a grant program to support public and private entities that train law enforcement officers using immersive curriculum that meets the same standards. All law enforcement officers—in departments large and small, rural and urban—should have access to the state-of-the-art, scenario-based training that saves lives and rebuilds trust. Trust and safety are the foundation of the relationship between our law enforcement and the communities they serve - this bill is an important step toward strengthening law enforcement and community relationships.

The Fraternal Order of Police and Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association have endorsed the legislation.

The R Street Institute is a right-of-center Washington DC nonprofit. They seem to pass independent scrutiny[1] as both factual and generally free from loaded or dog-whistle language, and are deemed conservative by themselves as well as others, primarily for their libertarian orientation toward free-market capitalism, though they publish findings in their reports that do call for government regulation or intervention to solve or prevent certain societal harms. In July of 2024 they published a report on the condition of police deëscalation training. Their findings include: 

In recent years, law enforcement agencies have learned from crisis intervention teams and conflict resolution practitioners and created trainings for individual officers. Effective de-escalation training is a long-term investment in reducing the costs of the policing system and limiting government size and impact in the communities that law enforcement serves.[2]

Of course those who teach, research, and professionally practice conflict transformation (the increasingly preferred term, rather than conflict resolution, in the discipline) have been hoping to help with this challenge for many years, and are now hoping to influence police deëscalation training and practice in more and more jurisdictions.

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[1] https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/r-street-institute/

[2] https://www.rstreet.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/FINAL-r-street-policy-study-no-307-1.pdf

Is this a nonviolent arena?

In the broader nonviolent activist community, honest minds differ about engaging in the legal system. Some believe it is simply a violent subsystem of the violent war system.

They have a point. Structural violence within the legal system is quite active at several levels. 

First, it costs a great deal of money to get adequate legal representation--and the public defenders, sorry, don't count for much in most cases. Why? Not only are they generally paid far less than lawyers on the private side, they are even paid less than prosecutors in most cases, and, just to bury this point completely, public appointment of prosecutors vastly outdoes appointment of their public counterparts, the defense of those who cannot afford the $multi-hundreds per billable hour of good lawyers. Expecting great lawyers to volunteer--that is, offer their services pro bono--is both unrealistic and a labor equity issue.

Second, there many systemic biases that generally result in a higher percentage of people of color arrested and charged. In many studies, for instance, racial profiling is proven and, as logic dictates, if a higher percent of a certain demographic is contacted by law enforcement, a greater percent of that population is exposed to examination, observation, and interrogation. If there is a bag of marijuana on the back seat of two drivers and a white person isn't pulled over, but a black person is, the skewed results are painfully obvious. 

The anecdotal examples of racism in American policing are familiar to most, directly to most BIPOC Americans and even internationally when shocking stories are published in world press. For instance, an account was published in Eastern Eye UK of a Seattle police officer speeding at 119 mph hitting a 23-year-old Indian student, Jaahnavi Kandula, killing her and resulting in another officer laughing about it and saying she wasn't worth much.[1]

Far more insidious is the "I was in fear for my life" response offered by police as a qualified immunity defense when they kill someone, and the fear of a black person seems to overshadow all other factors for many white officers, or at least a higher percent of them who are investigated after they kill someone--and black people remain a much more likely target for police violence in America.[2] For many years this was almost a routinely successful way for them to avoid indictment in many, if not most, jurisdictions in the US, and it's still a rarity for a white police officer to be charged in the harm or death of a person of color, almost irrespective of the evidence. 

On the civil side of the law, a BIPOC plaintiff suing a white-majority city government for claims of police violence or almost any other claim has an uphill battle steeper than a white plaintiff in many cases. 

So, in these ways and more, yes, the legal system in the US is one featuring a great deal of structural violence. 

There are also those in the religious and some schools of philosophy that not only understand the structural violence of the US legal system but also simply are not interested in the legal structures at all, preferring to only speak from that religious, spiritual, or philosophical stance when and where they feel called to do so. This is of course the absolute theoretical right of each person to speak when they wish about what they want when they want. That right doesn't exist at all in the legal system, an adversarial system in which the object of the lawyers is to try to tell their side of the story and shut down the story the opposing side wishes to tell. This is, of course, the opposite of both free speech and of any sort of mediation or conflict transformation. A mediator is focused on eliciting all stories from all parties and a lawyer is not. 

For all these reasons and more, the law on both the criminal and civil sides is not a nonviolent institution and those who abjure participation have all these solid points and more. 

The counter-argument is plain for those who wish to practice strategic nonviolence; if things were fair we wouldn't need to offer nonviolent resistance in the first place. We will do our best even under plainly oppressive and unfair conditions in the hopes that we can achieve the occasional recognition by a jury that we are doing the right thing.

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[1] Vivek Mishra. (July 18, 2024 Thursday). US cop who said Indian student killed had limited value fired. Eastern Eye UK. https://advance-lexis-com.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:6CH8-SY31-JBM6-H0MD-00000-00&context=1519360.

[2] Targeted News Service. (October 29, 2020 Thursday). University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine: Fatal Police Shootings Among Black Americans Remain High, Unchanged Since 2015. Targeted News Service. https://advance-lexis-com.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:615P-D0G1-DYG2-R3MS-00000-00&context=1519360.

You need to understand! No: Help me understand

Good problem-solving starts with good listening. Good listening, say Stone, Patton & Heen (2023), begins with authenticity and honest inquiry, but there are times when circumstances are so overwhelming that a statement of concern should precede a question. If I am too flooded to listen until I express how triggered I am, the other party will regard my inquiry as disguised accusation. 

Announcing my state of mind sets the conversation in real territory, not the feeling that I'm engaged in some weird performative kabuki. Being real about my emotional supercharge allows the other party to see it, feel it, and proceed accordingly. If my internal flare up isn't acknowledged, a tone of superficial game-playing is set and our dialog will ring falsely. 

However, if I'm not able to then transition into compassionate curiosity, perhaps it's not a time to proceed, but instead announce the need for a pause. Being genuine is more conducive to progress than retreat into an obvious veneer of roleplaying techniques. 

As soon as I am ready to really want to learn why, to understand the trauma or triggers that have produced the behavior that pushes me over the edge, I can in all honesty begin to ask and the other party can in all honesty begin to answer. Then we are on our way to mutual understanding, if not agreement. 

Asking is most frequently more effective if I can truthfully let the other party feel an authentic invitation: Help me understand.

References

Stone, Douglas; Patton, Bruce; Heen, Sheila (2023). Difficult conversations: How to discuss what matters most, 3rd ed. New York, NY: Penguin.