What is Non-Violent Intervention?

There are several phases to non-violent intervention. Usually an episode follows a path from the precursor stage, preassaultive state, to an actual physical acting-out which could be destructive or violent. A person starts out being anxious, asking questions or challenging authority, for example "Why do I need this medicine" to "You can't make me take it". The anxiety can show itself as loudness, pressured speech, sudden silence, threatening stance, pacing, swearing, etc, but is still in the verbal phase. The response to anxiety is empathy, answering questions and setting boundaries (what will be the consequences if she does not take the medicine..she will lose her telephone privileges). The staff member stands at right angles to the person, with open arms as opposed to folded arms or clenched fists. This gives the staff person a non-threatening pose, and also a quick escape route if physically threatened.

Most of the non-violent intervention is verbal. But occasionally the person is beyond verbal and starts to act out physically. Say the person suddenly grabs your arm...or grabs a hunk of hair...well, there are ways to disengage that do not leave chunks of your arm or hair behind. Or what if the person bites you or grabs you around the neck and chokes you? In the psych ward or in the emergency department you need to be aware that people sometimes get so out of control that they can do things like that. So the non-violent techniques are ways to escape these grabs and holds without harm to yourself or the acting-out person. Fortunately these things don't happen in ordinary daily life very often, but it is very good to know I could escape a choke hold from a surprised encounter with a robber. And how many abductions could be foiled if people knew some basic techniques!

We do teach a few physical team holds, and these are sometimes needed to control a child or teenager, or a psychotic adult until the person gives up or can be controlled by medication or put into a safe place. The reason we teach these techniques it that otherwise staff have the inclination to "pile on" to subdue a violent person, and this can and has resulted in asphyxiations. This may be rare, but just last year in NC, two patients died from being improperly physical subdued, (not in our hospitals).

A violent intervention would be restraints such as handcuffs, gun drawn, etc., which are the province of the police.