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.

Another stretch of the AT

Yesterday Jerry and I hiked from Clingman's Dome to Indian Gap. We left our camper at the KOA at Cherokee, drove to the Indian Gap parking lot and hitched a ride to Clingman's Dome with a young couple from Ohio. We decided to hike from Clingman's in the northerly direction, since it would be mostly DOWN, not UP. Well, that may be true, but there were Mt. Love and Mt. Collins in between, with lots of UPS! It took us about 5 hours, half of it in a misty drizzle. But the trail is beautiful no matter what! And Jerry had the foresight to include 2 large black garbage bags in our pack, so we poked 3 holes in each one and at least our torsos stayed dry. Plus we were wearing hats with brims, and that kept our heads dry.

We encountered 15 other hikers during the trip at various points, all of who were going the other way. We pitied them for more UPS they certainly suffered. What did we see? Beautiful views of rainy Smoky Mountains, wild blooming rhododendron, ferns in their brilliant early green. We inhaled balsam and thought of Christmas!

Now we are planning our July hike...we hope to do Mt. Katahdin summit in Maine! No, we are not through hiking, just picking the spots closest to where we are, and with only a day's hike. We do not have time or possibly stamina for a 6 month hike. Too bad we started so late in life! But better late than never!

Teaching nonviolence

Today I taught a nonviolent crisis intervention session. The Mennonite in me has come full circle. It is a system of nonviolence that can be applied to any escalating interpersonal situation. The stages are anxiety, defensive, acting out and tension reduction. When a person is anxious, the best way to react to him or her is to be supportive and caring. If she escalates to the defensive state, the best response is to set limits, choices or boundaries. If the situation escalates from these verbal states into physical acting out, the reaction needs to be nonviolent physical intervention. The final state is tension reduction, when all the bad energy has been spent, the person is exhausted, and the crisis is past. At this point the person needs to have contact with staff reestablished, care and rapport reintroduced. We teach and review these steps annually to all our emergency room staff, our behavioral health (psychiatric unit) staff, and to our public safety officers. I enjoyed teaching the session, and from the evaluations, so did the class.

Still a Newby

I am sitting at the back of the room at Novant orientation. I am looking at all 88 new faces joining our company, and they all look eager, and a little anxious. That is how I feel about this new type of communication...blogging.
So why am I at the back? Well, I am one of the educators responsible for the orientation this morning. I have been doing this every month for several years, so no more anxiety for this.
I can only imagine that I will get comfortable writing blogs, too!