In escalated situations, it’s important first to recognize the escalation. De-escalation isn’t about agreeing with someone to pacify them, it’s about taking a pause and assessing the situation, making the way for more clear-headed decisions and choices.  

 

Start by understanding your own escalation response. 

The first step is to recognize when you are escalated and what your escalation response is. Once you know that, you will develop a sense of how you can turn the volume down a bit in order to better assess the situation. The Polyvagal Resilience Model and the range of resilience chart can be helpful tools to visualize an optimal zone for action. 

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Strategies for deescalating yourself. 

​This is going to be personal to you, specific to what is escalating you and the circumstances around your escalation. In general, it is useful to have some strategies in your mind that tend to move you into the range of resilience. 

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Bystander intervention is different. 

If you are in the position of witnessing escalation that is not directed at you, it is really important to be intentional and proceed with care. Sometimes entering a situation with the intention of managing it or de-escalating it, can actually escalate things even further, putting the vulnerable parties at even more risk. There are a lot of helpful places to learn more about conflict de-escalation and bystander intervention. Hollaback! offers some tips for conflict de-escalation and Calling all Crows  gives more information about ways to build safer live music spaces, free from sexual violence.