Why Everyone Should Know About Interventional Empathy:
A Way to Deescalate Destructive and Self-Destructive Behavior
By Dr. Mark Goulston
What would you do if you encountered a suicidal person? You may never have given this subject much thought, which is why we created Stay Alive, a new 75-minute video/podcast documentary available here on YouTube, serving at-risk populations and featuring suicide survivor Kevin Hines and suicide prevention advocate Rayko. (#StayAliveNow) In a time when mental illness, including depression, anxiety, and PTSD, is at an all-time high, it's more important than ever to know what to do to calm down an at-risk person.
Suicide is now the second-leading cause of death among teenagers in the United States, after accidents. The hope that we could help people find their way out of despair was the impetus for creating this film. Suicide prevention isn't just about helping the person who is afflicted. To really move the needle toward saving lives, we need to remove the societal stigma surrounding suicide.
This process begins with helping the people who care about at-risk individuals gain understanding and offer support. The next step is helping society recognize the true struggles of those at risk. Misunderstanding and judgment only further isolate a person who is suicidal. Instead, it's time for more compassion. When everyone understands how much suffering is really going on, we have a real chance to reach out and save lives.
If someone in your life—or perhaps even a stranger—appears to be out of control and potentially self-destructive or dangerous, interventional empathy is a powerful tool. It's a simple process I have been sharing with law enforcement officers as a way to deescalate potentially violent situations. But anyone can learn to practice interventional empathy, and it could help save someone's life.
Here is a six-step process for showing interventional empathy if you or someone you encounter appears as if they may become violent or self-destructive:
Step 1: Say, "Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!" Saying this signals you or others to stop agitated behavior. It's pretty primal. After all, this is the same thing you say to a horse when it rears up and is about to start galloping out of control.
Step 2: Say, "Shh...Shh...Shh...Shh..." This sound signals to quiet not just people's words but their minds as well. It's what our teachers did in elementary school, and it still works to quiet a noisy room.
Step 3: Ask, "What happened to you to get you so upset?" This is a way of validating that people have a reason to be upset as opposed to telling them they're wrong or to just "shut up!"
Step 4: Say, "Tell me more." Saying this invites the person to share a story of events leading to this confrontation. As they relate their story, they will feel listened to, understood, and will understand that you are validating the fact that something led to the current confrontation.
Step 5: Ask, "Is this why you're acting the way you are?" This question connects what they say to how they are behaving and communicates that you understand that whatever they are doing makes sense from their point of view. This further deepens your rapport. It also increases their oxytocin levels and decreases their levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, lowering their reactivity and agitation.
Step 6: Say, "A better thing to do right now would be to ______________." Once the person relaxes, you can suggest an alternate behavior. By using "fill in the blank" language, you invite the person to help you come up with a better solution. This empathetic communication transforms their combativeness into communication and helps you both come up with a way out of the situation.
Why This Works
Empathy is a secret weapon for calming down agitated people. It works because it literally disarms each part of a person's brain in sequence, moving from their most primitive reptilian 'fight or flight' brain, through their mammalian emotional brain, and up into their human rational brain.
When someone is in trouble, they need the gift of empathy more than anything else. Luckily, we are all equipped to offer this to anyone who needs it. And whether that person in need is you, your best friend, your child, or a stranger on the street, you can change a life—maybe even save a life—by showing that you care.
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If you or someone you love needs help, call 911 or call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), or visit www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org.
About Dr. Mark Goulston:
Dr. Mark Goulston is the co-creator and moderator of the suicide prevention documentary Stay Alive. He is a former UCLA professor of psychiatry, FBI hostage negotiation trainer, suicide and violence prevention expert, and one of the world's foremost experts on listening. He is the author of the best-selling "Just Listen": Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone, which became the top book on listening in the world. Dr. Goulston's HBR IdeaCast episode Become a Better Listener is ranked number one of all their podcasts. He is also host of the My Wakeup Call podcast. Dr. Goulston is on the Board of Advisors for HealthCorps and will be receiving the Dr. W. Mark Warfel Resilient Heart Award in April 2019.
For more information, visit Dr. Goulston's website at www.markgoulston.com.
About Stay Alive (#StayAliveNow):
Stay Alive is a 75-minute video/podcast documentary serving at-risk populations. The program's two sections, Understanding and Helping, deliver messages of education, compassion, and caring for those who are in deep despair, along with guidance for their families and friends who love them. Stay Alive is recommended for individuals, families, schools, communities, social services, and churches—anywhere there is a need. Moderated by Mark Goulston, MD, participants in Stay Alive's intimate and disclosing discussion also include Kevin Hines, best known as the man who jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge and survived (www.kevinhinesstory.com), and suicide prevention advocate Rayko (www.rayko.com). #StayAliveNow
Stay Alive is available here on YouTube, and will be available on Amazon Prime Video and other distribution channels free of charge.
For more information, please visit www.stayalivevideo.com.
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SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH, USA, April 8, 2019 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Brandon McBride has been named the new administrator of Intermountain Logan Regional Hospital.
McBride replaces Kyle Hansen, who was recently named administrator of Intermountain Utah Valley Hospital in Provo.
“I am thrilled and grateful for the opportunity to be the administrator at Intermountain Logan Regional Hospital. I look forward to continuing to provide excellent care to our patients throughout the community,” said McBride, who has most recently served as Intermountain’s surgical operations officer. “As a Cache Valley native, I’m excited to help deliver excellent healthcare services to the community I know and love.”
McBride has built an accomplished career at Intermountain Healthcare since joining the nationally-recognized health system in 2008, including leading a system-wide strategy for surgical robotics in partnership with the surgical services clinical program.
McBride also helped Intermountain’s Supply Chain Organization to create more than $9.7 million in contract savings within surgical services by focusing on increasing efficiency across the health system, particularly in operating rooms through improving on-time starts.
“Brandon is an accomplished and experienced leader,” said Joe Mott, associate chief operating officer of Intermountain’s Specialty-Based Care Group. “Brandon has an extensive background in working with physicians, community leaders, board members, and caregivers to expand and promote Intermountain’s services.”
Intermountain Logan Regional Hospital is a Level 3 trauma center and serves residents of northern Utah, southeastern Idaho, and western Wyoming. The hospital recently opened a substance use disorder clinic and will open a new cancer center this month.
Brandon has an extensive background in working with physicians, community leaders, board members, and caregivers to expand and promote Intermountain’s services. He lives in Cache Valley with his family and is very involved with local community groups and events.
Prior to joining Intermountain, McBride served as the Divisional Administrator for the Department of Surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. He completed his bachelor’s degree at Utah State University and earned both an MBA and an MHA from the University of Minnesota.
Intermountain Healthcare is a Utah-based not-for-profit system of 24 hospitals, 160 clinics, a Medical Group with some 2,300 employed physicians and advanced care practitioners, a health insurance company called SelectHealth, and other health services. Intermountain is widely recognized as a leader in transforming healthcare through evidence-based best practices, high quality, and sustainable costs. For more information about Intermountain, visit intermountainhealthcare.org.
Daron Cowley
Intermountain Healthcare
801-442-2834
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Why refusing to label Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terror organization keeps us out of war
By Patrick T. Hiller
961 words
A “Twitter-stamp” by Secretary of State Pompeo made it official. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is now designated as a foreign terrorist organization. “We must help the people of Iran get back their freedom” is a diplomatic tweet of an alternative reality. ISIS, Boko Haram, and Iran, all in one place.
This move is not a measured foreign policy decision that should be up for debate between more diplomacy-minded versus more hawkish policy-makers. This move is a step toward war that should be condemned by all sides. Whether we like it or not, the IRGC is much more than a branch of the Iranian armed forces. It has also been a part of the Iranian governmental, industrial, economic, and social system ever since the 1979 Iranian Revolution with now potentially 11 million affiliated people.
Fact: Labeling the IRGC as a terrorist organization is dangerous and leads us on a path to war.
When we allow the IRGC to be viewed as a terrorist organization, we allow for the commonly known steps of dealing with terrorists to follow: Terrorists are not within our scope of morality. We don’t negotiate with them, we fight them, we destroy them until there aren’t any left. And since 9/11, the US has been in an endless global war on terror (with changing names), fought by the US military on foreign soils.
Seriously and it bears grim repetition, the terrorist designation of the IRGC is a long step toward war with Iran.
By refusing to label Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terror organization we are refusing to create an enemy image of Iranians as a whole. Holly Dagres, editor of the Atlantic Council’s IranSource blog, stated on the BBC Newshour that designating the IRGC as a terrorist organization is problematic because of the complexity of an entity with which 11 million out of 80 million people in Iran are to some extent affiliated with. Making general claims about an entity and its affiliates as a terror organization suggests that we are threatened by “the other” and allows us to easier legitimize violence against “them.” That’s the nature of dehumanization and it is one of the most common forms of propaganda before and during warfare. Combining this psychology with the politics of a global war on terror is worse than unnecessary; it is a classic lose-lose slip that will cost us all.
Targeting the Revolutionary Guard is nothing new. In October 2017, the US Treasury already sanctioned the IRGC under terrorism authority and as Barbara Slavin, director of the Atlantic Council’s Future of Iran Initiative notes, this new designation as a terror organization is gratuitous and provocative. We are in an extremely dangerous moment of the US-Iran conflict. Trump’s unwarranted pulling out of the Iran Nuclear Deal and the additional sanctions already increased the tensions. This step is yet another escalation moving us closer to a war that the US should not risk and that has no upside.
Critics rightfully point to the role the IRGC’s reprehensible actions at home and abroad. They are indeed involved in human rights abuses against their own people as well as supporting violent conflict abroad. Designating them as a terror organization, however, plays into their hands.
I’ve been to Iran. One thing that the highly educated Iranian people know for sure is that Donald Trump, Mike Pompeo, and John Bolton don’t care about their freedom or suffering. Instead, this designation will more likely lead Iranians to rally around the flag against the American government which once again has shown it cannot be trusted. As Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif told our delegation, Iran’s biggest crime in relation to the US was its decision to be independent.
It is not necessary to get fully caught up in the highly complex conflicts of the Middle East and the US role in those to advocate for a different approach with Iran. For now, one thing we can to do prevent another war is to push back against the creation of enemy images for propaganda purposes. Iranian people have every right to determine their own path. The Revolutionary Guard, for better or for worse is part of it. Iranians have national pride that goes beyond the religious regime.
Iranians generally hold complex views, unhelped by the US government telling them what to believe. Michael Axworthy, author of Revolutionary Iran, tells us that Iranians still regard the IRGC as heroes of the Iran-Iraq war and guarantors of independence, but also as repressive and corrupt. Iranians are highly educated, proud, warm, and welcoming people who are very aware of their own government’s often bad behavior. The last thing they want is the help of the US to “get back their freedom.” I know, because I just returned from Iran where I was part of a citizen peace delegation.
The actions by the Trump administration are arguably an attack on Iran’s sovereignty and independence as a nation and will be seen that way. Iranians know their history and the role of outsiders in trying to determine their path for them. The best thing Americans can do for the freedoms of Iranian people is to prevent Trump, Pompeo and Bolton from their ham-handed meddling. The latter comes with war, and I have 80 million reasons there, and 328 million reasons here, not to go to war with the Iranian people.
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Patrick. T. Hiller, Ph.D., syndicated by PeaceVoice, is a Conflict Transformation scholar, professor, served on the Governing Council of the International Peace Research Association (2012-2016), is a member of the Peace and Security Funders Group, and is Director of the War Prevention Initiative of the Jubitz Family Foundation.