Conflict and Anger - Strategies to De-Escalate and Get Conversation Back on Track

“If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow.” So said a fortune cookie once found by researcher Carol Tavris, who writes on the expression of anger. It turns out that this is good advice---both when you apply it to yourself and when you're trying to de-escalate someone else's intense online anger management.

Thanks to the past decade's work on emotional intelligence and research on the brain, we now understand that two common attitudes about anger are more myth than good practice. Venting anger, instead of being cathartic, actually heats us up more. As Emotional Intelligence author Daniel Goleman has said, "Anger builds on anger." On the other end of the continuum is the attitude that online anger management can be controlled or prevented. While there are strategies that can help reduce volatile anger, we now know that anger and rage are some of the most difficult emotions to control because of our brains' emotional circuitry.

Not coincidentally, dealing with your own and others' anger is one of the most frequent fears I hear expressed by my online anger management clients before we sit down together. People sometimes say, "I'm afraid of her anger" or "I'm worried I'll make things worse if I lose my temper."

If you are someone who is uncomfortable with others' overt anger or whose work puts you regularly in front of potentially angry people, then here are some strategies I recommend from my mediator's toolbox. These are strategies informed by the most recent research on online anger management and by the experience of using them regularly.

Short-circuit the anger with what's called "mitigating self-talk." People often ask me how mediators can stand people's intense anger. I differentiate someone yelling at me from someone yelling toward me. By knowing this, I'm less tempted to fan the flames with my own defensiveness or online anger management, and I'm better able to keep my balance. In effect, I'm defusing the anger by not engaging it. So, instead of saying, "You can't talk that way to me," instead try to...

Acknowledge and empathize. As hard as it sounds to feel empathy for someone who's acting badly in front of you, it now appears that the instinct for empathy may actually be hard-wired in our brains. Build on that instinct by acknowledging their emotional online anger management and needs, rather than figuratively pushing back or focusing too quickly on problem-solving. Say to the other person, "I see how frustrating this is for you" or "I'm sorry this has been so aggravating."

Listen to understand. In online anger management most of us have learned to listen in order to respond, debate, judge or convince. I call it "listening with your answer running." Yet, one of the reasons people get loud during conflict is that they don't feel heard. Set aside, for the moment, your desire to defend, tell or fix the situation and listen with one intention: To fully understand. Say something like, "Tell me more."

If nothing else has worked yet, take a time out. Recent research confirms that this remains a highly effective online anger management in the face of rage. But there are two key conditions:

First, the time shouldn't be used to brood about your anger, because such brooding in effect allows anger to build on anger. So, the time out should include a distraction from the anger, something that pulls your online anger management elsewhere.

Second, if you're not the one who's enraged and you're suggesting a time out, it's important to communicate that you're not dismissing the other person---that only stokes the anger. Instead of saying, "I think you need to take a time out, " say something like, "I think we'd both benefit from a break to get our bearings, and then I'd like to continue this online anger management."

When faced with an angry person, you do your best for them and for yourself when you can find ways to see the equal human in front of you. There's a big difference between someone who is a jerk (as in, always and forever, which is rarely the case) and someone who's acting like one in a bad moment.

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