maybe instead of always being the one who is “more rational than thou” when the other person is upset, maybe sometimes in some scenarios it would help to at first be a little less calm in response
From The worst way to calm someone down on Creating Passionate Users.
I found this very interesting and could identify with it quite a bit having lived in a rather “male” dominated family environment – at least in numbers with a husband and three sons. I have not always found the logical, rational (dare I say it more male) response necessarily makes me feel better when I’m upset about something. Obviously it is good to have someone you love and respect help you keep things in perspective, but sometimes you just end up feeling that your upset feelings are not rational and therefore not valid. I think there is a whole debate we could have here!!
I think the observation that an upset person gets more angry when the intervener tries to calm them has validity!
If you have ever watched the Airport show, what’s it called again, this happens regularly.
The customer service clerk assigned to calm the upset passenger keeps repeating “Please keep calm, sir/madam!”.
Without fail, the upset person gets more upset at the lack of emotion..the calculated calm approach with empathetic-less tone!
Maybe the “mirroring” example of the horse trainer should be used to calm the prehensile part of the angry person’s brain! But only the body language..don’t imitate the angry words..repeat:
use the “mirroring” of the body while the words are calming..look a little frightened..
the angry person enjoys that!
Then calm them down SLOWLY saying just the right thing. This skill is worth a fortune!
Program Officers at the prison are paid between $55,000 and $70,000 per year for calming angry offenders, and earning their trust!
They usually only have a psych. degree and perhaps an Anger Management course or a Life Skills course added to that. But they know exactly how to behave with angry, virtually psychotic inmates!