2014 Michelle Royal-Hebblewhite Debriefing

Debriefing

Managing the Impact of Exposure to Client Conflict.

Practical Strategies to Apply in Your Practice.

©Michelle Royal-Hebblewhite 2014

Deepak Chopra



It’s your body – you are the expert!

Signs & Symptoms of Stress

Signs: Objective Signs present physically observable data to or about

oneself or another

Symptoms: Subjective Symptoms are feelings and sensations apparent to and/or described by the one who is experiencing

them


Some Possible Signs of Stress

Skin: Unusual changes to colour of face/ Rash/ Scratching

Altered breathing rate

Tension ‘held’ (clenched fists, grinding teeth)

Nervous habits

Increased/ decreased eating & drinking

Little interest in appearance/ Change in quality of work

Social withdrawal / change in morale

Defensiveness/ Short temper

Forgetfulness


Some Possible Symptoms of Stress

Air hunger/ Feeling squeezed or choked

Dizziness/ Light-headed/ Blurred vision/ Nausea/ Headache/ Migraine

Pain/ Tightness/ Numbness/ Cramping

Dry mouth/ Ringing ears/ Itchy skin

Difficulty concentrating/ staying focused/ staying motivated

Restlessness/ Insomnia

Feeling stuck/ Overwhelmed/ Lost/ Unsafe/ Insecure

Unwanted repetitious thoughts/ Negative self-talk

Fatigue/ Low energy


What me? Not me!

Many people will deny that they experience work-related stress. However, attuned individuals are in the best position to

recognise early symptoms and initiate appropriate interventions. Attention to the impact of daily exposure to high conflict clients, for example, safeguards physical and

emotional health. Occupational stress will often be present in client-focused services such as mediation. Our human

propensity to empathise with the needs and responses of our clients can lead to compassion fatigue, a “state of exhaustion and dysfunction…” (Figley, 1995). Secondary Traumatic Stress (Stamm, 1995) is well documented; we suffer for our clients

through exposure to their stories or by witnessing their trauma.


Resonance: You get changed by being with your

client


“Our bodies live ‘opened up’ to situations especially other humans”

(Madison, 2005, cited in Van Deuzen & Baker)

“You cannot function within the environment without changing it or being changed by it.” (Lakoff G & Johnson M, 2003)

“…Understanding emerges from interaction, from constant negotiation with the environment and other people…Re-current experience leads to the formation of categories, which are experiential gestalts…We understand our experience directly when we see it as being structured coherently in terms of gestalts that have emerged directly from interaction with and in our environment. We understand experience metaphorically when we use a gestalt from one domain of experience to structure experience in another domain….understanding provides a richer perspective on some of the most important areas of experience in our everyday lives: Interpersonal communication and mutual understanding Self-understanding.” (Lakoff G & Johnson M, 2003)


Resonance: under pressure a

wineglass cracks, buckles, breaks

• In 2005 the television show MythBusters proved that an unassisted voice can certainly shatter glass. This is an example of resonance and demonstrates how we can be affected energetically.

• Any stress process involves exposure to a stressor. • Glass is brittle; with few energy absorbing features. It’s surface is covered with

cracks and fissures (invisible to the naked eye) • Glass has a structure that can focus sound; Sound energy can quickly lengthen

cracks, which buckle under pressure and break all at once, shattering the glass. • The sound energy has forced the glass to try to move in its vibration further and

faster than the material in the glass is able to move. Beyond its comfort zone, it breaks under the strain.

• The World Health Organisation defines stress as “the reaction people may have when presented with demands and pressures that are not matched to their knowledge and abilities and which challenge their ability to cope”.

• Different glasses will have different fracture strengths; they may look identical but some glasses can withstand higher stress levels than others. People are the same.

• People are unpredictable in the way they respond to identical situations. For a variety of known and unknown reasons, stress thresholds will differ for each of us.


Research has shown that in the first few milliseconds of our perceiving something we not only unconsciously decide what it is

but decide whether we like it or not. - Daniel Goleman

As we know, it is the amygdala that can trigger a fight or flight response before the thinking centres of the brain have fully understood what is happening and it is the amygdala that colours our emotional responses before we have rationally formed our opinions. Whether we like it or not, how we enter ‘the room’ and what we bring with us will influence aspects of a consultation. Therapists often agree, ‘The theme walks in the door first’.

As the repository for emotional memory, the amygdala scans experience, comparing what is happening now

with what happened in the past (and) commands that we react to the present in ways that were imprinted long ago

- Daniel Goleman Almost fully formed at birth, the amygdala stores early, pre-verbal, emotional memory that impacts on our adult interactions in ways that we cannot articulate, interpret or understand. However, we need to develop our emotional intelligence to be able to make socially mature decisions and to discern appropriate responses from chaotic reactions. This is particularly important when we are exposed to stress.

The body is the key to understanding our pre-verbal disposition to stress and to managing our responses and reactions to stress.


• Knowledge of the external world depends on our modes of perception

• We experience the world through our sense organs: skin, eyes, nose, ears, tongue (touch, sight, smell, hearing, taste)

• Combinations of multiple sensory organs give us awareness of balance, pressure, temperature, pain, body position and motion

• Also: Feeling satiated/full; the need to vomit; to urinate; itching; sense of time; sense of direction; regulation of breathing and managing O2 and Co2 levels; and more…

• “Our concepts structure what we perceive, how we get around in the world, how we relate to other people…. the way we think, what we experience, and what we do every day is very much a matter of metaphor. But our conceptual system is not something we are normally aware of....Metaphor is one of our most important tools for trying to comprehend partially what cannot be comprehended totally: our feelings, aesthetic experiences, moral practices and spiritual awareness. These endeavours of the imagination are not devoid of rationality, since they use metaphor, they employ an imaginative rationality.” (Lakoff G & Johnson M, 1980)


• Stressful situations can cause us to deviate from our physiological norm

• This can happen so often that we begin to experience continual stress as normal

• We can be seduced by stress - it may feel comfortable or exciting – we can become attached to it, even ruled by it

• We may lose our awareness of what is happening, when, and how – but a great deal is in fact happening

• Our bodies hold our ‘felt’ of ‘lived’ experience; ‘embodied’ cognition


Trust your Gut Feeling

• The Gut produces hundreds of neurochemicals and hormones (including 95 % of the body’s supply of serotonin) that are active in the brain to regulate learning, memory and mood.

• "A big part of our emotions are probably influenced by the nerves in our gut”- Mayer (2010), professor of physiology, psychiatry and bio-behavioural sciences, U.C.L.A.

• The Gut consists of neurotransmitters; it communicates intelligence via bodily sensations, feelings, instincts, and intuition.

• Many cultures focus on the belly (including the lower back, abdomen and naval) as a source of wisdom and a place of balance.

• Butterflies in the stomach—signalling in the gut as part of our physiological stress response – Gershin, neurogastroenterologist and author of The Second Brain (1998)

• It takes guts to listen to your gut feeling; to loosen the knot in the guts; anticipate the kick; settle the butterflies; repair the bust.

• Awareness of the metaphors that enter our lives – where, when and why they present themselves – is a way of developing self-understanding, increasing our flexibility ‘in the moment of the experience’, and broadening our retepore of coping skills.

Gut Feeling


Kicked in the guts SHOCK PAIN

Cold feet FEAR

Toes stood upon SELF ESTEEM BOUNDARIES

Banging my head against a brick wall FRUSTRATION

In over my head LIMITS PANIC Fed up to the eyeballs/back teeth LIMITS BOUNDARIES

Stuck my neck out RISK

Kept at an arm’s distance/length DISCONNECTION

Slapped in the face DISRESPECTED Ears burning ANXIETY Stiff upper lip HOLDING TENSION Foaming at the mouth ANGER

Hands tied DISABLED

Grasping at straws DESPERATION

Couldn’t

INTOLERANCE

stomach any more

Knees knocking FEAR Brought to my knees DEFEAT

Started off on the wrong foot OUT OF STEP DISCONNECTED

I was on my last legs EXHAUSTION

Ground cut out from under my feet UNSUPPORTED It was hard to toe the line BOUNDARIES

The situation got out of hand FEAR

Fingers pointing at me ALIENATED

Bitter taste in my mouth ANXIETY

Up in arms AGITATED

Bone of contention DISAGREEMENT

Looking over my shoulder DANGER

Fought tooth and nail DESPERATION

It got under my skin BOUNDARIES


Metaphor is a neural phenomenon

“Metaphor naturally, and inevitably, recruits sensory-motor inference for use in abstract thought….Primary metaphors arise spontaneously and automatically….When we imagine seeing a scene, our visual cortex is active. When we imagine moving our bodies, the pre-motor cortex and motor cortex are active. In short, some of the same parts of our brains are active in imagining as in perceiving and doing. We will use the term enactment for dynamic brain functions shared both during perceiving and acting and during imagining.”

(Lakoff G & Johnson M, 2003)


Applying LMA

• Laban Movement Analysis (LMA) describes many aspects of non-verbal behaviour; revealing the way the body moves, acts, and copes in the environment.

• Impulses to move are described in terms of Space, Weight, Time and Flow – and combinations of these.

• Using idiom or metaphor, we use ‘cognitive hooks’ instead of messy narrative story-lines, to access an effective approach to everyday stress.


Action Space Weight Time

FLOAT Indirect Light Sustained

GLIDE Direct Light Sustained

WRING Indirect Strong Sustained

FLICK Indirect Light Sudden

PUNCH Direct Strong Sudden

SLASH Indirect Strong Sudden

DAB Direct Light Sudden

PRESS Direct Strong Sustained


Go with the Flow

Spaceless Timeless Weightless

Time + Weight + Flow Space + Weight + Flow Time + Space + Flow

Passion Spell Vision

Heated debate may have too much strong weight

Tends to persuade, seduce, hold up, or lock into a story

Recalling a memory or dream or thoughts

Can get out of control May run out of time May get lost in


Re-introduction of Space can help parties regain some distance and direction Re-introduction of Time can help to re-focus parties on the task Re-introduction of Weight can help ground a situation

Name it, locate it, move it, change it…

“Weight of the world on my shoulders”

Strong Weight + Sustained Time + Bound Flow What does that look like? Pick up the world and see what it feels like! Carry it around in Space for a while. How are your shoulders? How’s the rest of your body? How long can you carry this weight around for? Are you balanced or is it tipping you forwards, backwards, from side to side? What would help you carry it? Do you need to carry it? What would happen if you put it down? What does it look like from a distance? What shape is it? What could you do with that shape? What if the weight of the world was the size of a tennis ball; What if you were really in space and the world was as light as a feather? What would you do then? How could you play with something that is otherwise so overwhelming? Can you make it bounce? Float? Roll? Flatten? Massage your shoulders with it? Morph! If the weight of the world could be changed into anything at all that would help you, what would that be?


A kick in the guts

Scenario#1: You are in a meeting and can’t help feeling “kicked in the guts” and “winded” (you are aware that you often feel this way in this particular sort of meeting). You wish that you could be prepared for this and able to change the dynamic next time. You cannot ignore this feeling and after examining the metaphor and the action, you decide that there are several approaches you could take in the next meeting. A Kick combines these elements: Direct Space + Strong Weight + Sudden Time In response, the body would contract in a backward direction and the breath would be expelled. Antidotes: What are the choices? What will work best for you? i. Dodge the kick – Indirect + Light + Sudden. This could be a playful approach that simply

involves making a slight shift in your seat, thereby letting that kick go through to the keeper (so to speak).

ii. Anticipate the kick and mark it – Indirect + Light + Sustained. Marks take courage; a footballer will anticipate the need to follow the ball’s flight; to turn, leap and float in preparation to meet the ball and control it. This is a more measured approach in which there is time to lengthen the spine and breathe. It could be that simple – breathe!

At the next meeting, you will need to be aware but not preoccupied! This is simply a tool that can be used to allay a potentially stressful experience.


It’s still a bone of contention Scenario#2 : You have just finished a mediation and it hasn’t settled. An issue remains in dispute, with the disagreeing parties unable or unwilling to resolve it. You are disappointed and wondering if there is anything you could have done differently to get the parties to drop their ‘bone of contention’, as you describe it. It may be that the mediation will continue on another day or maybe not. Origin of the metaphor: Literally, two dogs fighting over one bone. Originally coined in the 1500s , “The diuell hath cast a bone to set stryfe betweene you”. (The Oxford English Dictionary) The action qualities are Direct + Strong + Sustained – Pressing the point, not giving in. Antidotes: What are the choices? What will work best for you? During your own debriefing and reflection, the best choice might be to let go of that bone yourself (and your investment in it); your choice whether you want to hurl it far away, simply give it the flick or press it into the ground and bury it. If you throw it away, there is an added Buddhist technique of watching the object, or the emotion, as it gets further and further away, until it completely disappears from mind sight.


My hands were tied Scenario#3 : You have just finished a mediation and it didn’t go the way you might have expected. You feel that your hands were tied. When you express this, what are your hands actually doing? Are they together? Tightly or loosely held? In front, beside, behind you? Still, moving, clasping, waving? Crossed, uncrossed? Above your head in a gesture? What does the gesture communicate? Are your hands saying, “I give up”, “I surrender”, “Help”? Are your hands juggling something or weighing up? Are your hands in relationship with other parts of your body or are they disconnected? Your observations provide diagnostic information that will help you find the antidote and literally ‘free you up’. Maybe you need a hand to help you consider what occurred in the mediation; maybe it was really only one finger that was tied – a reminder!


Vulnerabilities: your greatest strengths? Obstacles?

• What are your patterns? Do you use vulnerabilities to inform? Do vulnerabilities become your excuse? Do you deny you have any?

• How do you self regulate? Observe, monitor, reflect? Collapse? Self-medicate?

• Are you Resilient? Is your pelt damaged?

• How do you solve your own problems? Seek help from others? From someone dealing with the same issues? From someone who will always agree with you? From someone who is unflappable and doesn’t get into a state when you are in a state?


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2014 Michelle Royal-Hebblewhite Debriefing

Presentations & Public Speaking