7 Ways to Respond to Verbally Aggressive People
If you are concerned about someone who is often verbally aggressive toward you, take action now. These situations can lead to domestic or workplace violence. It is very important to seek help to deal with a potentially violent situation.
1. Do not respond in the same way
Responding in anger, what the verbally aggressive people are already expressing, is useless. It does not get us anywhere. The person is already angry and can contaminate us as well.
2. Choose not to take it personally
Extremely aggressive people usually use harmful words. Instead of being sad with the painful words, realize that words can not hurt you. You have a choice on how to respond to this situation. Taking those angry words to the personal side just makes you feel bad.
3. Respond with care
In a study of psychiatric nurses working with nonphysical methods to prostrate a verbally aggressive patient, nurses who identified a growing situation, followed these steps to help patients return to a state of calm.
* Check the level of aggressiveness of the aggressive person on a scale of 1 to 10.
* Try to understand the meaning of aggressive behavior.
* Connect with the aggressive person.
* Design an intervention solution to the needs of the person.
You can use these same strategies to try to discourage an aggressive situation.
* Check your level of aggressiveness. Ask yourself if, based on your actions, the person is just a little upset, or if there is potential to do harm to yourself or others.
* Do not wait to ask for help if you think someone might get hurt.
* Listen to everything the angry person is saying and reflect back to her to make sure you understand her correctly.
* Use language such as “I understand why you are upset” or “I can see how frustrating this is for you”
Ask the aggressive person a suggestion to solve the problem or offer their own solution.
4. Allow a safe place to express your emotions
Manipulation is a characteristic of passive aggressive people. Avoid being manipulated by recognizing aggression for what it is, anger. If you have not done anything wrong, do not let the irritated person force you to apologize.
What a verbally aggressive person needs is a place to vent their frustrations, where someone will listen, sympathize and try to find a good solution for both parties. Let the irritated person know that you are willing to listen, but only if they calm down, so you can talk at a normal volume.
5. Allow her space to be alone
Aggressive people are often quick to be dominated and then frustrated by many sensory inputs. Traffic and crowded places, for example, have many sights, sounds and decisions that need to be made. A lot is happening and it becomes difficult to process every situation.
When the person goes beyond frustration and moves on to aggression, it can become a dangerous situation for the focus of their anger. This type of aggressive pattern is quite common in our daily stress lives. Removing some of the stimuli is one of the best ways to control the aggressive person.
Allow them to have a quieter environment for a moment so they can calm your anxiety level.
6. Respond with humor
No one likes to be a joke, but if you can be quick with a straightforward joke, this ability to add humor is the best way to respond to an aggressive person verbally. A nonjudgmental comment that possibly makes the other person smile is very helpful.
7. Provide resources for
Ask the verbally aggressive person how they can best help you when they become irritated with something again in the future. Offer any resources that can help you. Counseling resources are now more widely available than ever before.
There are counseling applications, websites and phones available. There is no reason to live with emotional pain if therapy can help.
Article by Akinbode Toluleke check up Twitter on taakinbode
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