The Third Rail of Emotional Abuse

I recently received this anonymous inquiry:

I'm very curious about emotional abuse. I'm concerned about a community member who has a history of trauma and is also a trauma therapist who is twisting the words of others to cause them to feel bad about themselves. It feels like emotional abuse. We're working toward mediation process but I'm wondering how a conflict resolution team would work with this type of pattern.

While I know no more details about this situation than what's contained in the paragraph above, I think it's a good topic. 

At the outset, it's important to understand that I have no training in trauma response, per se, and do not consider myself an expert in that arena. That said, I do consider myself an expert on conflict in cooperative groups, and hold the view that it's imperative for cooperative groups to be able to work constructively with feelings (which are invariably in the room whether you have agreements about them or not, and undoubtedly are a central feature of trauma).

While it's up to each community to establish what protocols will serve the group best with respect to the emergence of conflict and non-trivial distress, here's how I would engage with the dynamic described by the inquirer:

Let's make this as messy as possible, and assume that there are at least three different perspectives on what was happening (where the same event was experienced first-hand by three different people, all of whom may be having a different response).

Let's say Pat is the trauma therapist, Chris is the person who has been made to feel bad about themselves, and Dale is someone upset observing this. 

If I were facilitating when this dynamic emerged, I would step in to interrupt the dynamic as soon as I was conscious of someone being in noticeable distress (most likely cuing in to Chris or Dale, based on the scenario presented). Note that I would interrupt the exchanges as soon as I recognized distress or reactivity—I would not wait until I determined that abuse had occurred, which can be a more complex assessment.

When stepping in, I would try to engage the person I sensed was most in distress and then work my way around the room, until everyone in reaction had had a chance to say what was going on for them. In this instance, the fulminating tension may be between Chris and Pat, or it may be between Dale & Pat. 

(For that matter, there could be tension between Dale & Chris: I recall how irritated my mother was when I would would criticize my father for going into a rant and belittling her—she told me in n o uncertain terms to butt out; she didn't want me defending her.)

I would engage with each person long enough to establish what they are feeling, their version of what happened, and its impact on them. I would steer them away from labeling others, assigning motivation to others, or from analyzing the situation. I would simply be asking them to report what they've experienced and its meaning to them. After listening to their responses, I would reflect back the essence of what I heard, doing my best to match both their words and their energy. I would be trying to walk in their shoes.

Essential to this being effective is staying with it until the speaker reports feeling heard. Caution: It is often insufficient to simply assert, "I hear you" or to nod sympathetically. You have to be able to demonstrate to the upset person's satisfaction, that you get what they've told you.

My thinking here is that people in distress often feel isolated and are not confident that others will be open to hearing about their experience, or to understand it even if they get to tell their story. With that in mind, the very first order of business is to establish connection, so that information can flow.

How It Might Look to Pat

This can have a very wide range, including the following possibilities:

• Pat may have been abusive yet have no consciousness of it.

• Pat may own that they were purposefully trying to hurt Chris (I don't run into this often, but it's a possibility).

• Pat may believe they engaged with Chris in ways that they felt were ethical and constructive.

• Pat may be oblivious to what they had done, or its impact on Chris.

• Pat may recognize that they had gone overboard (in some sense) and are in remorse about it.

Even if you stipulate that Pat is skilled as a trauma therapist, that doesn't preclude their having a blind spot about the ways in which they can trigger trauma in others, nor does it guarantee that they are always aware of when they have been triggered. Finally, therapists are likely to have a preferred method for working trauma, and there is no single approach that's 100% effective.

Thus, while it's reasonable to expect a trauma therapist to be sensitive to what will be triggering in others, and to be deft in picking up on cues that what they're doing is landing poorly, there are no certainties.

Pat might be completely at ease with what they did; they might be embarrassed; they might be curious (that Dale thinks they were abusive); they might also be in reaction themselves (to who knows what). 

How It Might Look to Chris

Just because Dale believes Pat was abusing Chris, does not necessarily mean that Chris experienced Pat as abusive. It's important, I think, to not jump ahead, and to listen carefully to each player's story. There could well be three very disparate realities in play without anyone being "wrong."

While it seems unlikely that Chris enjoyed their interaction with Pat, discomfort or confusion is not necessarily abuse. Was the exchange embarrassing? Overwhelming? Unrelenting? Accusatory? Trauma-triggering (in ways that Pat might reasonably be expected to know or be sensitive to)? There is a wealth of possibilities here.

I can imagine that Chris might be in tears, shaking, or completely shut down. Or they might be outwardly calm, or even untouched by what Dale found intolerable.

By describing Pat's interactions with Chris as "abusive," it suggests that Pat—at least in Dale's eyes—placed Chris in an awkward (excruciating?) spot, without license to do so.

How It Might Look to Dale

It seems certain from the description that Dale had a definite negative reaction to what Pat was doing with Chris.

This could stem from any or all of the following:

—Outrage on behalf of the group (that Chris could be treated this way).

—Upset over the perception that Pat is acting out of integrity as a trauma therapist (misusing their license).

—Frustration with the group that Pat's behavior has been tolerated.

—Personal irritation with Pat that has its roots in prior unresolved issues.

How to Proceed

With all these moving parts, I'd need to make an in-the-moment assessment of where the major axis of tension ran and begin there. In condensed form, here is the sequence I'd follow:

• Interrupt the damaging or upsetting exchanges (stop the merry-go-round)

• Acknowledge the protagonists' experiences (noting where they are similar and where they diverge)

• Decide (interactively with the players and the group) whether to take it further in the moment, or set something up afterwards in another setting. If the former, I would work in dyads, starting with those most triggered or most in distress, attempting to repair relationship damage and to reopen channels of communication. Problem solving would follow that (commitments the two might make to each other about how to proceed differently in the future).

If the latter, I'd stay with it long enough to get a commitment from each party about a time and place to reconvene.

If the Facilitator Is Overwhelmed or Ineffective

This is where the Conflict Resolution Team might come into play, being on call to step in at need if the facilitator cannot answer the bell. While I strongly advocate that groups have such a team, there are three essential things that need to be in place for that hope to be realized:

1. A general agreement to engage with strong feelings when they surface (permission).

2. Clarity about how those feelings will be worked with (while there are a number of modalities for working with conflict, the group needs to bless at least one of the them, so members know what they've signed up for).

3. Sufficient skill in the community to be able to facilitate this work using the chosen modality.

It does no good to have a general agreement to work with conflict if there is no agreement about how to go about it, or no confidence in the group's ability to navigate it successfully.

Responding to Abuse in Cooperative Groups

Yesterday I posted a blog about Conflict and Abuse, and last night I had some further thoughts about the dynamic I described toward the end, where Chris and Dale (my would-be protagonists) are in the same group, Chris does something that Dale labels abusive, and both want to remain in the group.

I wrote:
If Chris and Dale are in the same group, I agree that abuse should be treated differently from other forms of conflict in this way: I generally think it's reasonable (even important) that both Dale and Chris be expected to make a good faith effort to try to resolve interpersonal tensions between them—with group assistance if necessary—if they are unable to do so on their own. However, if Dale feels abused by what Chris did, and both want to remain in the group (which is the interesting case), then I would respect Dale's right to decline to engage with Chris. I might request that Dale consider engaging Chris with the group's assistance, but I would not require it. If Dale chooses not to engage with Chris in working through their trauma, the group will have to feel its way through any requests from Dale that Chris' opportunities in the group be limited as a consequence of Dale's abuse experience.

On the matter of how I, as a facilitator, would try to support Dale after understanding that they were triggered by Chris, I would begin the same way (by listening and acknowledging), independent of whether or not they labeled Chris' actions abusive.

Because of the potential I see for the previous paragraph to be misused, I want to explore it a little deeper. The phenomenon I'm worried about is where Dale employs the "abuse" label to avoid working out their reaction to Chris, claiming that they prefer to do this work solo (or perhaps with the help of an outside friend or counselor), yet nothing seems to change. While it's almost always better for the group to have people work through their distress—rather than allowing it to fester—it can be the wrong thing for the abused person's recovery, and it can be delicate knowing the right way to go in a given situation. 

Thus, I think it's OK that groups ask their members to try to work out any unresolved tension with other members, while allowing for the possibility that if a member reports feeling abused that this expectation may be waived. 

Upon reflection I want to further my recommendation: 

I am worried about Dale being the sole determiner of what constitutes abuse. Given that I am proposing group norms about how to respond to a report of abuse by one member in relation to another, the group is a stakeholder in the dynamic. Therefore it's appropriate, I believe, that it has a say in setting the standards for when their support gets activated.

Let's look at some examples. The caveats are that the group has the following agreements:
—Emotional expression is OK (though aggression is not).
—There is a Conflict Resolution Team (or its equivalent) established, whose primary task it is to help group members work through interpersonal tensions that they are not able to resolve on their own. Further, all members involved in unresolved conflict in the context of the group are expected to make a good faith effort to work it out, and cannot turn down an offer of help from the group if the team perceives that the tensions are leaking on the group.
—If a member claims that the actions of another member were abusive and does not want to engage with the person to work it out, that that request will be honored. (This is seen as an exception to the general agreement about conflict stated above).

(I understand that all groups do not have these agreements, but I recommend that they do and I'm trying in this blog to make a more nuanced and complete statement about what I recommend with respect to cases of abuse.)

Example 1
I think you'd get easy agreement that intentionally touching someone's body without permission constitutes abuse. (Obviously there's a wide gamut in how serious the violation can be, running all the way from a light touch on the shoulder to rape, but it's crossing a clear line nonetheless.) 

Example 2
More problematic is something like raising one's voice in a meeting. If Dale grew up in a family with an abusive parent who bullied their children with a dominant voice and threats of beatings, it would not take much to understand how Dale, as an adult, might experience a loud, angry voice from Chris as profoundly disrespectful and abusive. On the other hand, Chris may not be thinking about Dale at all (I'm not saying that's good, but it's understandable in the heat of the moment); they're just being their authentic self (they were raised in a family where people spoke loudly and expressed their feelings openly all the time; it was normal) and the group has a commitment to supporting emotional expression on topic. Now what?

If Dale is allowed to be the sole arbiter of what's labeled abusive, and chooses to not engage with Chris over their raised voice in a meeting—because the group policy allows that option when abuse is involved—imagine how frustrating that would be for Chris. They would have been labeled an abuser with no recourse. That can't be a good result.

• • •

Thus, I think it's appropriate that if Dale informs the group that they have been abused by Chris, that it automatically triggers a step where the group (or better yet, its designated committee, which is probably a quicker and more discreet way to handle it—I recommend that this task be given to the Conflict Resolution Team) reviews the situation and makes two assessments:

a) Is there group agreement that the alleged action is abusive? Mind you, this in no way invalidates Dale's experience—it's still abuse to them regardless of what the committee determines as a group standard in this instance. 

Here's how I imagine this working. The committee meets with Dale at their earliest convenience—without Chris being present—and hears them out about their feelings, their story, and its meaning, making sure to understand why Dale thinks what Chris did was abusive. After Dale is satisfied that the committee has heard them accurately, the committee asks if Dale is willing to engage directly with Chris to work through their reaction, in an attempt to resolve tensions, get agreements about future behavior, and to repair damage to relationship. In short, does Dale willing to waive the abuse clause that permits them to not engage with Chris, or do they want to invoke it?

If it is waived, then the matter can proceed as with any other conflict. If, however, Dale wants to steer clear of Chris—which is their right—then the committee needs to huddle (without Dale or Chris) and consider whether Chris' action was sufficiently egregious to be labeled abusive by the group. To be clear, this is not a simple deliberation. The committee will need to weigh:

•  Was the action sufficiently out of line in the context of group culture that there was an implicit understanding that it was abusive?

•  Is there any track record on this behavior, both in the group in general and with Chris in particular? If so, what did we do last time and what was our thinking? Was the outcome satisfactory or deficient? Have cultural norms shifted such that we might have a different answer today?

•  Could Chris have reasonably known that Dale might find their action abusive? Was Chris' behavior a pattern (and therefore likely to occur again without intervention) or unusual?

•  Are there extenuating circumstances that justify treating this instance as a one-off?

•  Is there any reason to believe that Chris was intentionally provocative?

•  What decision or action by the committee has the best potential for supporting and enhancing relationship among all parties: Dale, Chris, and the group?

b) How do we proceed if Dale won't engage with Chris? (This assessment can be skipped, of course, if Dale is willing to engage.) This has two paths: 

i) If the committee determines in the previous step that Chris' behavior was abusive, then it will communicate that to the group and honor Dale's request to not work with Chris to process it. Instead, the committee will take on laboring with Chris over their behavior, making sure Chris understands why the behavior is unacceptable, and doing their best to develop an agreement with Chris to not repeat it. This work may spell out what will happen if Chris does it again anyway. Depending on what the committee understands that Dale wants and what is seen as good for the group, it may ask Chris to apologize (perhaps to both Dale and group).

Any agreements arising from this work with Chris will be communicated to the entire group.

ii) If the committee determines that Chris' behavior was not abusive in the group context, it will nonetheless meet with Chris to make sure they know that Dale found Chris' behavior abusive (and why). They will explore with Chris ways they might voluntarily alter their behavior to be less triggering for Dale (and perhaps others like Dale) without changing their personality or their values. The point being that communication broke down with Dale and that's not a good thing. Based on Dale's response, could Chris achieve what's wanted in the way of fully expressing their views while being less triggering?

Here too, the committee will transmit to the group a summary of the outcome of their deliberation with Chris, including any agreements Chris makes about behavior changes, and any steps Chris is willing to take to repair relationships.

In short, this is shuttle diplomacy between Chris and Dale. While Dale may or may not be open to laboring with the committee (or its rep) on this, the committee should try. And even if Dale declines to work with the committee, the committee should still do what it can to work with Chris. Improvement and greater understanding in any direction—even if unilateral—is better than none.

What It Takes for Groups to Be Less Conflicted about Conflict

About half the time, when I get hired as a cooperative group consultant, I'm asked to work one or more embedded conflicts—things that have been festering for a while and the group doesn't know what to do with them. Sometimes I know that going in, and sometimes I don't. The group may be hiring me to look at something else yet the conflict intrudes into the conversation and then we're off to the races. While it's better when I know ahead of time, conflict goes with the territory, and I'm no longer surprised when it pops up. I just deal with it.

I have a reputation for this, and it's often an element of why I'm hired: either to help a group extract itself from deep mud, or to demonstrate why it's valuable to learn that skill, or both.

Even though all groups experience conflict (by which I mean non-trivial distress in response to something another group member is perceived to have said or done), only a small fraction of groups have sufficiently invested in developing their internal capacity to handle it in the flow of everyday life. Here are the steps I think it takes to get there:

1. Recognizing that conflict is going to occur and learning not to pathologize it. In other words, moving away from the mistaken notion that the incidence of conflict is a metric of the group's health (low conflict=health). Groups need to develop an understanding that conflict is naturally occurring, and the main challenge is working with it well; not trying to extinguish it.

2. Accepting the necessity of the group providing support for people who struggle to find their way through conflict on their own. While I think it's a great idea that groups encourage members to learn to be less reactive and develop their ability to work through their own distress (Nonviolent Communication, for example, can be good for this), it's naive to think that everyone will get good enough at this to never need assistance.

3. Identifying one or more methods for engaging constructively with conflict. There are a number of decent ways to productively approach conflict, but it is not enough to have only a general agreement that there will be help—you have to spell out what methodologies are on the menu, so the would-be user can have an inkling of what will be asked of them. Expecting people in distress to step forward to be black box guinea pigs is not a good plan.

4. Developing the capacity to consistently deliver positive results with the methods selected. Beyond agreeing on how support will be extended to members, the team needs to demonstrate that it can deliver in the clutch. This goes beyond being able to explain the theory of support; you need to show that you can manage the dynamic moment. For the most part the acid test is functioning in the presence of fulminating rage—though for others, rampant tears may be the litmus test.

5. Orienting all members to the availability of support and how to access it. It won't work if the team is hiding its light under a bushel. It has to actively make clear to members what the team offers, how support works, and how it can be invoked.

Beyond that, there are a few forks in the road that you need ot be aware of when setting this up.

Key Question A: Is the support group authorized to be pro-active? Must it wait for conflicted parties to agree to ask for assistance, or can it initiate inquires on its own judgment, or at the request of third parties?
Best answer: All too often, conflict resolution teams are underused (see my blog of Nov 24, 2014: Why Conflict Resolution Committees Are Like Maytag Repairmen). In part because people are reluctant to ask for help (or to admit that they need it); in part because there is a lack of confidence in the skill of the committee; in part because we come out of a culture that considers it meddling to insert yourself into other people's tensions. In recognition of that, it can make a big difference if the committee is authorized to initiate inquiries when there's the appearance that dynamics are stuck and starting to leak into group business. The bottom line here is getting out of the mud, and it's painful to watch stubborn people tolerate longstanding feuds because they're too proud to ask for assistance.

Note: Authorizing the team to be pro-active will not work unless there is a concomitant agreement that all members will to make a good faith effort to resolve tensions if they are named as a player in a conflict—regardless of whether they think they are.

Key Question B: What are the standards for transparency, in tension with confidentiality?

Best answer: Lean toward transparency as far as you can. Learn to describe distress even-handedly in minutes and reports, and then let all group members know the outline of what happened: what the tension was about and what the resolution was, including any agreements about how things will be different going forward. The flow of information is directly related to trust in the whole group. Thus, while it may be unintentional, a consequence of keeping information confidential is that trust is eroded. This is not what you want.

If you keep information confidential for fear that it will be misused, you are helping to create the environment  where that very thing will happen.

Note: I am not advocating that transparency be rammed down people's throats. I think it's best to allow protagonists to set their own limits about what is shared with others. That said, I'm encouraging groups to purposefully work toward an atmosphere of wide sharing within the group, with the clear expectation that individuals will use appropriate discretion when it comes to sharing beyond the group.

Key Question C: How are new members made aware of what the committee does and how to access it? If you are relying on osmosis, that's not a very good answer.

Best answer: Conflict teams should take it upon themselves to help create the culture in which they can thrive. This means regularly educating members (both new and old) about how to be better communicators, how to employ the methodologies for working conflict that the group adopts, and how the committee can help.

Qualities Wanted from Members of the Conflict Resolution Team

I recently worked with a group seeking advice about how to work constructively with conflict. 

Even though the group had been around for 15+ years and this was the first time they'd asked for training in conflict, they were still ahead of the curve. Though all groups experience conflict, only some have agreements in place about how to respond. Mostly groups rely on members sorting it out on their own and hoping for the best.

While this works to an extent, it invariably breaks down when two people are swamped in the waves of their reactions. And it's too late to call a meeting to discuss how to proceed when the water is coming in over the gunwhales. If you want help in place for those chaotic moments, you have to put it there before the waves get big.

While I appreciate that the dream of cooperative living often includes the rose-colored ideal that members will get along well enough that they'll never experience conflict (or only rarely), that's a myth. If you lead lives that are intertwined and are dealing with serious issues (such as how much you're willing to pay to be environmentally benign; how much diversity you can tolerate; the limits of support you can extend to members aging in place; how to handle situations where you think power has been abused) conflict is inevitable, and occasionally it will be thermonuclear.

OK, suppose I've convinced you that it will rain from time to time no matter how dedicated you are to sunny skies. Once groups accept this (some never do) it's common for them to empanel a Conflict Resolution Committee (or something with a similar name) to help members who have trouble navigating high seas on their own.

While that's good as far as it goes, you're not safely into the harbor yet.

One the more common problems that cooperative groups struggle with is not understanding how to delegate effectively. There are essentially two parts to doing this well:

First, crafting clear mandates that lay out what the subgroup is expected to accomplish and the authority it has to do so. [See Consensus from Soup to Nuts for a template of all the generic questions that you'll need to address in order to develop a thorough mandate. See The Fire Fighting Committee for my thoughts on what the mandate for the Conflict Resolution Committee should be.]

Second, care should be given to selecting the people who serve on the subgroup. This entails delineating the qualities wanted from members of the subgroup before you start selecting them. (I apologize if that seems obvious, but you'd be amazed how frequently groups fill committee slots by simply taking the first hands that are raised in a call for volunteers.)

Here's my pass at what I consider to be the qualities that groups might want in people serving on the Conflict Resolution Team:

Group A Qualities
o  Discretion (ability to keep private information private)
o  General open-mindedness about people who are triggered (doesn't think less of those who get upset)
o  Ability to collaborate well with other members of the team (group chemistry)
o  Doesn’t always need to have things go their way
o  Ability to think clearly about what's best for the group, especially in the arenas of safety and health
o  Ability to hear critical feedback about how they're coming across without getting defensive

Group S Qualities
o  Ability to communicate clearly both thoughts and feelings, and to know the difference between them
o  Ability to function well in the presence of distress in others
o  Ability to empathize with people in distress, establishing to their satisfaction that they've been fully heard
o  Self-awareness about when they're triggered
o  Courage to say hard things
o  Has the bandwidth to be able to devote chunks of time to emerging needs (conflict doesn't erupt on a predictable schedule like Old Faithful)
I have sorted the qualities into two categories: Group A are qualities I think you want in all committee members; Group S are qualities that you need in some committee members.

While your list may differ from mine, I think this is a solid point of departure for any discussion about what you'll want. Meanwhile, keep those buoys and life jackets handy.