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BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

By Gregory M. Vecchi, PhD, CFC, CHS-V

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onflict & Crisis
ommunication
A Methodology for Influencing and Persuading Behavioral Change

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or purposes of this article, the term “critical incident” refers to any significant event that
negatively disrupts the functions of everyday living and which requires the attention and
expertise of those who are speciallytrained to handle these events. These critical incidents are further defined as those which lend themselves to a communication-based
resolution (Rogan, Hammer, & Van Zandt, 1997; Slatkin, 2005). Some examples are barricaded
hostage and crisis situations, kidnappings, suicide situations, workplace and school violence, and
trauma (Booth, Vecchi, Finney, Van Hasselt, & Romano, 2009; Daniels, Royster,& Vecchi, 2007;
Van Hasselt, Flood, Romano, Vecchi, de Fabrique, & Regini, 2005). The methodology presented
herein is derived from law enforcement negotiation practices and conflict management theory,
which is applicable to therapists and other professionals who must intervene in critical incidents
using verbal communication strategies and tactics.

The views expressed in this article donot necessarily represent
the views of the FBI.
34 ANNALS Spring 2009

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Contrasting Conflict and Crisis Events
The terms “conflict” and “crisis” have specific
meanings within the context of critical incident
response, management, and resolution (Vecchi,
in press). Wilmot & Hocker (1998) defined
conflict as the perceived blocking of important
goals, needs,or interests of one person or
group by another person or group. A person’s
response to conflict can be constructive or
destructive. For example, in a child custody
battle, the losing parent (whose need to have
her children is blocked by her former husband
via a court order) could respond constructively
by taking her ex-husband back to court, or
destructively by taking her children by force.In the event of the latter, a crisis may result if
she is unable to cope with the problem.
A crisis is the result of a conflict gone awry.
Caplan (1961) and Carkhuff & Berenson
(1977) described a crisis as that which a
person perceives as presenting insurmountable
obstacles to achieve desired goals or outcomes.
Greenstone (2002) and James & Gilliland
(2001) further stated that in acrisis, there
is the sense that these goal and outcome
impediments cannot be managed through
the usual problem-solving methods. Crisis
situations place demands on persons in crisis to
act in furtherance of resolving it. Depending on
the action taken, the behavior can be adaptive
or maladaptive (Rosenbluh, 2001). Adaptive
behavior results in positive crisis resolution
and maladaptive behaviorresults in negative
resolution. For example, a situation involving
a man discovering that his wife has cheated
on him has the potential to incite a crisis.
How the man deals with the situation can be
either adaptive or maladaptive, depending on
his coping and social skills. An example of an
adaptive strategy would be for the man to gather

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all information possible andconstructively
confront his wife about the situation and pursue
marital counseling. An example of maladaptive
behavior would be for the husband to take
his wife captive with the intent to kill her for
cheating on him. In both examples, the man
is attempting to resolve the crisis; however, in
the former example, the communicator would
encourage the adaptive behavior, whereas
in the latterexample, the communicator
would discourage the maladaptive behavior
by implementing the strategies and tactics of
crisis intervention to assist in ending the crisis
in a more positive manner.
Whether or not a situation is viewed as a crisis
depends on perception, previous experiences,
level of resiliency, and coping skills. This explains
why a particularly horrific event will result in...