Dr. Brittany Poynter, CAMH ED Clinical Head, talked to the Toronto Star about how to effectively engage with people experiencing a mental health or emotional crisis to help them calm down.
When you come across somebody who is agitated, aggressive and yelling, your first instinct is probably to run the other way. But there are ways to effectively engage an agitated person to help them calm down so you can have a conversation and hopefully help them. This skill is called de-escalation.
In my work as an emergency department psychiatrist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), I’m part of a team working to de-escalate people experiencing a variety of psychiatric symptoms.
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