Detailed definition of the peace reflex
Essential skill enabling you to carry out any act of appeasement towards a person or a group, including in situations of danger. This skill makes it possible to prevent violence at the time (i.e. not to carry out an act of physical or psychological violence), to ease emotional tensions and thereby contribute to conflict resolution.
It includes seven types of capabilities:
1- Proactivity : the ability to be proactive in a situation where there is a risk of violence or tension, i.e. to become the actor of appeasement on one’s own initiative – a basic prerequisite.
2- Emotional de-centering: the ability to de-center oneself from one’s emotions in order to focus one’s full attention on resolving the situation.
3- Soothing through benevolence: the ability to listen with benevolence, engage in dialogue by focusing on the other person, and offer gestures of attention.
4- Soothing surprise: the ability to find words and gestures that will surprise the other person, stop them in their stream of invective and calm their anger through the unexpected or humor.
5- Soothing by rebalancing the balance of power: the ability to assert oneself and/or say no, enabling the psychological balance of power to be rebalanced, which is fundamental to avoid being victimized.
6- Soothing by destabilizing the violent person: the ability to destabilize the other person (without violence) on a psychological or emotional level, to touch their sensitive side, in order to derail them from their planned act, for example by evoking a loved one.
7- Soothing through distance: finally, there’s the ability to distance oneself at the right moment: to protect oneself from physical danger (so as not to be tetanized), to soothe oneself beforehand (so as to recharge one’s batteries), or to choose a better moment to tackle a frictional theme (timing).
Protagonists
Peace reflexes can be adopted either by one or other of the people involved in the conflict – or by witnesses to the scene. It’s a matter of making the choice to replace one’s habitual violent reflexes, those which fuel conflict in the face of physical, verbal or other aggression, with peace reflexes that will bring appeasement.
Peace reflexes can be innate (spontaneous, heartfelt) or acquired. Training enables us to acquire better peace reflexes, and to adopt them in emotionally-charged situations that seem unsolvable.
Situations requiring peace reflexes
There are two types of situations involved – in relational conflicts and in physical danger:
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in the event of relational conflict, the peace reflex can be a reflex to soothe the other’s emotions: reaching out to the other with heart and kindness to ease the tension. In this way, it can be used to gradually build the bond that will sustain a peaceful relationship over time. It can also be a convergence reflex to signal a desire to resolve the conflict. Or it can calm the violence by other non-violent means – for example, by temporary avoidance, surprise, destabilization, or rebalancing the balance of power…
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in the event of physical danger, risk of injury or death, the peace reflex will consist of adopting tactics to defuse the aggressor’s desire for violence in order to protect oneself and/or flee.
These two types of peace reflexes also apply in the event of ethnic or nationalist conflict:
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peace becomes possible when populations and politicians succeed in exercising peace reflexes that soothe the psychic and physical damage of the past to defuse each party’s desire for violence.
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This means that civil society must actively encourage politicians to seek peace, and vice versa.
Conflict resolution tool
Peace reflexes take place upstream of the conflict resolution process. They prepare the ground before initiating dialogue. During negotiations or reconciliation processes, they can be used as a starting point for NVC, mediation or arbitration.
To perfect this skill or teach it in the classroom, it is useful to deepen the human values of respect, consideration and empathy, to work on fears and anger, to reinforce self-confidence, to perfect active and benevolent listening, and the art of dialogue.
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Peace reflex strategy: Find out more …
Examples of peace reflexes: Read them …