At Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin, we’ve adapted the principles of Verbal Judo to help us manage children and parents under stress, many of whom are experiencing the greatest challenges of their lives. By building a practical understanding of communication, through an easy to learn and apply lexicon of psychomotor skills that include patterns of speech and body movement–all of which are founded on SAFER, 8 and 5 and the nonverbal concepts of Verbal Judo, we’ve applied and when necessary we’ve adapted, interactive models to communicate with patients, families and employees inside the challenging clinical environment. We teach and practice VJ communications skills to communicate successfully with anxious children and parents, children with cognitive and developmental disabilities, brain injuries, psychiatric conditions, and patients in high levels of crisis.

One of Verbal Judo’s many strengths is that it begins before the point where clients under stress are triggered into crisis. This is the first great failing of all the other systems I’ve studied. The second failing that VJ addresses and masters is what to do when we need to communicate with people who are actively resisting or in very dangerous states of crisis. VJ takes the practitioner past the point where most crisis intervention systems become exhausted. When violence is imminent or when we actually experience high-levels of violence, the other systems always seem to leave you wanting for what to say or do.

The final point where VJ reigns supreme is its systemic applicability. Just like an effective and practical martial art, VJ is founded on basic and adaptable concepts that when learned and practiced can be applied across the continuum of human behavior. You won’t need to master one concept, then another, then another and another ad infinitum until you reach some lofty goal of competency. Learn these basics then learn how your clients communicate based on their particular challenges, e.g., autism spectrum disorders, and you’ll be able to communicate with anyone and manage their levels of stress and crisis. VJ teaches practical communications skills not just concepts. Speech is a psychomotor skill and managing people in crisis is not an intellectual or conversational exercise. You’ll learn what to say, how to say it, when to say it, and when not to say it. No other system does that.

Having personally made a study of the top crisis intervention systems, even training as an instructor for some of them and using them in the field, I can honestly say that Verbal Judo provides the best foundation for communicating with patients and clients in the clinical environment. Presently, I teach Verbal Judo to clinical and nursing staff, social workers, psychiatric professionals, allied health and customer service professionals, educators and trainers, law enforcement and healthcare security staff, and hospital administrators and supervisors. As the success stories roll in throughout our 5,000 employee system, demand for training is ever increasing and we are training more instructors to meet the demand.