I like the idea of being prepared for whatever difficult situations might come up in my life. That’s why I made the deck about how to talk to the police. Given that I do stuff like, say, attend Burning Man, I figured I’d throw some knowledge about how to deal with people having psychedelic crises into the mental preparedness backpack too. I made this deck from the resources I found on the MAPS website:
And even though I haven’t had occasion to use the advice in its intended context, I think it is much more broadly useful. For example, “Talk through, not down”, and “Difficult is not necessarily bad” are useful principles to remember when talking to anyone who’s upset.
I’ve noticed a pattern: the selection pressures on specialized communication advice seem to be especially good. Some of my favorite tips on how to talk to people came from advice about how to talk to kids, abusers, crazy people, and people having psychedelic crises.
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