Crisis negotiators are trained to listen, connect, build rapport, and demonstrate empathy. Those skills save lives, but the same emotional connection that makes a negotiator effective can also exact a personal toll.

Never Hug a Hostage examines the often-overlooked emotional impact crisis negotiations can have on the negotiator. Built around the story of a successful 31-hour hostage incident and the powerful lesson that followed, this course explores the fine line between understanding someone’s emotions and absorbing them.

Participants will examine the differences between emotional empathy, cognitive empathy, and compassion, and how each can influence decision-making, rapport, bias, and negotiator performance. The course also addresses emotional contagion, over-identification with hostages or subjects, compassion fatigue, burnout, and the lingering effects difficult incidents can have long after the scene has been cleared.

Most importantly, this is not a course about becoming less empathetic. It is about learning how to use empathy as a professional tool while maintaining the emotional boundaries necessary to remain effective. Through crisis-negotiation examples, discussion, visual exercises, and practical strategies, participants will learn how individual negotiators, coaches, and team leaders can recognize emotional involvement before it begins to affect performance, and how debriefing, peer support, team awareness, and recovery can help keep good negotiators in the profession.

COURSE ELIGIBILITY Individual Agency Non-Member Sworn LE

There are currently no scheduled sessions for this course. If you would like information about hosting a course at your agency please click here