A psychologist should never solicit demands from the hostage-taker as this will give the hostage-taker an increased sense of power -- something that should be avoided at all costs (Hatcher etal, 1998, p. 460). Rather a psychologist should wait for the hostage-taker to make demands. Once demands are made, the psychologist (or anyone else talking with the hostage-taker) should never dismiss the demands as unreasonable, impossible, or trivial. These demands

Crisis Management: Hostage Scenario The primary issue determining whether or not a crisis situation is a hostage scenario is whether human lives are at stake (McMains & Mullins, 2010, p.12). Bradley has taken a total of 11 hostages: his wife Susan, her professor whom Bradley believes is her lover, and nine other students. Bradley has not made an explicit threat to their lives, but he has weapons with him, is not

Hostage Negotiation Keeping people as hostages has happened all through history. In the recent years, political events in Algeria, Kenya and Vietnam show examples of such terrible acts. Criminals, mentally challenged, prisoners are usually the people involved in hostage taking. Hostage crises have prevailed due to escalations of family member-on-member, family member-on-employee, intoxicated colleague, household dispute situations, disturbed client-on-employee and disturbed employee-on-client violence at workplace. Those involved in hostage taking activities

Hostage Negotiations Following the deadly aftermath/fallout from the Attica prison riot in New York State in 1971 -- and from the bloody terrorist attack during the 1972 Olympic Games in Germany -- there have been attempts to change the way in which authorities go about crisis negotiation. This paper discusses the responses that authorities have had to these crisis situations and outlines the steps that have been taken to improve the

Crisis Negotiations Ebert (1986) believes "there is absolutely no justification for preventing mental health professionals from participating in virtually all facets of hostage negotiation," (p. 580). As Hatcher, Mohandie, Turner & Gelles (1998) point out, most mental health professionals that do participate in any aspect of hostage negotiation do so "by invitation only in police-established hostage negotiation schools," (p. 461). With this training, the mental health professional is thus theoretically prepared

Deception techniques & lying There are situations in which lying or other deception techniques are used and are allowed as negotiation technique to save possible loss of life or to avert other such critical situations. Certain experts do not encourage the use of such techniques. Some say that lying or deception can only be used as last resort. The idea of using deception techniques if used regularly and randomly may damage