How should you behave under interrogation? It does not have to be at a police station. In a mobbing situation the one doing the “questioning” may be your boss. When someone says, “This is an absolute disgrace, nothing has been tidied up here!”, or you come to your manager and he says, “Irresponsible! You have prepared nothing!” — formally that is just the speaker's personal opinion of the situation, addressed to no one. It is a provocation, an invitation to answer without thinking. The one who answers first is the one who falls for it.
Picture a boss, an investigator or a neurotic partner playing the game “Now I've Got You, You Son of a Bitch”. The game opens with a general negative remark tossed out as if past us. Meanwhile we may be given a pointed look or a gesture, or we may be the only “listener” in the room. Very often interrogations are wound up by having two investigators exchange lines with each other that are designed (1) to knock us off balance, and (2) to nudge us into an ill-considered statement.
Recommendations on how to behave in a stressful situation like this are given by Timur Gagin in his audio course “Speech Strategies of NLP”. The situation can be turned to your advantage if you follow a few principles:
- What has actually been said, on the logical level?
- What reaction is expected of me, do I want to give that reaction, can I produce a different one?
- Words are meaningless sounds intended to change or maintain some kind of behaviour
How should you answer?
In an interrogation where no one is hitting you in the face and it is simply a matter of pressure, there are a few simple rules.
- If we are not asked, we do not answer.
- We answer questions only, and only the logical substance of the question.
- We give the minimum of information.
In many cases we are obliged to answer questions; we are not obliged to react to non-questions. So we answer questions only. For example:
“Who is going to believe you when you talk such nonsense?” — “You, for one!” We were asked who would believe us — we answered.“He does not know the law at all, he could be locked up!” That is not a question, no answer is called for; we simply go on saying nothing.
an example situation
And we give the minimum of information, even when we are sure we are in the right. So what if we are sure! As a rule the people in that room are thinking about something other than whether we are right. So ideally we confine ourselves to “yes”, “no” and “I don't know”. “I don't remember” is another good answer — everyone's memory is different.
“Why were you not there?” — “There were circumstances.” — “What circumstances?” — “Important ones!”
an example
What if you are told to sign?
If we do not agree with the record of the interview, we simply do not sign it. Many countries have a legal provision that lets us sign with the words “I do not agree with what is written in this record” if we disagree with its contents.
Technique is one thing. Being able to do it is another.
The technique for behaving under interrogation or under pressure is simple. If nobody is asking us personally, we can at the very least answer nothing at all. If we are asked, we can answer the substance of the question rather than the tone in which it was put. And finally, we can answer in a way that gives the minimum of material for continuing the conversation.
The hardest part, the main thing, the foundation of it all, is the ability to keep yourself calm — once you can do that, everything else becomes possible. That is a separate matter, one that takes training, role play and real-life situations. We would like to wish you never to end up being interrogated — and yet, how are you to learn without it?
At our club meetings we act out exactly these scenes. Stress testing in a job interview, being questioned by a whole circle of people, verbal sparring. What you feel is no different from real life. Come and practise in a “greenhouse” setting — and you will learn to sidestep pressure in real life!
