Conflict Communication Models Explained: PALMS, LEAPS, the Five Step Appeal and CUDSA – And Why Operational Reality Demands More

By Paul Brennan, Founder of Stand2 | Former West Mercia Police Officer Safety Trainer, Public Order Trainer and Tactical Advisor

The PALMS model of communication is one of several structured frameworks widely taught across frontline conflict management training, alongside LEAPS, the Five Step Appeal, and CUDSA.

These models are widely taught across policing, healthcare, security, and social care, and for good reason. They represent serious attempts to give practitioners a structured approach to one of the most demanding challenges in any frontline role: communicating effectively with a person in crisis. Whatever the named framework, the core sequence any workable approach needs to cover stays broadly consistent - it's where each model diverges from it that the problems in this article start to show.

I have used several of these models operationally and taught others as frameworks in training. I know what they offer. I also know, from over two decades of delivering specialist conflict management training to some of the most demanding frontline environments in the UK, where each of them reaches its limits.

This article explains what each model is, what it does well, and where the evidence - and operational experience - suggests it falls short.

What Is the PALMS Model of Communication?

PALMS is a non-verbal communication framework used primarily in conflict de-escalation. The acronym typically stands for:

• P - Posture (open, non-threatening)
• A - Affect (calm, controlled facial expression)
• L - Location (positioning yourself appropriately)
• M - Movement (slow, deliberate, non-threatening)
• S - Space (maintaining appropriate distance)

The model draws on research into body language and non-verbal communication, particularly the well-established principle that a significant proportion of interpersonal communication is transmitted through physical presence rather than words. In that sense, its foundations are sound.

Where PALMS Has Limitations

The central problem with PALMS is that it asks practitioners to consciously manage their physiology at precisely the moment their physiology is hardest to manage.

Research into the effects of acute stress on the human body - including work by Alexis Artwohl and Loren Christensen on stress inoculation and perceptual distortions under threat - consistently shows that adrenaline degrades fine motor control, narrows attention, and disrupts the kind of deliberate, self-aware behaviour that PALMS requires. Open palms, relaxed posture, and controlled affect are all products of the parasympathetic nervous system. Acute conflict activates the sympathetic nervous system. The model provides no mechanism for managing that transition.

PALMS is also primarily a non-verbal framework. It offers no structured verbal component, which means practitioners often bolt it onto other models rather than using it as a standalone approach. That creates inconsistency in training and delivery.

What Is the LEAPS Model of Communication?

LEAPS is a verbal communication framework widely used in healthcare, policing, and social care settings. It stands for:

• L - Listen
• E - Empathise
• A - Ask
• P - Paraphrase
• S - Summarise

The model draws on motivational interviewing and active listening theory, both of which have a strong evidence base in clinical and therapeutic settings. LEAPS gives practitioners a structured verbal process for engaging with a person in distress, demonstrating that they have been heard, and working towards shared understanding. For one-to-one interactions in relatively stable environments, it is a genuinely useful tool.

Where LEAPS Has Limitations

LEAPS is a sequential model. It assumes you work through each stage in order, which assumes the interaction is sufficiently linear and stable to allow that.

Research on dynamic risk assessment - including the work of Doyle and Dolan (2002) and the broader HCR-20 literature on structured professional judgement - highlights that conflict situations are rarely linear. They are fluid, fast-moving, and frequently unpredictable. A practitioner focused on completing the next stage of LEAPS may miss critical escalation cues because their attention is on the model rather than the person in front of them.

LEAPS also struggles in group or crowd situations, where the one-to-one conversational structure it assumes simply does not exist. And like PALMS, it provides no mechanism for managing the practitioner's own physiological state during a high-stress interaction.

What Is the Five Step Appeal in Conflict Resolution?

The Five Step Appeal was developed in a policing context, drawing on the College of Policing conflict management framework. It provides a structured verbal approach to conflict situations, typically framed as a series of escalating appeals before a consequence is applied:

1. Appeal to the person's better nature or compliance
2. Explain the reason for the request
3. Offer alternatives or choices
4. Warn of consequences if non-compliance continues
5. Apply the consequence

The model works well in the policing environment for which it was designed. As a former Officer Safety Trainer, I can confirm that the Five Step Appeal gives officers a defensible structure for their decision-making - each step creates a contemporaneous record of what was attempted before force was used, which is important both operationally and evidentially.

Where the Five Step Appeal Has Limitations

The model's strength in policing becomes a limitation outside it. The Five Step Appeal is inherently escalatory in structure - it frames the interaction as a series of attempts before consequences, which can shift the tone from resolution to confrontation almost from the opening exchange.

In healthcare, social care, and other settings where there is an ongoing therapeutic or support relationship with the person, that framing can be actively counterproductive. Research on trauma-informed approaches to care - including the influential work of Bessel van der Kolk and SAMHSA guidance on trauma-informed systems - emphasises the importance of avoiding language and framing that triggers defensive or fight-or-flight responses in people with trauma histories. The Five Step Appeal's consequence-led structure sits uncomfortably alongside those principles.

The model also assumes a level of practitioner authority and environmental control that exists in policing but is often absent in other frontline settings.

What Is the CUDSA Model?

CUDSA is a conflict resolution framework drawn from principled negotiation theory, particularly the work of Fisher and Ury in Getting to Yes. It stands for:

• C - Confront the conflict
• U - Understand each other's position
• D - Define the problem
• S - Search for solutions
• A - Agree on a solution

Of the four models covered in this article, CUDSA is arguably the most academically grounded. Its roots in negotiation theory give it a genuine conceptual framework, and it performs well in structured mediation contexts where both parties are willing to engage in a reasoned process.

Where CUDSA Has Limitations

CUDSA was designed for workplace mediation between parties of broadly equal standing - two colleagues in dispute, for example, or two organisations in commercial disagreement. It was not designed for asymmetric conflict situations where one party is in crisis, acutely intoxicated, experiencing a mental health episode, or in a state of significant emotional dysregulation.

The opening step - Confront the conflict - is particularly problematic in those contexts. Research on trauma-informed approaches and on the neuroscience of emotional regulation consistently indicates that confrontational framing in the opening of an interaction increases the likelihood of defensive escalation, particularly in individuals who are already in a heightened state. The step may be intended to mean "acknowledge the conflict exists," but the framing matters, and in frontline delivery it often lands badly.

CUDSA also assumes a level of cognitive engagement from both parties that is simply not present in many operational conflict situations.

What These Models Have in Common - and What That Tells Us

Each of these models represents a genuine contribution to the field. None of them is without value. But reviewing them together, a common pattern emerges.

All four were developed primarily in training room conditions. All four have been validated largely through practitioner feedback and trainer consensus rather than controlled operational research. And none of them adequately addresses one of the most important variables in any real conflict situation: the physiological and cognitive state of the practitioner themselves.

When a person is in acute conflict - shouting, threatening, physically unpredictable - the practitioner opposite them is not a neutral processing system working through a checklist. They are a human being experiencing their own stress response, with all the perceptual narrowing, cognitive load, and physiological disruption that entails. A model that does not account for that is a model built on an incomplete understanding of what frontline conflict actually involves.

Why Operational Experience Drives Better Training

At Stand2, these limitations are not theoretical concerns. They are things we have observed across more than 25 years of delivering specialist conflict management, personal safety, and physical intervention training to ambulance services, NHS trusts, probation services, universities, and other high-risk frontline environments.

That operational experience - combined with a genuine commitment to evidence-based practice and independent research - is what drove us to develop our own proprietary approach to conflict communication. We are not going to detail that approach here. Commercially, that would be unwise. But we are happy to tell you that it was built specifically to address the gaps that models like PALMS, LEAPS, the Five Step Appeal, and CUDSA leave open - including, critically, how practitioners manage themselves under pressure, not just the person in front of them.

If you are reviewing your organisation's approach to conflict management training and want to understand what genuinely evidence-based, operationally proven provision looks like, we would welcome the conversation.

Paul Brennan is the founder of Stand2 and a former West Mercia Police Officer Safety Trainer, Public Order Trainer and Tactical Advisor. Stand2 has been delivering specialist conflict management, personal safety, and physical intervention training to frontline organisations across the UK since 1999.

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