Escalative interventions by professionals aim to increase the frustration of participants involved in a conflict. In small-group situations, consultants apply escalative interventions only occasionally, because clients hardly ever request them and because most interventionists consider de-escalation a more legitimate method. Yet conflict stimulation is appropriate when it will improve the social-psychologicalfunctioning of the client system.
This article presents eight extrinsic and intrinsic objectives of escalation. The typesof escalative interventions discussed are those that stimulate conflict through antecedent conditions, those that extend the conflict issues, those that extend the parties in the conflict, those that stimulate escalative behaviors, and those that develop escalative consequences. Since the latter two styles can be controlled best, they generally deserve preference. The author concludes that the same escalation objective may be attained by proceeding from initially different conflict conditions and using a variety of intervention strategies.
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