Chapter 5
Baselining to Detect and Apply Stress
The Importance of Baselining
In 1929, when the Geneva Convention banned torture of POWs, military interrogators had to develop non-violent methods. Some focused on the intimidating power of words. Words: Could they be the most powerful tool you have to make them tell the truth? Yes. You can use words to go deep into someone’s soul, to create a psychic pain it’s impossible to defend against.
To do that, you can’t rely solely on parlor tricks pulled out of a psychology book or from a blurb by experts in reading facial expressions. Using fragments of such material is what stokes arguments that begin, “I know you’re lying because you looked to the left and blinked six times.” Looking to the left ...
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