Conflict Simulator

Communication is not a problem to solve but a relationship to shape.

For teams

Clinic & Care: rehearse the hard talk before it happens

For nurses, care assistants, doctors in their first years, practice reception and nursing schools: a practice room for the conversations on the ward, in the practice, in the care home and on the ward phone — with a counterpart who is frightened, and with nobody watching.

Preview. The edition has been in the practice room since 12 October 2026 — new, and not yet reviewed by nursing professionals. We are looking for two or three nurses to read the 72 feared sentences: what you would never say like that, what is missing, what sounds like a textbook rather than a ward.

Review them? Write to us

The relative who, after three hours, stands in the corridor and shouts — in front of the other patients.

The patient who does not take the tablets. And a shift that had no time for that conversation.

Practise in the browser (18+) Practise in the Telegram bot (18+)

What the practice room does

  • Fear underneath anger. The counterpart — the daughter, the patient, the caller — is frightened before anything else: for her mother, of what the tablets stand for, of being lied to. They get louder when you explain, quote a rule or say "calm down". They get quieter when the fear is named and it is clear what happens next, and when.
  • The lever is the empathy statement in the first two lines, not the option. A solution before the fear is named is heard as being dealt with — and the shouting goes on.
  • The profession's tools as checklists in plain words, credited: NURSE for the empathy statement (Back, Arnold and colleagues), SPIKES for bad news (Baile and colleagues, 2000), teach-back for understanding ("So that I know I explained it well: what will you tell your daughter?"), SBAR for the handover. As a map, never as a grade.
  • The patient may say no. They are asked what matters to them, and the decision is left with them in words. A rehearsal in which you "win" the refusal is a failed rehearsal.
  • The 🩺 line under the debrief, in plain words: did empathy come first? Was understanding checked? No false reassurance? No medical claim? Was there a next step with a time or a name? Only the person who practised sees it.
  • The resident with dementia is not a difficult customer. She lives in her own time, reads your tone exactly and is not a child. A correction ("your mother died long ago") hits the feeling; answering the feeling ("you miss her — tell me about her") is the move — after Naomi Feil, with no promise about the course of the illness.
  • Twelve situations, 72 feared sentences with a calm answer and a repair line, three levels, eight turns — and silence is one. German, English, Spanish. Formal address to patients and relatives, first names with colleagues.

Four scenes to start with

  1. The corridor, 4:40 pm: "Nobody has looked after my mother for three hours, and you just walk past!"
  2. The evening before, 9:30 pm: "Nurse … I can't sleep. Will it hurt tomorrow? Tell me honestly."
  3. My mother is waiting, in the care home: "I have to go now, my mother is waiting with supper. Where is my coat?"
  4. The phone, 7:50 pm: "This is the daughter of Mr … — how is he? Nobody tells me anything. Tell me everything."

The counterpart speaks first. Or you describe your situation in one sentence — without real names.

Example The corridor, level 2 — three lines from a rehearsal, in German, the language the edition was written in. The third is the one the meter marks:

  1. Relative

    Seit drei Stunden kümmert sich hier keiner um meine Mutter!

  2. Nurse

    Drei Stunden, und Sie stehen hier und sehen, dass nichts passiert. Das macht Angst. Ich gehe jetzt zu ihr, kommen Sie mit.

    Empathy ✓ — the relative calms down. ("Three hours, and you stand here and see nothing happening. That is frightening. I am going to her now, come with me.")

  3. Nurse

    Das wird schon wieder, machen Sie sich keine Sorgen.

    False reassurance ("It will be fine, don't worry"): a reassurance that promises nothing is heard as a brush-off. Honest: "I cannot promise that. I can promise that you will not be alone with it."

What it is not

  • No medical, nursing or legal advice. What a result means, which medication is given when and what you may say are decided by the physician, the nursing management and your house's rules. The coach says so in one sentence and returns to the conversation.
  • No evaluation of staff. No recording, no grade per person, no interface for the employer; the rehearsal is deleted after the debrief.
  • No real patient data. "Mrs M." or "the patient" is enough. A soft check asks before the conversation when something looks like a real name, a date of birth or a case number — it blocks nothing; your professional secrecy applies here too.
  • Not therapy and not emergency training. If a patient speaks of suicide or someone is unconscious, the rehearsal stops and points to the procedure in your house.

Pilot for nursing schools and hospitals

Nursing schools: a practice station for the communication module (in Germany, competence area II of the generalist training). Eight rehearsals in the module, one group link per class, a 45-minute kickoff led by the teacher, nothing per student. The first pilot class is free, in return for a review of the content with the teachers. The practice room is 18+; younger students prepare here on the website, without AI.

Hospitals, care homes, practices: in-house training with a kickoff for the ward, a programme such as "New nurses: relatives, handover, saying no" or "Palliative: the talk about wishes", on request monthly anonymous totals — and only from ten people practising, so that nobody can be read out of them.

Honest about the certificate: we issue nothing per person — by design. Anyone who wants to can produce a self-issued practice record on their own device (rehearsals, levels, dates; no transcript, no score). The tool does not award registered continuing-education points.

Request pilot access

For the works council or staff council there is a sheet that explains the design — no individual data, no patient data in the system, professional secrecy untouched: Request the sheet

Contact via the address in the imprint; reply on the next working day.

Practise in the browser (18+) Practise in the Telegram bot (18+)

To be honest: unlike this website, the practice room works with a language model. It runs locally on our own servers in Germany, nothing goes to third parties, and nothing is kept beyond the session. For adults, 18 and over.