Country:
England

Language:
English

Dynamics

If I ask you to think about the dynamics of mediation and the kind of movement we seek to encourage, many of you will probably think of forward movement - helping people to look towards the future and to move forwards - because one of our main aims in mediation is to help disputants move forward in a constructive way. The mediation process is often conceived as a linear progression through a series of steps or stages.

Linear Progression

7 steps or stages of mediation may be listed as :

1	Engaging the parties in mediation
2	Engaging the parties in mediation
3	Agreeing the agenda for mediation
4	Gathering and sharing information
5	Exploring options for settlement
6	Negotiating over preferred options
7	Reaching agreement

Circular movement

We are all familiar with forward and backward movement in mediation. These movements are not just linear - very often they are circular, they follow a familiar - in both senses - circular path. Discussions or accusations tend to go round and round without getting anywhere - the gerbil wheel problem. Mediators' training is designed to equip us with a range of techniques and strategies so that we can help parties get off their own particular gerbil wheel, when they are willing to do so.

If the mediator puts questions to each party in turn, each of them replies to the mediator, often without even looking at each other. The aim of mediation is to enable the parties to communicate with each other directly and constructively, when they need to do so, without needing an intermediary. One way of facilitating their communication is to ask one of them to explain a particular concern to the other, rather than to the mediator. "Philip, I think it would help Margaret if you could explain to her what you think would help to.... " This approach enables couple's discussion to converge, instead of polarising. In the diagram below, a polarising linear approach used by the mediator shows communication between the mediator and each party, but not between the parties themselves. In the converging, circular approach, communication moves round freely between all the participants.

Spinning around a fixed point

When people come to mediation in a state of crisis, they often describe themselves as "being in a spin" and "unable to think straight". They are often conscious of spinning round and round and being unable to slow down. They have a frightening sense of loss of control. Spinning or rotation around a fixed axis is a third type of movement. Turning a wheel involves the application of a single force applied to the rim of the wheel or to its hub, whereas unscrewing a bottle top or spinning a top involves the application of two equal and opposite parallel forces.

If by now you are finding your head beginning to spin, I admit that this is my intention, because I want to move on to chaos and the theory of chaos ! Even when parties who come to mediation show a marked preference for one particular type of movement - linear, circular, or spinning on the same spot - there is always an element of unpredictability. Co-operative parties can suddenly hit emotional rocks and be sucked into a vortex of turbulent feelings. Gerbil wheel couples may suddenly decide they are sick of going round and round and decide they are ready for an orderly solution. This unpredictability leads us to chaos theory and its application to mediation.

Chaos Theory

Chaos theory offers fresh insights for mediators who may wonder why, if we use the same model and follow the same steps or procedures, we get such different results ? Some settlements are reached very quickly. Others take a long time. Some parties seem unable to settle anything at all - and then there is a sudden breakthrough.

Chaos theory is a science of the global nature of systems. It has brought together thinkers from different fields that had previously been widely separated. The first chaos scientists began to identify patterns, especially patterns that appeared at the same time but on a different scale. In the 1970s, scientists in the United States and Europe came increasingly to realise that although physicists had established certain principles to explain the laws of nature, they still had no understanding of the forces which produce disorderly weather patterns, turbulence in water and the oscillations of the heart and the brain. The irregular side of nature, its discontinuous and erratic side remained deeply puzzling. In the 1970s a few scientists began to seek links between order and disorder. Edward Lorenz, a scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found in his study of weather patterns that there were familiar patterns over time, pressure rising and falling, airstreams swinging north or south. But the repetitions were never quite exact. The patterns showed wide and unpredictable variations. From almost the same starting point, two similar weather patterns could grow further and further apart until all resemblances disappeared. What caused these differences?

Scientists studying these unpredictable variations gradually realised that very small differences in INPUT could make major differences to OUTCOMES. In weather systems, Lorenz translated this idea into what is only half-jokingly known as the Butterfly Effect : the notion that a butterfly stirring the air today in Peking could result in storms next month in New York. Most significantly, Lorenz's work showed that there are critical turning points in which systems are open to change. Small differences in environmental conditions or interventions can influence the way things turn out. This discovery has very exciting applications in mediation. We have all experienced critical turning points in mediation. How far can we pinpoint the conditions and interventions by the mediator that enable these turning-points to occur, so that what is said and felt takes on a new light ? Mediators provide a friendly atmosphere, we create hope for the future, we reframe negative perceptions in terms of positive and mutual needs. All these micro changes combine to change the climate in the room, enabling new possibilities to emerge. Chaos theory has been defined by James Gleick as "a science of process rather than state, of becoming rather than being ". Mediation, too, is a science of process rather than state, of becoming rather than being.

Holistic

My 3rd key word, holistic, comes from the Greek word holos, meaning whole or entire. Holism is defined as "a theory or principle of a tendency in nature to produce an organised whole which is more than the mere sum of its component parts" (New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary).

The word holistic is often used to describe a form of medicine which treats the whole person, not just a particular symptom in isolation. A doctor treating pain in the stomach needs to consider the whole patient. It is important to ask whether stress or pain is felt anywhere else as well. A good doctor is aware that there may be grief and pain in the heart causing pain in the stomach, because there are hard feelings which are too painful to swallow. Or there may be acute stress on an overburdened mind which overloads the whole system. We all know that if the doctor treats the stomach pain in isolation, the treatment is likely to fail if the source of the pain is located elsewhere.

Mediators are not doctors and we do not offer treatment. The analogy I am seeking to draw is between holistic medicine and mediators' understanding and use of systems theory. Mediators need this understanding in order to mediate between individuals and groups who find themselves in conflict. A family system is more than a collection of individuals. Family members interact with each other and respond to known signals, often non-verbal ones. The family as a whole evolves patterns of thought, behaviour and communication whose main function is to maintain the family system and resist change.

Mediators also mediate at a macro level between the private world of families and the public world of institutions. Private decisions and arrangements worked out in mediation need to be congruent with the existing legal system. To have juridical effect, they need to be formalised in a legally binding order made by a Court of law. Everyday language is then recast in legal language, using words like custody and contact which alter perceptions and restrict vision. Mediators do the opposite. We seek to free people from negative labels and reframe their picture of the world and themselves.

And so to my last two words : -

Pictures and Metaphors

The main medium we use in mediation is the spoken word. And the main medium researchers use to evaluate mediation outcomes are written words. Yet many mediation clients have great difficulty with verbal and written communication.

All of us who work as mediators know that those who come to mediation often have great difficulty talking and listening to each other. Many have stopped speaking altogether. Some do a lot of talking, but do not listen.

Words do not always explain and clarify. They can also confuse and inflict further hurt. The words may be misunderstood, or simply not heard. Social researchers have suggested that when people meet each other for the first time, what they say accounts for only 7 to 10 % of the impression they make. How they say it accounts for 20 to 30%. 60 to 80% of the communication may depend on non-verbal messages.

Mediators recognise the importance of understanding the whole picture, including body language, non-verbal messages and unconscious perceptions. Each party is constantly giving non-verbal messages and signals to the other. The mediator also gives non-verbal messages. Understanding the whole picture involves all our senses, not only listening and speaking. We need to use vision and intuition - right brain thinking - not just the left brain thinking of logical analysis and linear progression.
Seeing and sensing - being sensitive - require imagination rather than knowledge. We need to use our imagination and intuition to make leaps of understanding or connection that go beyond rational information gathering and processing of options.

With imagination, pictures and metaphors can be used creatively in mediation to portray things differently. A picture makes more impact than a long speech. It is also easier to remember a picture than a lot of words. Couples come to mediation with conflicting perceptions and fragmented images. We can help them to develop and share a common vision. The flip-chart - which some mediators love and others hate - provides a concrete visual focus. Mediators encourage new vision in all kinds of ways - through their use of language, their imagination and above all through conveying a spirit of caring, compassion and hope for the future.

Mediation Training

My holistic model of family mediation involves all our senses to create a new vision. Knowledge and spoken words are not enough on their own. This approach has enormously important and exciting implications for the training of mediators.

An increasing number of academic institutions are offering diploma and Masters courses in mediation. Some of these courses consist of a series of lectures from visiting experts. Although each lecture may be very valuable, didactic teaching does not produce good mediators. Mediation training needs to be much more than chunks of knowledge taken from different disciplines - such as law, psychology and social sciences - loosely strung together and labelled mediation.

In May this year a group of experienced family mediation trainers from 11 countries met and worked together for two days in a Forum for trainers held at Foxbury, England. It was a wonderfully enriching and inspiring experience. We listened, we talked, we played games, we sang songs - and we laughed. We tried to capture the underlying values of mediation and we all agreed that as mediators we seek : -

· to listen in a certain spirit which comes from the heart and not from the head

· to respect the individuality of each person

· to show humility, compassion and tolerance

· to maintain an appropriate distance

· to facilitate communication which conveys human warmth and understanding

· to create hope for the future

· and all the time to develop our ability to see and sense things which are not always capable of being expressed in words.

This is the kind of training we need for mediation. As you probably realised long before I did, it is training for life itself.

I should like to leave you with one more metaphor - one more image - to take home with you…….

References

Gleick, James Chaos Heinemann, London 1988

Parkinson, Lisa Separazione, divorzio e mediazione familiare
Edizione Centro Studi Erickson, Trento, Italy 1995 (first published BASW/Macmillan London, 1987)

Parkinson, Lisa Family Mediation Sweet & Maxwell, London, 1997 (to be published in Italian and Spanish)