Mediation
Why?
Because we all stand to gain. Because we’re preparing for a future in peace.
Avoiding frank discussions, silencing criticism, swallowing a bitter pill and second guessing instead of asking questions all lead to dissatisfaction, negative thoughts and hurt feelings. There you have all the ingredients to start a conflict. So what can be done about it?
Instead of trying to talk about things, many people tend to run away from a frank discussion. Instead of clearing the air, they allow the atmosphere to get heavier and the conflict starts gaining momentum: There’s increasingly more distance, discomfort, and negative feelings increase. Everything that the other person does, everything that the other person says is interpreted as a hostile act against us.
Is that what’s really going on? No, it isn’t. One of the main characteristics of a conflict is the inability to interpret the way a person acts and communicates in a realistic way. We can no longer see their positive motivation.
However, a positive motivation forms the basis of any act and communication because its goal is to satisfy the basic needs that each person has in individual proportions: 1) to feel secure 2) to feel important, to achieve recognition and results, 3) to feel and experience new things and 4) to feel a sense of belonging.
Mediation helps people to view things in a realistic way again and allows them to see things in a different light, to get a broader and clearer picture of the needs of all those involved in the conflict. How? Through the questioning and coaching techniques employed by the mediator who guides the parties through the five phases of mediation.
With new insight gained and emotions taken out of the equation by the end of the third phase, the people involved in the conflict (the parties) can find fresh solutions — a consensus for a future in peace. This phenomena whereby all of the people involved resolve the conflict in a win-win way makes this method of conflict resolution unique and the most sustainable option. For example, in court one interested party wins and the other loses — and the conflict continues.
Which is why mediation is ideal for all those situations where those in conflict want to or have to continue to get along, in private or at work.
Conflict Mediation is practised in the UK and throughout the European Union. In Portugal it is regulated by the Mediation Law Nº 29/2013 of 19 April and has the following principles: Voluntariness, confidentiality, equality, impartiality, independence, competence, responsibility and enforceability.
