Transformative
Mediation - Is it Therapy?
Posted Tue, 04/17/2012 - 20:01 by D_Simon
"This sounds like therapy! " said the lawyer in my mediation
course. I've heard these words many times, and sometimes they're meant as a
compliment. Not this time. This lawyer was accustomed to mediation that I would
call settlement conferencing. In his experience, parties were kept separate
from each other, and the mediator spent time with each side, encouraging them
to consider making an offer closer to what the other side was proposing. While
these mediators were sometimes patient with the parties' expression of emotion,
they would do their best to keep the focus on the bottom line, the next offer.
These mediators would also try to help the parties adopt a more realistic
understanding of what might happen if the case weren't to settle today.
So I could understand the lawyer's surprise when I explained that I see
mediation as an opportunity for an enhanced conversation; that I don't engage
in trying to persuade the parties of anything; and that I'm comfortable with
the parties talking about things that aren't obviously connected to movement
toward a compromise, including talk of the past, feelings of betrayal, and
questions about each other's character, as well as topics that appear more
related to possible settlement terms.
So is transformative mediation therapy? My favorite answer is "No, but
it certainly can be very therapeutic". By therapeutic, I mean that people
often feel better afterward, that they often have new clarity about what they
want out of the situation, that they often understand each other better, and
that they often come to an agreement that allows them to move forward. Some of
these outcomes are similar to outcomes that therapy promises.
So what's the difference between transformative mediation and therapy? As
far as I can tell, that depends mostly on which type of therapy you're
comparing it to. Here's my attempt at a list of the most common schools of
therapy and how they compare to transformative mediation. I'll favor brevity
over thoroughness here, so I hope psychologists and therapists will feel free
to comment below if I mischaracterize an approach you're familiar with:
Psychodynamic therapy seeks to relieve inner conflict among the id, ego and superego. These
conflicts are presumed to have begun in early childhood and to be related to
the patient's relationships with parents. Progress is made as the patient gains
insight into these formerly unconscious conflicts and then adopts strategies to
change behavior. Transformative mediators, by contrast, do not make assumptions
about the presence of or the origin of clients' internal conflicts; nor do we
attempt to make the unconscious conscious. We remain focused on what clients
choose to communicate. While relief of internal conflict might be a side effect
of transformative mediation, it is not the goal.
Cognitive behavioral therapy seeks to help clients learn behavior that's more conducive to happiness.
While there are many variations of cognitive behavioral therapy, common threads
are the centrality of learning, and the belief that clients can learn better
ways to behave and think. While transformative mediation often leads to new
ways of thinking about the present conflict, the transformative mediator does
not direct those insights, but allows them to arise from the conversation.
Family systems therapy focuses on the interaction within the family. It seeks to identify
counterproductive patterns in the interaction and then support the group or
individuals in adopting changes and redefining individuals' roles. While this
approach shares with transformative mediation a focus on interaction, it
differs in both the therapist's tendency to be directive in identifying patterns
and suggesting alternatives, and in the contexts in which the approaches are
used. That is, while family systems therapy hopes to improve family
interactions for the long term, transformative mediations tend to be focused on
a specific dispute, including disputes between people who don't intend to have
ongoing relationships.
Person-centered therapy. See my recent blog post about Carl Rogers' similar worldview to that of the transformative
mediator. Both approaches assume that progress comes from the clients making
their own choices; and the intervener helps by unconditionally supporting those
choices. The difference between the approaches lies in person-centered
therapy's focus on the sometimes long-term therapeutic relationship between the
intervener and the client. Transformative mediation assumes that the mediator's
supportive efforts can have their hoped for effects as quickly as in one
meeting.
Gestalt therapy places
great emphasis on "immediacy" - the therapist keeps the focus on the
present moment and on the interaction between the therapist and the client. The
therapist may use a variety of techniques, such as role-playing, to help the
client achieve insights into the client's own behavior. With these insights,
the client may learn to be more fully alive and present. While immediacy sounds
like the transformative mediator's micro-focus on the current conversation, the
Gestalt approach differs in that the therapist directs the client toward
certain exercises and toward the present moment, while the transformative
mediator follows the client wherever they go, including into discussions of the
past and future.
So, it's understandable that the lawyer thought transformative mediation
sounded like therapy - there are some similarities. One of the greatest
similarities appears to be that many therapists, like transformative mediators,
tend to focus on the process (while mediation such as the lawyer had
experienced had been very outcome focused). But the differences, in general,
are the non-directiveness of the transformative mediator and the fact that
transformative mediators are generally invited to help with specific disputes,
rather than issues of long-term mental health or family relationships.
