Handbook of Solution-Focused Conflict Management E-Book

Fredrike Bannink

• Herausgeber: Hogrefe Publishing
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010

Seitenzahl: 346

Beschreibung

Benjamin Franklin once said: "Every problem is an opportunity in disguise." In the new and highly successful approach of solution-focused conflict management described here, the focus is on discovering these opportunities to find the "win-win" scenario. The key lies in asking eliciting questions about goals, exceptions, and competencies and in motivating clients to change. Clients' perspectives are considered primary, and they are empowered to formulate their own hopes for the future and to devise ways to make them happen. Focusing on the preferred future facilitates change in the desired direction.

Leseprobe

Handbook of Solution-Focused Conflict Management

Acknowledgments

I will listen to you, especially when we disagree

Barack Obama (Acceptance Speech)

An author never writes a book alone. It is always a product of many people who work together and ultimately ensure that the name of the author appears on the cover.

I thank my husband, Hidde, and my daughters, Eva and Eline, for giving me the opportunity and encouragement to write my books. I thank my friends, colleagues, students and clients, my publisher, and translators Inge, Steve, and Paula, and everyone else who has contributed to the realization of this book. Grazie also to my Italian cats for keeping me company during the many pleasant hours of thinking and writing.

A special word of thanks goes to my inspiring colleague Ken Cloke for his willingness to write the Foreword and Epilogue.

Handbook of Solution-Focused Conflict Management

Fredrike Bannink

With a Foreword and Epilogue by Kenneth Cloke

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication

is available via the Library of Congress Marc Database under the

LC Control Number 2010904393

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Bannink, Fredrike

Handbook of solution-focused conflict management / Fredrike Bannink; with a foreword and epilogue by Kenneth Cloke.

Includes bibliographical references.

1. Conflict management. 2. Interpersonal relations. I. Title.

HD42.B26 2010              658.4’053              C2010-902263-7

Stories 1, 2, 4, 7, 8, and 9 from 101 Healing Stories: Using Metaphors in Theory by G. W. Burns © 2001 by John Wiley & Sons. Reproduced with permission of John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

© 2010 by Hogrefe Publishing

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Foreword: Building Bridges Between Psychology and Conflict Resolution — Implications for Mediator Learning

Over the last three decades, hundreds of thousands of people around the world have been trained in community, divorce, family, commercial, organizational, and workplace mediation, as well as in allied conflict resolution skills such as collaborative negotiation, group facilitation, public dialogue, restorative justice, victim-offender mediation, ombudsmanship, collaborative law, consensus decision making, creative problem solving, prejudice reduction and bias awareness, conflict resolution systems design, and dozens of associated practices.

Among the most important and powerful of these skills are a number of core ideas and interventions that originate in psychology, particularly in what is commonly known as “brief therapy,” where the border separating conflict resolution from psychological intervention has become indistinct, and in many places blurred beyond recognition. Examples of the positive consequences of blurring this line can be found in recent discoveries in neurophysiology, “emotional intelligence,” and solution-focused approaches to conflict resolution.

While it is, of course, both necessary and vital that we recognize the key differences between the professions of psychology and conflict resolution, it is more necessary and vital, especially in these times, that we recognize their essential similarities, collaborate in developing creative new techniques, and invite them to learn as much as they can from each other.

Beyond this, I believe it is increasingly important for us to consciously generate a fertile, collaborative space between them; discourage the tendency to jealously guard protected territory; and oppose efforts to create new forms of private property in techniques that reduce hostility and relieve suffering.

It is therefore critical that we think carefully and strategically about how best to translate a deeper understanding of the emotional and neurophysiological underpinnings of conflict and resolution processes into practical, hands-on mediation techniques; that we explore the evolving relationship between mediation and psychology, and other professions as well; and that we translate that understanding into improved ways of helping people become competent, successful mediators, as Fredrike Bannink sets out to do in the present volume.

Among the urgent reasons for doing so are the rise of increasingly destructive global conflicts that cannot be solved even by a single nation, let alone by a single style, approach, profession, or technique; the persistence of intractable conflicts that require more advanced techniques; and the recent rise of innovative, transformational techniques that form only a small part of the curriculum of most mediation trainings. The present generation is being asked a profound set of questions that require immediate action based on complex, diverse, complementary, even contradictory answers. In my judgment, these questions include:

• What is our responsibility as global citizens for solving the environmental, social, economic, and political conflicts that are taking place around us?

• Is it possible to successfully apply conflict resolution principles to the in equalities, inequities, and dysfunctions that are continuing to fuel chronic social, economic, and political conflicts?

• Can we find ways of working beyond national, religious, ethnic, and professional borders so as to strengthen our capacity for international collaboration and help save the planet?

• Can we build bridges across diverse disciplines so as to integrate the unique understandings and skills that other professions have produced regarding conflict and resolution?

• How can we use this knowledge to improve the ways we impact mediator learning so as to better achieve these goals?

Locating potential synergies between psychology and conflict resolution will allow us to take a few small steps toward answering these questions. And small steps, as we learn in mediation, are precisely what are needed to achieve meaningful results. Why should we consider the possibilities of ego defenses or solution-focused mediation? For the same reasons we consider the potential utility of a variety of interventions – because they allow us to understand conflict and enter it in unique and useful ways.

The logical chain that connects conflict resolution with psychology is simple yet inexorable and logically rigorous, which proceeds as follows:

• It is possible for people to disagree with each other without experiencing conflict.

• What distinguishes conflict from disagreement is the presence of what are commonly referred to as “negative” emotions, such as anger, fear, guilt, and shame.

• Thus, every conflict, by definition, contains an indispensible emotional element.

• Conflicts can only be reached and resolved in their emotional location by people who have acquired emotional processing skills, or what Daniel Goleman broadly describes as “emotional intelligence.”

• The discipline that is most familiar with these emotional dynamics is psychology.

• Therefore, mediation can learn from psychology how to be more effective in resolving conflicts.

It is my hope that this book by Fredrike Bannink will begin to change our ideas about the usefulness of psychological approaches in mediation. Hopefully, these ideas, exercises, and practices will encourage us to look more deeply and wisely at the world within, as well as the world without, and assist us in finding ways to translate our own suffering into methods and understandings that will lead to a better, less hostile and adversarial world.

Kenneth Cloke

Center for Dispute Resolution, Santa Monica, California, USA President, Mediators Beyond Borders

Peer Commentaries

“Nearly everyone thinks of conflict resolution as focused on solutions, but exactly how this is to be done has remained something of a mystery – until now. Fredrike Bannink offers dozens of ideas, strategies, and techniques that can be used by conflict resolution practitioners to improve their effectiveness. A very useful book.”

Kenneth Cloke, Mediator and President, Mediators Beyond Borders, USA

“As usual Fredrike Bannink writes with clarity and knowledge. This book draws together proof from many sources to support her central teachings. The results of these discoveries will help you to use her suggestions in new ways and in new settings.”

Alasdair Macdonald, Psychiatrist and Trainer for Cooperation in the Workplace, UK

“With solution-focused conflict management a unique approach to mediation is presented that in the coming years will find its place along with other already existing models. What is special about it certainly becomes clear in this book.”

Friedrich Glasl, Mediator, Austria

“I am very impressed how Fredrike Bannink develops the ideas, tools, and attitudes of solution-focused conflict management so clearly and comprehensively. Especially the step-by-step way she presents good solution-focused questions, describes their effects, and connects them with clear examples from many different areas of life makes it easy to follow. For those already acquainted with conflict resolution I see great potential for gathering new impulses and ideas that are easy to use and implement in their interventions.”

Peter Roehrig, Coach and Mediator, Germany

“This book made me realize that a conflict is only a chance to exercise our own ability to bring peace and satisfaction to our own lives and to those of others. And it beautifully illustrates how we can experience the joy of developing ourselves into wiser human beings if we can cross the borders of difference with a positive shift in focus of attention. Many Japanese people might re-learn this spirit of harmony in our tradition with renewed wisdom”.

Yasuteru Aoki, President, Solution Focus Consulting Inc., Japan

“Fredrike Bannink’s Handbook of Solution-Focused Conflict Management is a valuable addition to the growing literature for mediation professionals, providing new and useful insights into the theory and application of the solution-focus approach to conflict management. Mediators, both new and experienced, will find this handbook an important resource for developing more effective techniques for assisting parties to resolve their disputes by achieving maximum non-zero cooperative outcomes while restoring relationships or ending them in a less hostile and confrontational manner. Coming from her experience as a clinical psychologist, Bannink cogently demonstrates why mediators should encourage participants to focus their attention on finding solutions rather than dwelling on the historical facts behind the problems as the preferred path to conflict resolution.”

Myer J. Sankary, Mediator-Lawyer, ADR Services, Inc., Los Angeles; Past President of the Southern California Mediation Association, USA

“Fredrike Bannink‘s Handbook of Solution-Focused Conflict Management offers an important guide to bending conflict situations toward improved ends. Few people enjoy dealing with conflict, but the options, leaving things unattended or pursuing litigation, are almost always worse. Bannink moves us beyond traditional approaches to solution-focused models that assist participants to be at their best. Solution-focused conflict management insists that participants maintain responsibility for finding their own best solutions. Bannink’s book moves us beyond barely sufficient dialogue and barely sufficient solutions to most capable dialogue and most capable solutions.”

James C. Melamed, JD, CEO of Mediate.com, USA

Table of Contents

Foreword by Kenneth Cloke: Building Bridges Between Psychology and Conflict Resolution – Implications for Mediator Learning

Peer Commentaries

1   Bloodtaking and Peacemaking

Conflict Management Is of All Times and All Species

Modern Conflict Management

Story 1: Taking a Different View

2   Background Issues

Introduction

Game Theory

Quantum Mechanics and Neuroscience

Hope Theory

Broaden-and-Build Theory of Positive Emotions

Story 2: Feeding a Fellow

3   Solution-Focused Interviewing

Principles of Solution-Focused Interviewing

Story 3: Do Something Different

Looking to the Future (1)

Assumptions With an Eye on Solutions

Acknowledgment and Possibilities

Microanalysis of Conversations

Empirical Evidence

Indications and Contraindications

Story 4: The Problem of Looking for Problems

4   Solution-Focused Conflict Management

Four Dimensions in Conflict Thinking

Looking to the Future (2)

Clients, Parties, Lawyers, and Litigants: What’s in the Name?

Differences Between Traditional and Solution-Focused Conflict Management

Changing Conflict Stories

5   Four Basic Solution-Focused Questions

Questions About Hope

Story 5: The Power of Hope

Questions About Differences

Questions About What Is Already Working

Questions About the Next Step or Sign of Progress

Solution-Focused Conflict Management in Practice

6   More Solution-Focused Questions

More Questions

What Else?

Premediation Change

Interactional Matrix

Looking to the Future (3): Future-Oriented Questions

Story 6: Working from the Future Back

Scaling Questions: Hope, Motivation, and Confidence

Scaling Questions: Respect – Contempt

Scaling Questions: Pure Collaboration – Pure Conflict

Feedback

What Is Better?

7   Divorce Mediation

Compliments

Story 7: The Importance of Accepting Compliments

8   Working Alliance and Motivation to Change

Motivation to Change

Visitor, Complainant, or Customer

Attitude of the Solution-Focused Mediator

Resistance Is Not a Useful Concept

Scaling Motivation, Confidence, and Hope

Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument

Persuasion Theory

Caucus

Working Alliance

“Supermediators”

Motivation of the Mediator

9   Neighbor Conflict Mediation

Normalization

Story 8: Drawing Boundaries

10 More Solution-Focused Tools

Summarizing

Focus on Positive Emotions

Apologies, Forgiveness, and Reconciliation

“I Don’t Know”

Arguments

Externalization of the Conflict

Spacing Meetings

Metaphors

Consensus-Building

Solution-Focused Consensus-Building

11 Team Mediation

Game Theory Revisited: Trust

“Liquid Trust”

The Price to Pay

Story 9: Finding Peace

12 Client-Directed, Outcome-Informed Conflict Management

Client-Directed Conflict Management

Outcome-Informed Conflict Management

Session Rating Scale

13 Family Mediation

Communication

Tolerance

14 Brief Comparison with Other Models

Building Solutions Is Different from Problem Solving

Problem Solving Mediation and Solution-Focused Mediation: A Comparison

Transformative Mediation and Solution-Focused Mediation: A Comparison

Narrative Mediation and Solution-Focused Mediation: A Comparison

Conclusion

Research on Feedback

15 Personal Injury Mediation

Seating Arrangements

Dollars and Cents

16 Failures

Failures

Pathways to Impossibility

Solution-Focused Questions in Case of Failure

Saving Face

17 Victim-Offender Mediation

Restorative Justice

Reconciliation

Victim-Offender Mediation

Epilogue by Fredrike Bannink

Epilogue by Kenneth Cloke

References

Websites

Appendices

Appendix 1: Protocol: First Meeting

Appendix 2: Protocol: Subsequent Meetings

Appendix 3: Interactional Matrix

Appendix 4: Externalization of the Conflict

Appendix 5: Session Rating Scale (SRS V.3.0)

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Bloodtaking and Peacemaking

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