Articles tagged: witness
Bearing Witness in Mediation
Published in mediate.com, August, 2020
Recently I’ve been pondering a certain aspect of my experience with mediating divorces. It’s about something that often comes up in my encounters with my mediation clients.
The feature of all mediations that I will talk about in this post is something I call “bearing witness.” When clients bear witness in mediation, and when you, as the mediator bear witness for the clients, it can be quite powerful in resolving a divorce. But it needs to be handled properly, or it can be dangerous and get out of control. If that happens, it can lead to destabilizing and destructive results impairing the ability of the mediation process to address and resolve conflict.
Bearing witness can occur either during meetings, or as part of the clients’ email exchanges (which you…
Read more ...Mediator as Moral Witness – A Case Study
A few months ago, I gave a talk on the subject of "Mediator as Moral Witness" to a group of mediators, and received a call the next day. One of the mediators who attended the talk had used the approach I recommended, and it worked!! Here’s a description of the mediation (with identifying
information disguised to protect privacy and the confidentiality of the process).
In the Worcester District Court, a mediator met with Sheldon and Rick, two former friends,one now suing the other. They had been friends for at least thirty years – they played poker together each week, and lived in the same neighborhood until two years ago, when Rick moved to Los Angeles. “I was sick of the New England winters,”…
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