Psycho-Mediation: The Psychology Of Mediation

By Nneamaka Onyema

Mediation involves helping individuals, businesses and other entities resolve conflict bearing in mind their different needs, perspectives, personalities and beliefs.

Mediators, Lawyers and disputants use mediation with a view to circumnavigating the powerful psychological and emotional tides that flow through the mediation process.

Here are five (5) peculiar ways a mediator can make the greatest impact on the psychology of others/parties.

• Interest Based Model of Mediation

Interest based strategy of mediation shifts the focus of conflict from personal hostilities to “the problem”. Here, parties’ interests would be maximized.

Mediation will be a relatively simple process if the parties could be relied on to act in their own best interests, or in the interest of those they love, such as their children.

Disputing parties may come into mediation with a “I must win” mind-set. Here, the mediator should remind the parties of their own underlying interests and encourage them to focus on whether proposed settlements meet the need to win.

• Priming

Priming, or the priming effect, occurs when an individual’s exposure to a certain stimulus influences his or her response to a subsequent stimulus, without any awareness of the connection. These stimuli are often related to words or images that people see during their day-to-day lives.

Priming occurs whenever exposure to one thing can later alter behaviour or thoughts.

A mediator can use this powerful tool to prepare the space/room for mediation and the minds of the parties in conflict. A typical example is using or naming the conference room for mediation in honour of famous peacemakers. This may foster productive negotiation. Also setting refreshments on the table may help the parties relax.

It is expected that a mediator describes ground rules and principles for mediation in his/her opening statement. Priming studies suggest that mediators should consider an emphasis on the value of being “flexible” and “open minded”, the goal of reaching “a fair and reasonable resolution”.

Setting ground rules before the commencement of mediation is important for several psychological reasons. They establish the standard of discourse between the parties in dispute. It makes parties know that the mediator is in control of the process and will deploy his/her expertise or experience to help them through a successful mediation and to create a safe emotional place (since the mediator is neutral and free from prejudice) for parties to express their innermost interests/needs.

• Methodology

A mediator may adopt four (4) skills for a successful mediation with parties with difficult personalities or mistrust.

• Bonding: this is important because, for many high conflict people, abandonment is a deep fear. Therefore, the mediator’s relationship with the parties is meaningful in and of itself.
• Structure: structure is also vital to defining and defending appropriate professional boundaries. For example, a party in mediation may try to enlist the mediator as an ally, and so the mediator may need to remind the person about the mediator’s impartiality.
• Reality testing: done with as much detachment and objectivity as possible by the mediator, sometimes helps such people recognise that their own view of reality is not the only way of looking at their situation.
• Consequences: means helping the person think through what the likely outcome would be with respect to each of the person’s available options.
• Releasing Attachment to the Outcome

The post-agreement relationships between the parties will show a higher probability of being preserved when the parties have crafted the agreement themselves, guided by their mediators.  Such an outcome is particularly important in the case of divorce when young children are involved, since it is necessary, for the children’s benefit, that the parents continue to cooperate with each other even after years of divorce. A useful technique in this situation is to ask the parties to draw up a five (5) year plan for their kids. This helps them stay tuned to the agreement since it is attached to the future of those they love.

The important idea is that one must take personal responsibility for future actions, and, in so doing, increase the chances that any decision or agreement will stick.

• Reframing

Reframing is a process of reconceptualising a problem by seeing it from a different perspective. Altering the conceptual or emotional context of a problem often serves to alter perceptions of the problem’s difficulty and to open up possibilities for solving it.

In mediation, it is about looking at a situation, thought, or feeling from another angle. The goal of reframing in mediation is to be supportive and empathetic to the party’s concerns while helping them work through settlement.

At moments of intense sensitivity during mediation, a mediator can suggest alternative interpretations of deep-seated points of views by reframing a communication.

Example:

Original statement	Reframed statement
“You misinterpret everything”	“we must be misunderstanding each other. Can you help me understand what you meant”.

 

 

 

The author, Nneamaka Onyema is a Legal Practitioner, a Chartered Mediator & Conciliator and a Child’s Right advocate.

She is a Senior Associate at LinkedLegal Attorneys; a premier law firm providing comprehensive range of legal services and solutions to domestic and international clients and has consistently played a major role involving human rights and advocacy especially for women and children in Nigeria.