What is mediation?

Mediation is the engagement of a neutral party in a conflict between other people. A mediator’s purpose is to help these people to feel heard and understood by each other and to reach an agreement on how they will move forward. The art of mediation involves a deep understanding of psychology, biology, conflict resolution, negotiation, and communication.

What does a mediator do?

HOLDING SPACE: A mediator provides a neutral forum for a conversation. The clients and mediator agree to the day, time, and place to discuss the issues on their mind. The mediator enters the conversation with calm and a belief in the inherent goodness of each participant.

PREPARATION: Readings or videos may be provided to prepare the clients for the mediation. Clients may be asked to reflect on their desired outcomes or to bring key pieces of information to the mediation.

STRUCTURE: The mediator guides the conversation through several steps. If the discussion goes off track, they gently and firmly steer it back to the issues at hand.

CURIOSITY: The mediator inquires about the feelings and needs of each participant. People often come to mediation with specific strategies in mind. A skilled mediator guides each participant to dig below the level of strategies to find the deeper needs longing to be met. By focusing on each person’s needs, people often find that a broader range of strategies can be explored to meet those needs.

REFLECTIVE LISTENING: The mediator listens carefully to each person and reflects back what they heard to ensure that they understood.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT AND EMPATHY: We all long to be seen and understood. A skilled mediator connects with the universal human needs of each participant, acknowledges their experience, and empathizes with their feelings.

COREGULATION: Conflict can activate the threat response in our nervous system. Having a calm, centered, caring neutral in the discussion can help the other participants to regulate their nervous systems, leading to a greater sense of safety and clarity as we work through the difficult issues.

BRAINSTORMING: Once the feelings and needs of each person have been shared with the group, the mediator leads a brainstorming session, records the ideas, and checks in with each participant about whether they think each idea might work and why or why not.

SYNERGIZING: The mediator actively engages in the discussion of possible solutions, noticing areas of agreement and disagreement, and highlighting prospective strategies. There is an art to pulling these strands together into a proposed agreement for the parties to consider.

MEMORIALIZING: The mediator records the agreements between the clients and outlines the next steps needed to carry the agreement forward.

CLOSURE: The mediator closes the session, recognizing the emotional work that each participant did to fully engage in the process of conflict resolution. If additional mediations are desired, they will be planned at this time.