This week I am delighted to welcome Fredrike Bannink, a mediator and much more from Amsterdam. Fredrike has recently published the Handbook of Solution-Focused Conflict Management.

She has kindly allowed me to publish this extract from the chapter of her book about personal injury mediation.

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In solution focused conflict management the focus is on what those concerned would like instead of the conflict and how they can achieve this (a future focus), rather than on the conflict itself and what has preceded this (a past or present focus). Haynes, Haynes and Fong (Mediation: Positive Conflict Management (Suny Series in Transpersonal and Humanistic Psychology)) also state that a mediator can only mediate in the future tense. They propose that a mediator uses future-focused questions (Bannink, 1001 Solution Focused Questions. Handbook for Solution Focused Interviewing (New York: Norton)) to initiate change: “Most clients are highly articulate about what they do not want and equally reticent about what they do want. However, the mediator is only useful to the clients in helping them to determine what they do want in the future and then helping them decide how they can get what they want. It is difficult for the mediator to help clients not get what they do not want, which is what the clients expect if the mediator dwells with them on the past” (2004, p. 7)

Solution focused conflict management has proven to be effective in domestic situations, contract negotiations and even in criminal mediations. In these scenarios non-traditional agreements are more easily developed. These situations are usually accompanied by a great deal of emotion from the clients involved.

As a result, words of validation and giving apologies may carry significant weight. Foa and Foa ((1975). Resource theory of social exchange. Morristown, NJ: General Learning Press.) developed a theory about the kinds of compensation that are considered appropriate as repayment for certain kinds of concessions. They identify two dimensions: concreteness (tangibility) and particularism (the extent to which the value of the resource depends on the identity of the person who delivers it). Love and status are particularistic resources; goods and money are non-particularistic resources. In their studies they showed that a form of compensation is more appropriate, the closer it is to the resource received. Thus goods can properly be exchanged for money and status for love.

But money cannot properly be exchanged for love or a good relationship. Therefore, in personal injury mediation, powerful tools for improving or ending a relationship in the best possible way can be a personal meeting with mutual acknowledgment and understanding or one in which apologies are offered.

Solution focused conflict management may be fertile ground for creating positive emotions (Positivity: Discover the Groundbreaking Science to Release Your Inner Optimist and Thrive) and thus finding creative solutions because the issues at hand are more complex than just simple dollar figures. Clients can be helped to realize that no conflict is as simply defined as a matter of dollars and cents.

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