The negotiation table equals the operation table

How to cite this journal: Author, Date of the post, WMO Conflict Insight, Title of the post, ISSN: 2628 6998, https://worldmediation.org/journal/

ABSTRACT *

This article argues that practical training in mediation should be modelled on medical residency rather than on role play. Developing an extended analogy in which the conflict is the patient, the author contends that the trainee must first learn to make a sound diagnosis, then to select among the available instruments, and must refrain from intervening until able to do both, since a poorly conducted mediation damages not only the parties but the reputation of the method and the institution behind it. Central to the argument is the value of direct observation: watching an experienced practitioner work conveys what no account after the fact can, the gestures and movements, the anxiety of the parties, the doubts and hesitations, and the moment at which the danger passes. The author also emphasises the aftercare phase, in which the parties must be helped not to devalue what was achieved by dwelling on what might have been. Warning against sending students into practice unprepared, the article observes that such failures give critics grounds to dismiss mediation as a passing fashion, whereas elsewhere it has become established practice through patient learning. Experience, the author concludes, is acquired slowly, through trial and error conducted with great care, in work that is essentially artisanal and demands full concentration on every movement, reaction, glance and silence.

KEYWORDS *

Mediation training, internship, residency model, observation, diagnosis of conflict, practical experience, mediator competence, reputation of mediation, aftercare, professional formation

INTRODUCTION

Internships in mediation, are not role-playing. The internships in mediation should be like the residences in medicine, the conflict is the patient, which requires the intervention of the professional, around are the interests, beliefs, emotions in play that bid to be right about how the professional will collaborate with them in cure the sick.

MAIN CORPUS

But the patient is there, and one must save it, sometimes with haste our presence is required because the patient is going to intensive therapy, if we do not intervene quickly, the patient dies, but if the surgeon has his instruments and does not knowingly use, the patient may also get worse or die. Teach the future professional, first to make a good diagnosis of the patient, conflict, then analyze the different tools or instruments for their intervention, if the professional can not do it, then he is not yet ready to act, and it is preferable that he does not, then, those who witness his intervention will have a not very good opinion of the institute or method used, because the professional did not know how to apply properly, and they will not want to go through that bad experience again.

For that reason, it is necessary to observe, what the experienced professionals do in each case, and to learn from them although the day of tomorrow, the student surpasses the professor, never he is going to forget that technique, that unthinkable exit that the expert taught him. This is how you learn, starting from the base, that every day we are amazed by the different cases, because all conflicts, organisms are not the same, and some require minor adjustments, and little time in the operating room, but others require interventions in stages, even on different days, while wounds are healing.

When we are witnessing the surgical intervention inside or near the operating room, it is not the same as when we are told how the operation was, because there is no valid book there. The expertise of the professional is reviewing the patient (conflict), leading him to use the tools incorporated, to find the affected area, interests and work on them with care, being careful not to damage other organs. You live in that moment the coming and going, the gestures, the movements of the professional, the anguish of the parties, the doubts, the smell of fear, the tremors in the hands and legs until the patient leaves danger, and there is a sign that says “it was possible, we succeeded!” But then comes the postoperative, and there you have to be very careful that the emotions that seize the patient, do not make him depressed, thinking that it might have been better another more complete result, and not letting it devalue what has been done, or think that He could have achieved more than he obtained.

SUMMARY

I worry about those future professional students, who are thrown into the void with parachutes that they do not know how to use, for them, for the bad moment that will happen, and for those who observe them, because they can say “you saw me I told you better not to throw yourself in parachute, to do it, if as we have been doing it works, slow but it works. “(judgment) and conclude” these novel things last a short time “, when in other countries they are common currency because they were slowly unlearning, to learn new knowledge.

CONCLUSION

Starting from the base, that one is the theory, and another the practice and the experience is not something that is incorporated overnight, it is a matter of trial and error, but very carefully because the patient can get worse or die It is an artisanal work, where the professional must be concentrated in each movement, in each gesture, in each reaction, in each look, in the silences, and sometimes monitor again and again if what he perceives is that reality that is in the air, because it runs the risk of making mistakes and losing sight of the objective, which is the patient (conflict) from there not leaving, closing the case, without solving the same.

POTENTIAL SOLUTION *

The author’s analogy carries an obligation that the mediation profession has not fully accepted. Medicine does not permit a graduate to operate alone; it interposes years of supervised practice in which the novice observes, then assists, then acts under a watchful eye, and only then works independently. Mediation, by contrast, typically ends training at certification and sends the newly qualified practitioner directly to the table, alone, with real parties in real distress. The gap the author identifies is therefore not a shortfall of enthusiasm but the absence of an intermediate stage.

That stage can be built, and its outline is already visible in the analogy. Observation comes first: the trainee sits in on real mediations with the parties’ informed consent, bound by the same confidentiality as the mediator, present but silent. Consent is the pivot on which this rests, which is why it must be sought in advance, explained plainly and freely refusable, and why the observer’s presence must never be permitted to alter what the parties feel able to say. Co mediation follows, in which the trainee begins with defined and limited responsibilities, opening statements, summarising, note taking, and gradually assumes more as the experienced mediator judges them ready. Independent practice under supervision completes the sequence, with the new mediator handling cases alone but reviewing each one afterward with a mentor.

What makes such a structure work is the discipline that surrounds it. Debriefing after each case, conducted as a reflective conversation rather than a verdict, is where observation becomes learning; without it the trainee sees much and understands little. Case logs recording what was attempted and what followed build the store of pattern recognition that the author calls artisanal knowledge. And the mentors themselves need preparation, since the ability to mediate well and the ability to teach mediation are different competences, and the finest practitioner may be unable to explain the choice that came to them by instinct.

Two cautions belong here. The analogy should not be pressed to the point of casting the mediator as the surgeon who cures a passive patient, because the parties are not operated upon; they decide. What the trainee is learning is not how to fix people but how to hold a process in which people can find their own way, and the distinction matters, since a mediator trained to see themselves as the healer will intervene where they should wait. And the low stakes work, community disputes, neighbourhood and school mediation, deserves respect rather than treatment as a proving ground, since it is both valuable in itself and the safest place to accumulate hours before more damaging conflicts are undertaken.

The author’s underlying warning is worth restating plainly, because it concerns the whole field rather than any individual. Every badly handled mediation costs more than one case. It persuades those present, and everyone they tell, that the method does not work, and in jurisdictions where mediation is still establishing itself, that impression outlives any single practitioner’s career. Structured supervised practice is not an optional refinement of professional formation; it is the profession’s principal defence of its own reputation.

* Added by the WMO Editorial Team

REFERENCES *

Dreyfus, H. L., & Dreyfus, S. E. (1986). Mind over Machine: The Power of Human Intuition and Expertise in the Era of the Computer. Free Press, New York (model of skill acquisition from novice to expert).

Lang, M. D., & Taylor, A. (2000). The Making of a Mediator: Developing Artistry in Practice. Jossey Bass, San Francisco.

Schön, D. A. (1983). The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. Basic Books, New York.

Schön, D. A. (1987). Educating the Reflective Practitioner. Jossey Bass, San Francisco.

Macfarlane, J. (2002). Mediating Ethically: The Limits of Codes of Conduct and the Potential of a Reflective Practice Model. Osgoode Hall Law Journal, 40(1), 49 to 87.

Moore, C. W. (2014). The Mediation Process: Practical Strategies for Resolving Conflict (4th edition). Jossey Bass, San Francisco.

Bowling, D., & Hoffman, D. (Eds.) (2003). Bringing Peace into the Room: How the Personal Qualities of the Mediator Impact the Process of Conflict Resolution. Jossey Bass, San Francisco.

Model Standards of Conduct for Mediators (2005), American Arbitration Association, American Bar Association and Association for Conflict Resolution, provisions on competence and consent.

European Code of Conduct for Mediators (2004), European Commission, Brussels, provisions on competence and appointment.

Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs.