How to cite this journal: Author, Date of the post, WMO Conflict Insight, Title of the post, ISSN: 2628 6998, https://worldmediation.org/journal/
EDITORIAL NOTE
This contribution is an interview conducted in Spanish through the Asociación Mexicana en Psicología Jurídica y Derecho Penal in May 2020, with Vanesa Díaz Padilla, Vetel Rodríguez Many and Daniel Erdmann. The English text below is a translation prepared by the WMO Editorial Team; the Spanish original remains the authoritative version.
ABSTRACT
In this interview, conducted during the first months of the COVID 19 pandemic, Daniel Erdmann declines to define mediation narrowly, arguing that a definition limits its potential and that mediation appears not only as a formal procedure but as fragments woven into everyday social life, amounting to a philosophy of living. Asked about family conflicts arising under lockdown, he holds that most such conflicts originate in extreme stress and fear of the future, and that the appropriate response is social rather than procedural. Alongside what he calls the fundamental trinity, listening closely, thinking critically and speaking wisely, he recommends the deliberate use of time as an instrument of conflict resolution and warns against decisions of lasting consequence taken under exceptional pressure. Further sections address dialogue with older generations as a source of support, the invisibility of domestic violence behind closed doors, the future of mediation in school curricula, remote mediation, and the case for a flexible rather than a fixed procedural model.
KEYWORDS
Mediation, COVID 19, family conflict, lockdown, stress, listening critically thinking speaking wisely, intergenerational dialogue, domestic violence, conflict prevention, mediation education, remote mediation, flexibility
INTRODUCTION
This interview was conducted through the Asociación Mexicana en Psicología Jurídica y Derecho Penal in May 2020. The participants were Vanesa Díaz Padilla, Vetel Rodríguez Many and Daniel Erdmann.
How would you define mediation?
For me, mediation is a social phenomenon that should rather not be defined, since a definition as such can limit its potential. I see that mediation has various ways of manifesting itself in our lives. One of these will be its function as a formal method of resolving family or criminal conflicts. But I would like to distance myself from the terminology of the formal process, because I believe that mediation is carried out not only in a formal manner but also in fragments implemented in our daily social coexistence. This means that mediation offers us multiple social methods which support the harmonious development of living together, and it reveals itself rather as a philosophy of life.
MAIN CORPUS
Following the COVID 19 confinement, various disagreements and confrontations have arisen within the family unit. Would mediation be an alternative for addressing these discrepancies, and why?
Basically I believe that mediation can be of great support in the family sphere and specifically in this situation of the COVID 19 period, and it will possibly be the only sustainable way of dealing with conflicts now. I say it will be the only sustainable way because I see that the majority of the conflicts arising during this time have their basis in circumstances of extreme stress and fear of the future. And since we are speaking of the social sphere, we must also deal with conflicts in a way that concentrates on social methods and that can be carried out immediately.
What affective bond should be strengthened in order to address family conflicts?
First, I wish to emphasise that each of us can make use of what I call the fundamental trinity, not only of mediation but of respectful coexistence. This formula is composed of: listening in detail, thinking critically and speaking wisely. And we must be quite clear that this extreme time is not the time to take decisions that mark the future of a family. So we must use another powerful tool of conflict resolution, namely letting time pass: from one day to the next, from one week to the next, until this situation ends and relaxes. And only at that precise point should the conflict be analysed again, to find out whether it still exists and to discover whether it still has importance.
Which support networks are helpful for managing conflicts?
With reference to family conflicts, I believe that the best support is found in dialogue with the elders. We must not forget that this generation serves as a deep well of life wisdom. In this way advice can be obtained during all moments of critical coexistence. And these dialogues serve in both ways: in a preventive way and in a compensatory way.
What would be the lesson of COVID 19 for the development and application of mediation?
I believe the moment has arrived when we as mediators must not only offer our consultative services but also begin to educate humanity in communicative methods that serve to prevent the genesis of conflict as such. Now is the moment when each of us must take the decision whether one wishes to feed principally on conflict, or whether one wishes to understand the calling of being a mediator in a broader framework and also to dedicate oneself to the prevention of conflict and to the education of the people.
Which individual and family competences should be strengthened during adversity?
I believe that each of us should place the focus on our own mentality, exclude external influences and understand that only the individual himself is responsible for his attitude. Certainly, we cannot completely control what is happening in our environment, but we can improve the way in which we respond to these impulses. For this reason I ask all those affected to rediscover the power of the word, of dialogue and of mutual respect.
Does a protocol on family violence exist in Germany, and if so, has it been modified after the confinement?
The subject appeared very briefly in the news and disappeared again just as quickly. I am convinced that we cannot imagine everything that is happening inside closed houses. The situations within the houses are as diverse as the people themselves. Not everyone has to confront conflicts and not everyone has to suffer a high level of stress. But the most complicated situations possibly involve violence and physical and mental abuse, states of anguish and alcoholism. What worries me is that all these presumed cases remain invisible for now.
How is your legal system facing the conflicts resulting from the isolation of the pandemic?
For now there is no information referring to this problem. For a long time the legal system found itself in the same confinement as the rest of the country.
How would you define the future of mediation?
The future of mediation depends on what mediation means for the individual. It can be a profession which will develop and establish itself more and more. Or it can be a formula of coexistence which shows positive results immediately. Apart from this, I hope that mediation will form a fixed part of the school system, so that the coming generations learn from the beginning of their lives that there are various opinions which must be accepted, that having an exchange of opinions and taking such a situation to the level of conflict are two distinct things, and that societies turn out to be stronger where mutual respect exists.
Will mediation sessions at a distance be a form of application?
I believe that the use and the possible impact of mediation should not be limited. We must try and improve all possible avenues until there are satisfactory results.
SUMMARY
Two themes run through the interview and give it coherence. The first is the refusal of fixity: mediation should not be confined by a definition, by a formal procedural setting, by a fixed structure of practice, or by any single medium of delivery, because conflicts and the people who have them differ. The second is the priority of prevention over resolution, expressed as a choice facing the profession, whether mediators exist because conflicts exist, or whether they take on the wider task of teaching the communicative skills that prevent conflicts from forming.
CONCLUSION
Which areas of opportunity should be worked on to improve mediation processes?
I believe one should distance oneself from a fixed scheme of how to practise mediation. We must practise and live mediation from a logical and flexible standpoint. We all have our own competences, which must be realised and manifested in our practice. As we are all different and as all conflicts are equally different, explain to me what the reason would be for a structured and static mediation. The vision of practising mediation in an attentive, logical and flexible manner is truly the perspective of the World Mediation Organization, and through our online training we bring to life mediators who act in this way.
POTENTIAL SOLUTION *
Two of the recommendations offered here are unusual enough to deserve development, and one requires a safeguard.
The recommendation to let time pass runs against most professional instinct, which treats delay as failure and speed as service. Yet the reasoning is sound: a decision taken under extreme stress is made by a person who is not, for the moment, fully themselves, and the conflict may not survive the conditions that produced it. Applied deliberately, this becomes a working technique rather than avoidance. A mediator can propose an interim arrangement that stabilises the immediate situation, agree explicitly with the parties on a date to reconsider, and use the interval for preparation rather than silence. What distinguishes this from neglect is that the pause is named, agreed and given an end.
The recommendation to seek out the elders is equally underused and equally practical. Older family members often hold what no external professional can supply: knowledge of how a particular family has weathered previous crises, standing that permits them to say what nobody else may say, and a longer horizon that shrinks the present emergency to proportion. Where such figures exist and are trusted by both sides, involving them is often more effective than any formal process. Where a family is divided along generational lines, the same authority becomes a complication, which is why the mediator’s task is to ask the parties whom they trust rather than to assume it.
The safeguard concerns the passage on violence behind closed doors, where the interview’s own diagnosis is exactly right and its consequence must be stated plainly. Where violence is present, neither patience nor family dialogue is the appropriate response, and mediation itself is contraindicated. A person confined with someone who harms them cannot negotiate freely, cannot speak safely, and cannot let time pass, because time is what is being used against them. Every practitioner working with families under such conditions needs the discipline of separate initial conversations, active screening for coercion, an unambiguous route to protective services, and the readiness to end a process that cannot be conducted safely. This does not contradict the interview’s approach; it defines its boundary, and the observation that these situations remain invisible is precisely the argument for looking for them deliberately.
Finally, the interview’s largest claim, that mediation belongs in schools, is the one most likely to matter over time. Conflict literacy taught early, the capacity to name one’s own needs, to hear another’s, and to distinguish disagreement from hostility, reaches people before their patterns harden and before any mediator is called. It is also the only proposal here that would eventually reduce the demand for the profession advancing it, which is perhaps the strongest evidence that it is offered in good faith.
* Added by the WMO Editorial Team
REFERENCES
- Asociación Mexicana en Psicología Jurídica y Derecho Penal, interview conducted in May 2020.
- World Mediation Organization, training programme in Mindful Mediation and Conflict Management, Berlin.
- United Nations Population Fund (2020). COVID 19: A Gender Lens, technical brief on gender based violence during the pandemic, New York.
- World Health Organization (2020). COVID 19 and Violence Against Women: What the Health Sector Can Do, Geneva.
- Bundesministerium für Familie, Senioren, Frauen und Jugend, Hilfetelefon Gewalt gegen Frauen and reporting on domestic violence during the pandemic, Berlin.
- Bundeskriminalamt, Partnerschaftsgewalt: Kriminalstatistische Auswertung, Wiesbaden.
- Cohen, R. (2005). Students Resolving Conflict: Peer Mediation in Schools. Good Year Books, Tucson.
- Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. T. (1996). Conflict Resolution and Peer Mediation Programs in Elementary and Secondary Schools: A Review of the Research. Review of Educational Research, 66(4), 459 to 506.
- Ebner, N. (2017). Online Dispute Resolution and the Mediation Process. In A. Georgakopoulos (Ed.), The Mediation Handbook. Routledge, New York.
- Riskin, L. L. (1996). Understanding Mediators’ Orientations, Strategies, and Techniques: A Grid for the Perplexed. Harvard Negotiation Law Review, 1, 7 to 51.