2014 wayne nugent episodic family dispute resolution
TRANSCRIPT
NEW SOUTH WALES 2014 National Mediation Conference
Episodic Family Dispute
Resolution
Ultilising conflict to change behaviour and improve
outcomes
Wayne Nugent
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NEW SOUTH WALES
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Complex, or just plain mind boggling?
Cerebral Cortex Left Hemisphere Corpus Collosum
Frontal Lobe � Right
Hemisphere Occipital Lobe Basal Ganglia
Amygdala Hippocampus Thalamus Hypothalamus Cerebrum Cerebellum
Temporal Lobe Cerebral Cortex Limbic System Medulla Pons Corpus
Callosum Neuron Dendrite Lateral geniculate nucleus Septum
cingulate cortex Fornix Left Hemisphere Axiom Angular gyrus
inferotemporal cortex synapses Mirror Neuron Fusiform Area Memory Optical
nerve Motor cortex superior temporal sulcus lateral geniculate nucleus Visual
Cortex Motor Cortex Axon Brain Stem Cerebellum
Neurotransmitter Qualia Superior Parietal Lobule
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“If the human brain were so simple that we
could understand it, we would be so simple
that we couldn’t” (Emerson M. Pugh)
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Changing the way we think.
Changing conflict behaviour is not about
changing minds, it’s about changing……
Memories
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What is episodic memory?
(Declarative) Explicit Memory is divided into two parts.
1. Semantic – Facts or things deals with “knowing how” . (Chair, bed, door, car)
2. Episodic – Events (Autobiographical) deals with “knowing that” (more complexity)
[Thompson and Madigan]
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1. Memory is contextual/associative. It is State, Context and History Dependent.
(Kurzban)
2. Past memories are altered by new memories. They are constantly being
reconstructed. (Freeman and Freeman)
3. [Some] memories are especially well remembered, but distortions can alter
these memories over time. The memory becomes less accurate, but certainty
of their accuracy does not. (Thompson and Madigan).
4. People have a good memory for the gist, but bad memory for details. We will
inadvertently fill in the gaps by making things up; we will believe the memories
we make up – the higher the stress the more we make up. (Mlodinow)
5. Conflict is a learned behaviour.
Why talk about Memory?
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Changing conflict behaviours.
In order to change conflict behaviour, clients must be
able to reformat the memory experience associated
with the behaviour. And this can only be achieved
when the memory is reinvented in the context of the
conflict environment. (Kahneman, Baggini, Haidt, Richardson, Damasio, Bloom)
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The problem with process.
“There is considerable controversy over what is in the
best interest of children post-divorce. Further there are
parents who shared the mediators commitment to the
interests of the children, but asserted that there were
nevertheless other issues in dispute which were not
addressed because of the mediators preoccupation with
access to the children”
(Gwynn Davies, in Astor and Chinkin 2002)
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The issue with issues and order!
“A pile of problem talk has been built up in the middle of the room
and for the rest of the conversation it dominates what can be talked
about”. (Winslade and Monk)
“Structure and order need not be imposed but will emerge from the
interaction of the parties and the “mediator”, [the] social processes
can take shape on their own, without a need to force them into any
particular shape, which is contrary to the popular assumption that if
mediation is to have a “form” the mediator must impose it” (Della Noce in Winslade and Monk)
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Reinventing the memory experience
“When something bad happens, the brain leverages the entire body
(heart rate, contraction of the gut, etc.) to register that feeling, and
that feeling becomes associated with the event. When the event is
next pondered, the brain essentially runs a simulation, reliving the
physical feelings of the event. Those feelings then serve to
navigate, or at least bias, subsequent decision making.”
(Damasio in Eagleman)
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Episode One. Pre-mediation.
Shaking the tree
In pre-mediation, we can be far more effective if we work with
the thinking and put the doing things aside.
There should be very little discussion about the issues, as this
will anchor them to their positional way of imagining futures. It is
far more effective to explore not only their way of thinking about
the other party’s conflict behaviours, but also about their own.
In this way we can not only validate the behaviours but also
normalise both theirs and the other party’s behaviour in the
context of the conflict.
I call it shaking the tree.
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It’s all about because……
Creating doubt
If we are able to recognise our behaviour in the context of the
conflict we are able to accept that it is not a true representation of
self.
A tension is created between our conscious intention and our
unconscious response.
Our notion of the other is then coerced to shift from the heuristic to
the rational.
I did it this way because…..
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Episode Two.
What is it like to be the mediator’s elephant?
Needs, motives, traits,
deficits, character, drives,
shortfalls, discrepancies,
insufficiencies, peculiarities,
competition, cheating, lying,
disappointment, mistrust,
anger, deceit, rage, fear,
anxiety, strengths, traits…..
The “what’s of of our conflict
propositions”
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What we expect from our elephant
Needs, motives, traits,
deficits, character, drives,
shortfalls, discrepancies,
insufficiencies, peculiarities,
competition, cheating, lying,
disappointment, mistrust,
anger, deceit, rage, fear,
anxiety, strengths, traits…..
The “what’s of of our conflict
propositions”
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What we miss looking for the elephant
Intentions and purposes, values
and beliefs, hopes, dreams,
visions, commitments to ways of
living, meaning, standards,
principles, the good life,
compassion, identity, self in a
social life……The why’s of conflict.
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We miss the “why’s”
Intentions and purposes, values
and beliefs, hopes, dreams,
visions, commitments to ways of
living, meaning, standards,
principles, the good life,
compassion, identity, self in a
social life……The why’s of conflict.
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Baby let the conflict in!
Conflict cannot be exposed or explored when,
in session, we do our best to keep it out of the
room. “Go away you nasty, horrid conflict,
there is no room for you here!”
And then we go about trying to resolve it
when it’s somewhere down the hall.
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Change the past by recreating the present!
“Our memories are integral to ours sense of self…………
Some memories (procedural) are especially resistant to
forgetting. Most vulnerable, on the other hand, are episodic
memories – that’s to say, conscious recollections of specific
information and experience’s. [These can be] “retroactive”
and are vulnerable to interference from other similar
memories, whereby an old memory is endangered by the
creation of a new one”. (Freeman and Freeman)
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Our future is our past and our present
“What is happening to us now is, in fact, happening to a
concept of self, based on the past, including the past that was
current only a moment ago” (Damasio)
It is only by exposing the conflict in the moment that future
conflict thinking, and therefore behaviour is likely to change
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Creating an alternative experience
I think that the science is clear, we need to shift our emphasis away from
managing the post intervention behaviour.
Instead, we need to think about providing an environment where the
intervention experience provides the emotional space for clients to construct a
new memory experience.
The intervention should not steer clients away from their conflict behaviour but
allow them to walk through it. In this way they are able to witness their
responses in the interaction and the thought processes are effectively slowed
down, providing space for rational/emotional self dialogue to take place.
The consequence of this is that the memory pattern is changed, the next
interaction is not weighed down by the certainty of failure.
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Epilogue
Reinventing the rules!
The practitioner relinquishes his/her power and gives ownership back to the
clients.
There can be no hierarchy, the practitioner is part of the conversation but
not party to it.
The practitioner needs to earn the right to be the participant observer
Both ownership and outcome are in the hands of the clients
Where our role is to work for the children we are by default given
permission to view, and comment on, the immediate conflict event. We are
the dumb enquirer
It’s also important to be aware that we have a unique relationship with each
client and it is this relationship that provides us with permission to observe
and speak freely about our observations while being accepted into the
dialogue.
The observer relationship is established by our engagement with the client
in pre-conference
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We learn our conflict!
“Somatic markers are a special instance of feelings
generated from secondary emotions. Those emotions and
feelings have been connected, by learning, to predict future
outcomes of certain scenarios. When a negative somatic
marker is juxtaposed to a particular future outcome the
combination functions as an alarm bell.”
(Damasio)
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“If the proposed solution to individual and social
suffering bypasses the causes of individual and social
conflict, it is not likely to work for very long. It may treat
a symptom, but it does nothing to the roots of the
disease.” (Damasio)
