The second step in the Couple’s Dialogue is validation. The empathy loop has three steps: (1) You inquire about a subject or issue (2) the other side responds and (3) You demonstrate your understanding of the response, and test or check that understanding with the other person. How do you go about demonstrating that you are trying to understand? Use a technique we call the empathy loop. As Professor Mnookin describes the process in his book on negotiating, Beyond Winning: In mediation circles, mirroring is often referred to as looping. The process repeats itself until the speaker confirms the listener got it right. It reflects a genuine attempt by the listener to understand the speaker’s point of view using statements like, “if I heard you correctly, you said that you don’t like it when I glance at my iPhone while you are speaking to me.”įollowing mirroring, the speaker confirms if the listener accurately conveyed the speaker’s perspective if not, the speaker identifies what aspect of her message was missing or misunderstood, and the listener tries again based on the speaker’s feedback. In marital therapy, mirroring entails the listening spouse repeating back in their own words the content of a message just delivered by the speaking spouse. At the core of the Imago method is what is known as the Couple’s Dialogue**, which consists of three distinct conversational processes: mirroring, validation and empathy. Harville Hendrix and Helen Hunt that seeks to transform conflict between couples into opportunities for healing and growth through improved communication. Among these is the Imago Couples Dialogue.įor those unfamiliar with Imago, it is a school of marital counseling developed by Drs. The good news is there are established methods mediators can use to bring rigor to the process of communicating about feelings. Given that reality, what techniques can a mediator employ to address the complex emotions at the heart of many disputes? Unlike the largely mechanical approaches such as decision tree analysis used to value the economics of a dispute, unpacking the parties’ emotions feels more like art than science. To paraphrase mediator Julie Denny *, the chief executive of a manufacturer is not just angry because the company lost money due to defective parts she also feels betrayed because a longstanding supplier whom she trusted cut corners at her expense.Ī discharged employee asserting a claim for age discrimination is not just upset because he has lost his livelihood he also feels humiliated by the way his bosses treated him.Ī sister not only resents that she received a smaller equity interest in the family business than she feels she deserved she also resents the lack of appreciation shown by her siblings for all the time she invested caring for their parents after they retired.Īs we have previously discussed, ignoring the emotional component in a dispute can lead to impasse. Nearly all disputes in mediation have both a financial and an emotional component.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |