Bannink Handbook of Solution-Focused Conflict Management

1. Auflage 2010
ISBN: 978-1-61676-384-8
Verlag: Hogrefe Publishing
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: 1 - PDF Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 186 Seiten

Introduces a new form of conflict management that is shorter, more hopeful, and more cost-effective than traditional methods – essential reading for mediators, lawyers, jury experts, and managers.

Benjamin Franklin once said: “Every problem is an opportunity in disguise.” In the new and highly successful approach of solution-focused conflict management described here, the focus is on discovering these opportunities to find the “win-win” scenario. The key lies in asking eliciting questions about goals, exceptions, and competencies and in motivating clients to change. Clients’ perspectives are considered primary, and they are empowered to formulate their own hopes for the future and to devise ways to make them happen. Focusing on the preferred future facilitates change in the desired direction.

The concept and the methodology of solution-focused conflict management differ significantly from traditional methods, but can easily be combined with them. Meetings also become more positive and shorter, ensuring that solution-focused conflict management is also cost-effective.

This book is essential reading for all those who need to manage conflicts. It provides a detailed description of the highly successful solution-focused model, its theoretical background, and practical applications in conflict management practice: divorce, workplace, family, neighbors, personal injury cases, victim-offender conflicts.

Kenneth Cloke, one of the most inspiring mediators in the world, wrote the Foreword and Epilogue.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Bannink, Fredrike

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Psychologie Psychotherapie / Klinische Psychologie
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Betriebswirtschaft Bereichsspezifisches Management Personalwesen, Human Resource Management
• Sozialwissenschaften Psychologie Psychologische Disziplinen Wirtschafts-, Arbeits- und Organisationspsychologie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1;Acknowledgments;3
2;Foreword: Building Bridges Between Psychology and Conflict Resolution — Implications for Mediator Learning;6
3;Peer Commentaries;8
4;Table of Contents;10
5;1 Bloodtaking and Peacemaking;14
5.1;Conflict Management Is of All Times and All Species;14
5.2;Modern Conflict Management;15
5.3;Story 1: Taking a Different View;16
6;2 Background Issues;18
6.1;Introduction;18
6.2;Game Theory;18
6.3;Quantum Mechanics and Neuroscience;20
6.4;Hope Theory;22
6.5;Broaden-and-Build Theory of Positive Emotions;27
6.6;Story 2: Feeding a Fellow;29
7;3 Solution-Focused Interviewing;32
7.1;Principles of Solution-Focused Interviewing;32
7.2;Story 3: Do Something Different;32
7.3;Looking to the Future (1);33
7.4;Assumptions With an Eye on Solutions;33
7.5;Exercise 1;35
7.6;Acknowledgment and Possibilities;35
7.7;Microanalysis of Conversations;37
7.8;Empirical Evidence;37
7.9;Indications and Contraindications;39
7.10;Story 4: The Problem of Looking for Problems;39
8;4 Solution-Focused Conflict Management;42
8.1;Four Dimensions in Conflict Thinking;42
8.2;Looking to the Future (2);43
8.3;Clients, Parties, Lawyers, and Litigants: What’s in the Name?;45
8.4;Exercise 2;45
8.5;Differences Between Traditional and Solution-Focused Conflict Management;45
8.6;Changing Conflict Stories;47
9;5 Four Basic Solution-Focused Questions;50
9.1;Exercise 3;50
9.2;Questions about Hope;50
9.3;Story 5: The Power of Hope;52
9.4;Questions About Differences;52
9.5;Case;54
9.6;Questions About What Is Already Working;54
9.7;Questions About the Next Step or Sign of Progress;55
9.8;Case;56
9.9;Solution-Focused Conflict Management in Practice;56
9.10;Exercise 4;59
10;6 More Solution-Focused Questions;60
10.1;More Questions;60
10.2;What Else?;60
10.3;Exercise 5;61
10.4;Case;61
10.5;Premediation Change;61
10.6;Interactional Matrix;62
10.7;Exercise 6;63
10.8;Case;63
10.9;Exercise 7;64
10.10;Looking to the Future (3): Future-Oriented Questions;64
10.11;Exercise 8;65
10.12;Story 6: Working from the Future Back;66
10.13;Scaling Questions: Hope, Motivation, and Confidence;67
10.14;Case;68
10.15;Scaling Questions: Respect – Contempt;68
10.16;Scaling Questions: Pure Collaboration – Pure Conflict;70
10.17;Feedback;71
10.18;What Is Better?;72
10.19;Exercise 9;73
11;7 Divorce Mediation;74
11.1;Case;74
11.2;Compliments;77
11.3;Exercise 10;78
11.4;Story 7: The Importance of Accepting Compliments;78
12;8 Working Alliance and Motivation to Change;82
12.1;Motivation to Change;82
12.2;Visitor, Complainant, or Customer;82
12.3;Case;84
12.4;Exercise 11;85
12.5;Attitude of the Solution-Focused Mediator;85
12.6;Resistance Is Not a Useful Concept;86
12.7;Case;86
12.8;Scaling Motivation, Confidence, and Hope;87
12.9;Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument;88
12.10;Persuasion Theory;88
12.11;Caucus;90
12.12;Working Alliance;90
12.13;“Supermediators”;91
12.14;Exercise 12;93
12.15;Motivation of the Mediator;93
12.16;Exercise 13;94
13;9 Neighbor Conflict Mediation;96
13.1;Case;96
13.2;Normalization;99
13.3;Story 8: Drawing Boundaries;99
14;10 More Solution-Focused Tools;102
14.1;Summarizing;102
14.2;Focus on Positive Emotions;102
14.3;Apologies, Forgiveness, and Reconciliation;105
14.4;Case;107
14.5;“I Don’t Know”;109
14.6;Arguments;109
14.7;Externalization of the Conflict;110
14.8;Exercise 14;112
14.9;Spacing Meetings;112
14.10;Metaphors;112
14.11;Consensus-Building;113
14.12;Solution-Focused Consensus-Building;114
15;11 Team Mediation;116
15.1;Case;116
15.2;Exercise 15;118
15.3;Game Theory Revisited: Trust;118
15.4;“Liquid Trust”;120
15.5;The Price to Pay;121
15.6;Story 9: Finding Peace;122
16;12 Client-Directed, Outcome-Informed Conflict Management;124
16.1;Client-Directed Conflict Management;124
16.2;Outcome-Informed Conflict Management;125
16.3;Session Rating Scale;126
17;13 Family Mediation;128
17.1;Case;128
17.2;Communication;131
17.3;Tolerance;132
18;14 Brief Comparison with Other Models;134
18.1;Exercise 16;134
18.2;Building Solutions Is Different from Problem Solving;134
18.3;Problem Solving Mediation and Solution-Focused Mediation: A Comparison;136
18.4;Transformative Mediation and Solution-Focused Mediation: A Comparison;137
18.5;Narrative Mediation and Solution-Focused Mediation: A Comparison;138
18.6;Conclusion;139
18.7;Research on Feedback;140
19;15 Personal Injury Mediation;142
19.1;Case;142
19.2;Seating Arrangements;144
19.3;Case;145
19.4;Dollars and Cents;146
20;16 Failures;148
20.1;Failures;148
20.2;Exercise 17;148
20.3;Pathways to Impossibility;149
20.4;Case;150
20.5;Solution-Focused Questions in Case of Failure;151
20.6;Saving Face;151
21;17 Victim-Offender Mediation;154
21.1;Restorative Justice;154
21.2;Reconciliation;155
21.3;Victim-Offender Mediation;158
21.4;Case;161
22;Epilogue by Fredrike Bannink;162
23;Epilogue by Kenneth Cloke;164
24;References;174
25;Websites;180
26;Appendices;182
26.1;Protocol: First Meeting;183
26.2;Protocol: Subsequent Meetings;184
26.3;Interactional Matrix;185
26.4;Externalization of the Conflict;186
26.5;Session Rating Scale (SRS V.3.0);187

Leseproben

Quantum Mechanics and Neuroscience

Quantum mechanics is the study of the relationship between quanta and elementary particles. Its effects are typically not observable on a macroscopic scale, but become evident at atomic and subatomic levels. It introduced new physical principles and new dynamical laws.

One important finding of quantum mechanics is the so-called uncertainty principle, discovered by Nobel Prize winner Heisenberg. If we want to measure the position and momentum of a particular particle, we must see the particle and focus on it. This gives an uncertainty in the particle position. Quantum systems do seem to behave differently if we observe them. In other words, the subject who observes modifies the object that is observed. The human brain is also a quantum environment and is therefore subject to all the surprising laws of quantum mechanics. One of these laws is the quantum zeno effect (QZE). This effect is related to the observer effect of quantum physics. The behavior and position of any atom-sized entity, such as an atom, electron, or ion, appears to change when that entity is observed.

The QZE was linked with what happens when close attention is paid to a mental experience. Applied to neuroscience, the QZE states that the mental act of focusing attention stabilizes the associated brain circuits. So concentrating on any mental experience, whether a thought, a picture, or an emotion, maintains the brain state arising in association with that experience. Eventually this leads to physical changes in the brain’s structure. Attention continually reshapes the patterns of the brain and the brain changes as a function of where an individual puts his attention: The power is in the focus. New brain circuits can be stabilized and thus developed (the neuroscientist’s term for this is self-directed neuroplasticity). The neural net of the brain can activate a set of anatomically and chronologically associated firings in response to the environment. This profile is encoded, stored, and retrieved on the basis of a simple axiom defined by Hebb (1949): Neurons which fire together at one time will tend to fire together in the future. It is also possible for the brain to relocate brain activity associated with a certain function from one area to another, for instance, in a case of brain damage. And everyday thousands of new cells are created in the adult brain (neurogenesis), which was long thought to be impossible.

Seligman (2002), founder of the positive psychology movement (www.ted. com) found in a study with severely depressed individuals that positive behavior change is primarily a function of the ability to focus attention on specific – positive – ideas closely enough, often enough, and for a long enough time.

This is to say that it is wise to leave problem – or conflict – behaviors in the past and focus on identifying and creating new behaviors by first picturing these new behaviors in your mind and developing positive new mental maps that have the potential to become hardwired circuitry. This is best achieved through a solution-focused questioning approach that facilitates self-insight rather than through advice giving.

From the perspective of quantum mechanics, an objective world independent from personal perceptions is not real. Human conflicts are, per essence, subjective because they originate in the dynamics of personal thoughts, emotions, and beliefs of the people involved. The sources of personal conflicts are the result of the perceptions of persons. Einstein (1954) stated:
• Problems cannot be solved by the level of awareness that created them.
• We cannot solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used
• when we created them. Significant problems cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we • were at when we created them.
No problem can be solved from the same consciousness that created it.

He postulated that information and knowledge is not sufficient for conflict resolution. Imagination is more important than knowledge, for knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world – stimulating progress and giving birth to evolution. As this book will show, imagination is widely used in the solution-focused approach using the miracle question and other hypothetical questions described in Chapters 5 and 6. Recent insights in the field of neurobiology and knowledge about the functioning of both cerebral hemispheres (Siegel, 1999) show that the right hemisphere deals principally with processing nonverbal aspects of communication, such as seeing images and feeling primary emotions. The right hemisphere is involved in the understanding of metaphors, paradoxes, and humor. Reading fiction and poetry activates the right hemisphere, whereas the reading of scientific texts essentially activates the left hemisphere. There, the processes relating to the verbal meaning of words, also called “digital representations,” take place. The left hemisphere is occupied with logical analyses (cause-effect relations). Linear processes occurring are reading the words in a sentence, aspects of attention, and discovering order in the events of a story. The left hemisphere thus dominates our language-based communication. Some authors are of the opinion that the right hemisphere sees the world more as it is and has a better overview of the context, whereas the left hemisphere tends to departmentalize the information received. The left hemisphere sees the trees, the right hemisphere the forest. Try listening to a favorite piece of music through headphones, first with your left ear, then with your right; what differences do you experience? Several studies have shown that most (right-handed) people prefer to listen to music with their left ear (connected to the right hemisphere), rather than with their right ear (connected to the left hemisphere). If one listens to music with the left ear, this gives a more holistic sensation, “a floating with the flow of the music,” whereas the experience is different if one listens with the right ear. This tendency is reversed in professional musicians. An explanation for this is that they listen to music in a more analytical way than the casual listener. My supposition is that working in a solution-focused manner, thus with a high utilization of the imagination, such as “mental rehearsal” and hypothetical questions, particularly stimulates the nonverbal and holistic capacities of the right hemisphere. Not only the left hemisphere is engaged, as it is in (analytical) problem-focused working. The success of solution-focused conversations might be (partly) explained in the way it addresses both hemispheres of the brain.