Solution-Focused Mediation

I heard a talk at the Southern California Mediation Association conference last week, by a Dutch mediator Fredrike Bannink, who described her solution-focused method of conducting mediation, which minimizes talking about the problem that caused the conflict, and instead concentrates on strategies that might work to resolve and prevent conflicts. Rather than asking the parties to argue their positions, she asks them questions like, What are your hopes? What difference would it make if the conflict could be resolved? What strategies are working for you? What would be the next steps to solving this problem?

This approach to me crystallized the difference between mediation and litigation. Litigation looks backward, and invites the parties to rehash and perhaps even exacerbate the problem that caused the conflict between them. When mediation does the same thing, it may not be a better process. But when mediation asks the parties to think about how their lives might be better without the conflict, or about what aspects of their relationship are positive, then it can truly present an alternative way of resolving a dispute.

Bannink illustrated her method by asking two of the mediators in the room to role-play a divorcing couple fighting about the usual custody and property issues. She asked the pretend husband how he would rate his relationship with his wife on a scale of 1 to 10, and he gave it a 4. Many people would react to this statement by asking about all the reasons the relationship was so bad in his mind. But Bannink asked a question that caused an audible murmur in the room, almost as if a collective light was going on in our minds. She asked: "What makes up the four?" In other words, why is it a four when it could have been a one or a two? This forced the husband to talk about feelings he had in common with his wife, such as how much they both loved their kids. Then the mediator could build on the positive aspects of the parties' relationship to attempt to create an agreement.

This method may be a bit more difficult to apply in the situation where the parties want nothing further to do with each other after the dispute ends. But even in that situation, there may be an opportunity to explore the positive aspects of the parties' past relationship that could form a basis for a future agreement.