“Look carefully at the obstacles in your path: you’ll see that much of the time you are the one who put them there” – Mehmet Murat ildan
The 5th question on the questionnaire is this:
Q5.What do you believe is preventing both of you achieving these things, the things of most importance to each of you ?
This question asks about your reality (beliefs and perceptions), your Narrative and provides the mediator with a context and greater insight into what you believe the challenges might be for mediation so that they can begin to prepare and support you to overcome these.
These may take the form of judgements about the other person, but they could also be judgements about yourself, and manifest in the form of blame and judgement forming part of each person’s narrative about each other and the situation.
These could amount to challenges you believe you will have to overcome for yourself such as a greater degree of self-confidence and self-belief. That said, more often than not, people in conflict focus on challenges presented by the other person borne out of the experiences of each other and how they feel about these experiences, manifesting in a narrative about how the other person has behaved and the impact this has had.
Whatever these challenges may be, they are important to be clear about in preparation for mediation.
The reality is that conflict resolution requires a commitment to a mutual value-based outcome and solution focussed approach, involving two or more people in dialogue, intentionally and attentively seeking to understand each other and what is important to each other, working together to overcome a range of challenges, to meet a range of mutual needs.
The key is first to identify and understand the challenges, as you both perceive them, BEFORE focusing on and exploring what you may each be willing and able to do (offer to do) to help and support yourselves as well as each other, on the way to finding a solution, which feels good enough and fair enough to both of you.
Although it may be helpful for you and the mediator to understand and see these beliefs, judgements and expressions of negative emotion as indicators and expressions of unmet needs/threatened values, it is also important not to remain focused on them, giving them the power to negatively influence your thinking and approach.
Rather, use them to build connection and make progress with constructing positive needs-based outcomes
The mediator may ask you;
If I can help both of you to find a way through the current challenges you are both experiencing and achieve most of the things you say are important to each of you, would it be worth committing yourselves 100% to mediation?
OR
It sounds like the situation you describe has been incredibly challenging for you (both). What have you learned from these experiences that might help you to…………..
The mediator will do their best to keep you focussed on outcomes and the future, the things you want most from mediation although they must also be understand your concerns and any negative beliefs you may be holding since these are also often good indicators of what is important to you and the psychological and emotional barriers which may need to be overcome in mediation.