How are Mediation or Conflict Consulting different from therapy or legal advice?

Mediation

As an unbiased facilitator, I can hear your story without judging, and I’ll ask questions that will lead to the answers that feel right to you.  In therapy, often the goal is self-awareness and understanding of past patterns and responsibility for dynamics.  In mediation, the focus and goal is reaching agreements that satisfy both parties, by understanding options and information, and actively problem-solving to reach concrete solutions.  Mediation focuses on what you want to have happen in the future, not what happened in the past.  It is a “get you where you want to go” approach.

In contrast, using lawyers to resolve conflicts, while sometimes necessary, is more costly in every way and can be less effective in the long term as well, as a good agreement lasts beyond the initial conflict. There is often a winning and a losing side, and little room for the parties to truly direct the outcome.  Even when there are the very best of intentions, speaking through lawyers will be a grown-up game of “Telephone”, wasting time, money, and patience, and creating secondary challenges because of the inevitable communication bumps when repeating information.

Conflict Consulting

My Conflict Consulting practice evolved out of my mediation work, and though different, uses a number of the same principles.  I bring the same tools to help you evaluate what your options are, and we’ll still focus on problem-solving rather than assigning blame. Unlike mediation it will be directed primarily on what you can do to improve your situation, without needing participation in the process —or agreement — from anyone else involved in the conflict about either the facts or strategies.