Insight Mediation
Using the the insight approach to conflict, insight mediators understand conflict as an interactive learning process where conflict emerges from interpretative experiences of threat. This understanding assumes that for conflict to be resolved, parties must engage in a process of learning that forges new understandings of each other. Insight mediation practitioners understand their role as one of helping parties gain insight into the threats-to-cares and negative patterns of interaction that underlie and sustain the conflict.
Insight mediators use active listening and non-judgmental questions to engage conflicting parties in a dialogue about the nature of their conflict, their role in it, and how best to resolve it. Insight mediators presuppose that to solve the conflict parties must become aware of the interactions that created the conflict, and for this reason they not only seek to understand the interests and needs motivating parties’ actions, but also the deeper level values that influence parties’ responses and actions. Because these deeper level values are attached to strong beliefs about normative patterns of cooperation and judgments about issues of social justice and human rights, they often stay hidden in conflict as parties fear that their emotions and values will not be understood or respected. Through the generation of new insight, parties become empowered to move below the problem’s surface to deal with the deeper level values relevant to the conflict.
At Carleton University, insight mediation has largely been practiced and researched in interpersonal and small group conflicts that have a relational more than transactional component. Its application to international conflict has recently become the subject of study at the School of Conflict Analysis and Resolution (S-CAR) at George Mason University in Washington DC. Academics at both S-CAR and Carleton are studying how the insight approach can be used in the analysis and resolution of large group and organizational conflict.