The Mediation Girl: We Got This

            This one goes out to mediators and conflict resolvers and conflict transformers. The core message is: we need to own our depth of knowledge.

            Many years ago, (and we can hope that the field has changed enough that this wouldn’t happen today), I was the head of a mediation center and was asked to visit a mediation training at a nearby law school. The training was run by an outside trainer brought in by a law school professor. So, the first question is, naturally, when my program was connected to the institute that housed her law school, why didn’t the professor ask me to do the training? But, ok, outside consultants are always valued more than in-house expertise -- stupid, but we know this.

            I visited the training and sat in on some of it and the professor got to observe me in a role play, acting as the mediator. As sometimes happens, even in role plays, there was a profound transformative shift and the parties left the scenario at a completely different place then where they began, already starting to rebuild a previously shattered relationship. The professor asked me, in a hushed voice, so as not to be overheard by the other participants, “Do things like this really happen in mediation?” I assured her that they did, clarifying, of course, that not all cases had shifts like these, but that this was not unrealistic and did, regularly happen in mediation cases. She seemed deeply impressed.

            I was in the final stages of getting my PhD and had a moment of real satisfaction that this growing field was really starting to get some recognition.

            Yeah. No. A week later, I ran into the same professor at a Passover event, where she said hello politely, and then awkwardly introduced me to someone else as, “the girl who does mediation”.

            So, first off, I had, at that time, more years of higher education in my area of specialty than she did. Secondly, I was in my 30’s and no longer a girl, and she was not much older than I was. So, why this incredibly patronizing and dismissive introduction?

            Our field suffers a number of challenges, one being that much of the momentum for mediation began with community mediation, (Community Boards being a shining example), focused on neighbors mediating neighbors, after a 40 hour mediation training and, if it was a good program (not always the case), some coaching and mentoring before being able to mediate cases on their own. This fueled a perception that anyone could be a mediator. Now, I am a huge fan of community mediation and have seen many, many places where trained community members work as fabulous mediators. Usually high-level skill happens in places where there is supervision and mentoring. So, even if I was immediately lumped in with people who had 40 hours of training, instead of a masters and a PhD, I still merited more respect.

            But this woman knew, a) had a masters degree and b) was completing my PhD, and c), was running a mediation center at the time.

            Friends, my message here is that we have to own our expertise and depth of knowledge that is highly valuable and important and needed, including by other professionals.

            Lawyers have rigorous training before they are allowed to practice, and have journals and professional organizations and continuous training. They help people navigate the legal systems in this country and set precedents in law that shape the laws of the society.

            Therapists have worked over many decades to establish therapy as a normalized part of the society, and a clearly valued skill set. People struggling with emotional and behavioral challenges and patterns that are not productive, can get help to work through those challenges and heal. The field has now expanded to include things like organizational and social psychology.

            Conflict resolvers and transformers stand between these two ends of the spectrum of conflict intervention, and have programs that offer advanced degrees, and now several generations of those of us who have gotten those degrees and worked professionally as professors, researchers, mediators, negotiators, facilitators, and trainers. We have our own journals and literature and work in almost every context and industry imaginable.

            We are versatile, bring high EQ to any situation we encounter, understand group and social dynamics, are expert problem-solvers and more important, can help others navigate their own problems and conflicts, understand why those conflicts escalate and when, and we have the ability to understand complex dynamics driving the origins and basis of conflicts and can help people prevent, understand, and engage their conflicts in productive and healing ways. Everyone, everywhere deals with conflict. How they handle it shapes their relationships, families, schools, places of worship, workplaces, and nations.

            What we do matters, critically, as we can see every day when we look at the world around us. My students tell me, many years after they graduate, that they use what I taught them every day.

            What we do is highly skilled, complex, tremendously needed and terribly needed. I ask us to own this and act like this. It’s time folks, and past time. Ask to be paid a professional fee, and expect to be treated as the highly trained, experienced, and skilled professional you are.

            And by the way, I am reclaiming Mediation Girl as the title of my blog series.