The Center is proud to be the sponsor of a Homecoming for IFS Level One trained therapists which will happen in April 2013. This event will be at Pilgrim UCC and Mark Robinson and Mary DuParri will co-lead.It is not actually necessary to be ordained to be in the
group, but it is important that all of the members be people with experience as
leaders of faith communities. More
information is available here. Or just give me a call.
In 1993 I was invited to return to RAVEN to teach the introductory class. RAVEN is a program in St. Louis which does intervention with men who batter. I had been very active with RAVEN through the 80's serving for much of that time as the Clinical Director. But I had been away from the organization for a few years and decided to review the current class content before I agreed to teach it. What I discovered was that there were a couple of rather important distinctions that were are part of RAVEN's current usage that I would alter.
This discovery started me on a project of developing what I thought would be the best introductory class. It was twelve weeks long and included a set of short lectures that I had developed with my clients and in my therapy groups over the prior dozen years of psychotherapy practice with men who had abused people in the context of an intimate or pseudo-intimate relationship. I arranged these lessons into a logical sequence and presented the course to the person serving as the Clinical Director at that time.
She was impressed with the course and liked the flow and content but it was her judgment that the material was too sophisticated for the staff to be able to teach it. It required someone with clinical training and most of the staff at that time were volunteers. I determined to offer the course through the association I had at that time with a partnership called STAR, Sexual Trauma and Recovery. It was billed as the Abuse Prevention Program.
The course prepared the men to address the issues in their lives which led them to act abusively toward those they said that loved the most. It consisted of a set of distinctions and practices or disciplines which they were invited to apply to their own lives with the promise that doing so would lead to more satisfying and stable relationships.
The course itself has been under continual revision. I doubt I have taught it the same way twice. Back in the 90's the content was displayed on a white board or in printed handouts. In 2001 I started using a PowerPoint Presentation as an aid to the course and would revise the content in some significant way at least once a year. I am currently working on another major revision.
In order to move into the second phase of the program, the participants have to demonstrate their ability to apply one specific tool to the circumstances of their own life. This tool is called the Framework for Creative Conflict Resolution. This discipline is one of the ten which are included in the current course material. The first time I actually charted them out I was in 1997 and at the time there were only seven. The Framework for Creative Conflict Resolution was the seventh.
By 1995 it had become clear to me that I was going to have to find or create a new home for the Abuse Prevention Program. I ended up incorporating as The Conflict Clinic as a way to be fully accountable within the laws of the State of Missouri.
By 1998 there were two programs of the organization that used essentially the same technology for transformation. There was the Abuse Prevention Program for men who were ordered as a condition of some court action, and the Building Healthy Relationships program for women and men who had a concern on their own behalf to improve the quality of their relationships.
Because there were now two programs aimed at different populations which used the same core concepts and practices, we began to use the term Creative Conflict Resolution to describe that core.
We have only recently begun marketing of the program to the public at large. In those days, getting the word out happened in gatherings of other psychotherapists or domestic violence intervention specialists. This would be in the context of an informational presentation at a community meeting or in a workshop at a professional conference. This was the principal form of marketing for the programs. While a part of the presentation would be about the structure of the groups and the referral process, the core was about the transformational technology itself which we identified as Creative Conflict Resolution.
By January 1999 we had become clear that the name "Conflict Clinic" didn't really fit what we were doing. We tried the name Community for Creative Conflict Resolution and by March of 1999 we had settled on Center for Creative Conflict Resolution. It was another year before we amended the Articles of Incorporation in 2000 to legally become the Center for Creative Conflict Resolution.
]]>I want to be very clear about what I am able to do and not able to do to help these folks.
There is no universally accepted notion of what constitutes "battering." Indeed, the definition in criminal court is rather different than the one in civil court. It is possible, however, to listen to a person's report of the events in a relationship and determine whether those events fall into the realm of what most people mean by battering.
What we cannot do is to listen to a person's report of their own behavior and, on the basis of that report, determine that battering is not occurring. We don't know what we don't know.
We can listen to a person's report of their own behavior and, on the basis of that report, identify the strengths and weaknesses they have when it comes to addressing and resolving conflicts in interpersonal relationships. We can say how much they demonstrate avoidance or bullying and whether they can tolerate hearing the other's viewpoint when it is different from their own. But this doesn't meant that domestic violence has or will occur.
]]>Because they keep coming up--and because they are in relationships which are important to us--we do everything we can think of to try to resolve them. When we can't we often decide that they are irresolvable. "Since I have tried everything," we reason, "and it still isn't fixed, there must be nothing I can do about it."
]]> In thirty years of working with people in high conflict relationships I have found that there is one simple shift that opens up a vast array of possibilities for addressing and resolving conflict. This shift is to let go of trying to change the other and to focus instead on changes we can make in ourselves. When we are centered in our own experience, clear about what we need, doing what we can do to generate the qualities we need, without any expectation or demand that the other change, we discover we are immensely powerful and creative.Nevertheless, while this shift in perspective is simple and creative, it is not easy. By looking at the reasons this shift is hard to make we can find hints for creative change.
We don't know we are trying to change others. We know we can't change others. Even if we get them to change their behavior in the short run, they can always change back. But just because we can't control them doesn't mean we don't try. If you are trying to address a conflict with someone and they are resisting you, you are trying to change them.
The problem is not in wanting others to change; of course we want that. The problem is in trying to get them to change. Even trying to get the other to understand me is trying to change them unless the other wants to know what is going on with me.
We don't know why we should change. We see the other as responsible for the problem so it is the other who should change. We aren't to blame. But when we think of responsibility only as whose fault it is we generate a fight. A fight is when we try to make each other lose.
If the only way I know to win is to get you to change, all you have to do to make me lose is do what you are already doing. What could be easier? The reason for me to change is not because I am bad or wrong the way I am, but because I am not getting what I need the way things are. We change because we care about ourselves.
We don't know how to use our emotions constructively. With these persistent conflicts our emotions can overwhelm us. We can feel flooded by them and they sometimes inspire choices which get us the opposite of what we need. We think of these as "negative" emotions. But emotions are data and energy. They are information about what we need and the energy to act to create what we need.
Emotions arise because there are important qualities missing from our lives. When we act to create those qualities for ourselves, we not only create what we need, we create what everyone needs. This is not a zero sum game. Everyone can win.
We don't know what would be a better choice. While it is simple (though not easy) to shift from trying to change others to changing ourselves, knowing what to do can be quite complex. Most of the conflicts we are trying to address are complicated.
I may have a conflict with my son over the tidiness of his bedroom. I want him to learn that if he wants to be able to find his things and have them be safe he will have to take care of them. And I don't want to live in a pig sty. Part of me wants to allow him to experience the consequences of his own choices and part of me is worried about vermin. When I can clearly hear from each of these internal perspectives and know what each is trying to create for me, I can then know how to act towards my son in a manner that supports his ability to care for himself, his property, and his relationships with others.
By letting go of the goal of changing the other and simply working to transform ourselves all conflicts can be resolved.
]]>An interview with Dr. Mark Lee Robinson about the applications of Creative Conflict Resolution to large scale conflict.
What makes your approach to conflict resolution a breakthrough?
I am not entirely comfortable with that term "breakthrough," but it is true that the perspective I bring to this field does allow experts--people who have wrestled professionally with the problems of conflict resolution--to shift to a point of view which they find to be significantly more accessible to creative invention. Some aspects of the shift are complicated but there are two that are central and straightforward. One has to do with what we mean by conflict and the other has to do with what we mean by resolution.
]]> You have changed the definition of those terms?Not so much the definition as the focus. We normally think of conflict as something which arises when parties that have opposing interests invoke strategies designed to dominate each other. For example, we may have a problem when someone in the office is not reloading paper into the copier when it runs out, but we decide not to say anything to him because we "don't want to start a conflict." Or we know there were deep hostilities between Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda stemming from the colonial era, but we speak of the conflict starting in 1994 when Hutus began "cutting down the tall trees."
Are you suggesting that the conflict started before the violence?
Exactly, and, while that seems simple, the implications of that shift in focus are huge. On the one hand we have the conditions in which tension between the parties arises, and on the other hand we have the choices each party makes in addressing the tension. Any observer of conflict is looking at both the conditions and the choices, but something important happens when we use the term conflict to refer to the conditions and speak of the choices we make as strategies or tactics for addressing the conflict. Conflict is not the choice but the conditions which evoked the choice.
Those conditions are not going to be managed away. They cannot be prevented. When we look at the conditions as the conflict it becomes absurd to speak of "conflict management" or "conflict prevention." We can manage a fight or we can prevent war, but we will not substantially and durably resolve the conflict unless we address the conditions out of which the fight arises.
If conflict refers to the conditions which existed before the fighting starts, what does it mean to resolve a conflict?
At its simplest, a conflict is the condition in which the other is not as I want the other to be. As a result, what seems to be the desired outcome is for the other to change to be as I want the other to be. We therefore tend to look for ways to resolve the conflict by getting the other to change. Almost without exception, resolution is conceived of as happening when we have seen a desired change in the other. As a member of the office community, the conflict will be resolved when I can get my office mate to reload the copier when he runs it out of paper. As a Hutu, the conflict may be resolved for me when the Tutsis no longer control the best land for coffee production and treat me fairly in dealings with the bank.
The only way to resolve a conflict is to get others to act in ways they see as contrary to their own interests?
Right! That doesn't seem very likely, does it? The bind is a consequence of this common way of thinking about resolution. It leads some really smart people to conclude that there are some conflicts which just can't be resolved. But let's adjust the focus a bit. Since we can't make others change, what if we focus instead on getting ourselves to change? What if resolution is when we work to create what we need without depending on or expecting that others will change? Two things happen when we make this shift. One is that it really matters who we think of as "us" and "them." The second is that it becomes crucial to figure out what "we need" as distinct from what "we want them to do." We have to become very clear about the qualities we are seeking to create.
We have to figure out what we need and then act together to create it.
Yes, and when we do that we discover how immensely powerful it is to act together to construct our common needs. When we act together to create the qualities we all need we are far more creative and effective than when we act alone. We have far greater positive impact than when we are trying to change others.
Iran's development of nuclear weapons makes us unsafe and it destabilizes relationships in the Middle East. When all of those nations who see Iran's actions as dangerous agree on the threat and act in concert to isolate Iran, we create greater safety by the fact we are acting together whether or not Iran persists in its activities.
But what if Iran does persist? Don't we have an obligation to try to stop them?
We have an obligation to create greater security for all...but that "all" includes Iran. If we are trying to get Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions (which is trying to get them to change) we may decide we will threaten them with sanctions or even military force if they don't do what we want. This will create a sense of fear in them and provoke a response of defiance. That won't get them to give up their pursuit of stronger weapons. On the contrary, it will justify their conviction that they need them.
Look at how well our stance with Saddam Hussein worked in 2002. We believed he had WMD's and he wanted us to believe he did. All he had to do was show us that he didn't. But we were so threatening to him that he couldn't. It meant he had to call our bluff and we had to call his. So we destroyed a country to make ourselves safe from an imagined threat. This is the logic of an approach to conflict which requires us to try to make others change.
If we work together with other nations who are similarly alarmed at the saber rattling of Iran and respond in a fashion which creates greater security, not only for Israel but for the people of Iran, then we take away the reason for militarization. We work with others to create what we all need. This doesn't mean that those in Iran who have the power to militarize will decide they don't have to. We can't control them.
When Iran is our "enemy," we won't do what helps Iran even when it helps us. We will "cut off our nose to spite our face." But showing that we are committed to the security of the Iranian people will strengthen the hand of those cooler heads who understand that the resources going to arms can instead go to development which actually benefits the Iranian people.
It is clear that what we are doing is not as effective as we would like. And it is also clear that we can't make others change. So how does this all fit together?
When the conditions of our relationships with others are such that we find ourselves having what seem to be competing interests, we can decide what we will do to address this tension. When we choose to do something which tries to change them--seeks to dominate and control them--we are committed to a strategy which creates the opposite of what we actually need. When we instead work with them to discover what we both need and work to create what serves all of us we actually build a stronger safer world. Addressing conflict can be marvelously creative.
When conflict means "fight," we don't see the creative potential. Then conflict is just a problem to be managed or prevented. But when conflict is an opportunity we discover the very tension which seemed dangerous and paralyzing can actually be powerfully transformative.
Nothing Israelis do which harms Palestinians will create stability and peace. Nothing Palestinians do which harms Israelis will benefit Palestinians. It is only when Israelis and Palestinians work together to meet their mutual needs that they will get what they need. Their interests are tied together. When each refrains from any action that is harmful to the other, and when both act together to meet shared needs--whatever the need may be--they are creating a more durable and stable relationship and the context for peace.
Everyone benefits. This is not a zero sum game. When we create what we genuinely need, we create what everyone needs. We can use the context of conflict to create justice.
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Most of the content of the workshop seemed to meet attendees where they were and move them forward. There were a couple of things I am saying that some folks found hard to hear.
I will be presenting it again next Friday, January 22, 2010 for the St. Louis EAP Association at the Hyland Center. I am going to reorder two of the slides and I want to have a couple slides handy which are not in the presentation to refer to as issues come up in discussion. Otherwise I will leave it as it is.
With a fifteen minute break and 45 minutes of case presentation the whole event lasts three hours. Without those components it will comfortably fit into two hours and there are some parts that are especially relevant to an audience of psychotherapists which can be shortened or left out completely. The bare bones of the workshop could be done in an hour and a half.
The presentation begins with a consideration of the presence of conflict in our own lives. Each participant is invited to identify a personal conflict which they can hold in mind as we explore the concepts of the workshop. We then look at just what we might mean by "conflict" and in what sense the resolution of conflict is a creative act. We identify some of the ways that we are all resolving conflict everyday but also note that, from time to time, we encounter conflicts we can't yet resolve. We flinch. We back off of addressing the conflict for some very good reasons but by doing so we miss the creative potential the conflict offers. This is roughly the first hour of the presentation.
In the remaining time we look at some specific philosophical and practical maps for understanding conflict and its resolution and then apply these maps to our current life situations whether in family, at work, or in international relations.
I will no doubt continue to revise and adapt this presentation. I am looking for more venues in which to present it.
]]>From time to time I will have a client ask me, "But how does Self get the part to change?" The assumption is that the only way to end the conflict is for the part to be different and the agent of transformation is the Self so the Self must, by some mechanism, get the part to change.
If the part is going to change it will be because the part has discovered a different way of being and has found support for transformation. The Self creates a relationship to the part in which the part is able to transform in just the ways that best meet the needs of the part recognizing that the ultimate intention of the part is the well being of the whole person. It is just so with all of us. We can't change each other. We know that. But it doesn't stop us from trying.
We often conflate want and need using them as synonyms. From the perspective of Creative Conflict Resolution there is a critical distinction to be made between them. What I want is a specific change in my circumstances which is dependent upon others acting differently. What I need is a shift in the qualities in the relationship I have with others which I can move towards simply by altering the choices I make.
Because what I want is for others to be different and because I cannot make others change, when I am focused on what I want, I am likely to create for myself feelings of helplessness and hopelessness. When I shift my attention to what I need, while often a difficult shift requiring more Self awareness than I am accustomed to, I am then attending to an option for my own choices which I can create for myself. As we do this, we discover how immensely powerful we each are.
]]>[I am assuming my readers will already be familiar with IFS. If you are not I suggest you begin with a consideration of some of the resources available online through the Center for Self Leadership. A good general overview is available here. Links are to the site of the Center for Self Leadership or to the Center for Creative Conflict Resolution site about the book, Just Conflict.]
From the perspective of Internal Family Systems theory and therapy we all are mentally composed of many parts, aspects, attitudes, moods, abilities, and interests. When we are calm and centered we appear to be well integrated. But, when we are under stress, some of those parts of who we are get pushed to extreme positions. Some parts don't like the emotions, memories, or tactics of other parts and they are able to force those parts out of conscious awareness and effectively send them into exile. These parts are in conflict and the protector parts appear to have won the conflict. At one level a conflict is the way one part treats another but, at a more basic level, the conflict is the tension between the parts. They each see and respond to a given circumstance in very different ways.
Some conflicts are mild but some are intense. The greater the intensity of the conflict the more likely it is that parts will be pushed to extreme positions and the more anxiety the individual holding those parts is likely to feel. Intensity in a conflict is a quality which is constructed by two aspects of the constituent relationships.
One aspect is the degree of ownership each of the parts feels toward a given event, issue, or circumstance. The more attached each is to the event, the more ownership they can each be said to carry.
The second aspect is the degree to which they hold a harmonious perspective. The more they see the event the same way, the more harmonious the points of view. When two parts (or parties) have high ownership but they see the event as meaning something very different, they will have a high intensity conflict.
Typically a part will deal with the intensity by:
None of these strategies is effective in resolving the conflict. This is the opposite of what we mean by being assertive and is a way to submerge the fighting but not get the parts what they each need.
In order to fully resolve the conflict we must construct a resolution that meets the needs of all of the parts. This requires a framework for understanding that is more comprehensive than the point of view of any of the parts themselves. It must transcend their perspective while it includes their perspective. This is the task for what IFS refers to as the Self and what Creative Conflict Resolution labels a Sixth Order level of awareness. This perspective by any name is more complex than the paradigm of any of the parts but it allows a way of being that is simpler.
Being in Self has many qualities (the C's), but one we want to cultivate especially is compassion. This is the ability to
This is a capacity which we can develop.
When we are in Self and bring sufficient compassion to a part we construct a relationship with it which supports its healing by:
This is a very different kind of relationship than we are accustomed to or may have even witnessed in our daily life. This is a relationship of radical accountability which constructs for us and for others the deeply healing presence of Self Energy.
]]>I have been a follower of Kieran Meehan's strip, Pros and Cons, for about a year now. If you are not familiar with it, the central characters include a psychiatrist, a cop, and a prosecuting attorney. The feature I most often see and like about the strip is the way he is able to skewer some widely held and unwise notions. These are cognitive distortions which are so common they become hard to recognize.
In the case of this offering, the clueless client is so attached to the notion that emotions can be turned on and off that he hears his therapist's intervention as a response to his analogy, not to the notion itself. We can turn off awareness of our emotions but to do so takes a large investment of energy. Such a choice also results in us being disconnected from our experience.
While Meehan makes the choice look foolish, the truth is we all from time to time decide not to feel our feelings. We decide to turn off our emotions to get through a difficult situation. We can do this, for a while, at great cost.
]]>I am often asked to do an "evaluation" of someone who is in a high conflict relationship. In most cases it is not clear what I am being asked to evaluate. The common notion seems to be that there is a standard evaluation that is done that will give some sort of helpful information. There is no such standard. Anyone who claims to be able to determine who is or is not an "abuser" is a charlatan. In order to do an evaluation, we first need to determine the question that the evaluation is intended to answer.
· Is this someone who is in a high conflict relationship?
· Is this someone who feels entitled to be dominant in primary relationships?
· Is this someone who displays markers for poor conflict resolution skills?
· Is this someone who is likely to benefit from completion of a structured program for persons in high conflict relationships?
Each of these is something that can be evaluated for (as well as chemical dependency and mental health issues). But as to whether this person is an offender or whether he or she should be allowed around children, these are the things that judges get paid to determine.
As you all well know, the divorce doesn't end the rancor in the relationship. Often the resentment that has split the marriage continues to spill out and, when it does, it harms the children. Couples generally think of counseling as something they might engage in to repair or restore the marriage. They do not usually see it as something that will support them in their relationship as parents together after the divorce.
There are several ways that the specific tools of Creative Conflict Resolution are applicable to the circumstances of parents who are no longer married to each other, but ultimately they all come down to being able to make and repair durable agreements on how they will act together on behalf of the children.
· They have to become able to separate out their own wishes and feelings from the needs of their children.
· They have to be able to tolerate their own anxiety about contact with the other in the wake of former intimacy and then deep hurt.
· They have to become able to recognize the in the conflicts which arise and when they repeat themselves and to use these patterns to anticipate and address conflicts, rather than be overwhelmed and hopeless at the resiliency of these patterns of conflict.
Sometimes when we see kids acting aggressively towards others, we also notice that their parents are separated, divorced, or frequently fighting with each other. Children are very sensitive to the conflict between their parents. While we must expect that everyone, children included, be accountable for the choices they make; we also have an obligation to do what we can to protect children from life stressors that are not of their making.
Generally I meet these families when the kid has done something aggressive to another family member or to peers. The adolescent is the identified patient and the goal is to make him or her safe to be around others. But in identifying and addressing the stressors that are bubbling up as the bad behavior, we discover that the parents are fighting in ways that the kid is highly affected by and can do nothing about. Then, in addition to addressing the child's aggression, we want to bring the parents together to address their conflict and to help them do a better job of acting together on behalf of the children. (See Parents post divorce.)
When parents have acted in ways that are harmful to their own children and have had criminal consequences or civil consequences or both, we hope to get to a point where they can safely have contact with the children. The question of safety here is a complicated one. All parents occasionally fail to act in their children's best interest. If we go for perfection, we will never allow abused children contact with the perpetrator of the abuse. Further, we know that not allowing children to have contact with their parent is a form of abuse in itself. We want the parent to become able to create safety with the child, but we also want the child to learn how to construct safety for him or herself. Thus we are trying to find a fuzzy point on a complex curve. The tools of Creative Conflict Resolution help us to evaluate the qualities in the relationship such that we can build both safety and closeness.
]]>There are actually five inter-related sites. One is the main site for the Center. The others are for the book, Just Conflict; for the Building Healthy Relationships program, for Parenting Post -Divorce, and for Organizational Consulting. They are not all finished by a long shot, but I have enough of the navigation together to let the public see them and trust that they won't get lost.
So the sites are:
There is also a site for me personally on Netcipia.
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