An interview with Dr. Mark Lee Robinson about the applications of Creative Conflict Resolution to large scale conflict.

Why is your approach to conflict resolution a breakthrough?

My principles of Creative Conflict Resolution represent a major shift in our point of view. Even experts--people who have wrestled professionally with the problems of conflict resolution--need a new perspective toward the creative possibilities inherent in conflict, rather than simply offering the usual techniques to mediate it.

We need to redefine what we mean by conflict? How so?

We normally define conflict as what happens when parties with opposing interests start trying 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." 

We are fairly often asked about whether the Building Healthy Relationships class is appropriate as an intervention for persons who are involved in domestic or family violence in some way. This is a more complex question than first appears. The simple answer is yes, but...

Almost all of the conflict resolution literature is about conflict between groups. This includes labor management issues, governmental issues, armed conflict, and war. Some material in the literature is about addressing marital conflict or other interpersonal issues between only two people. Most of this is about techniques for resolving conflict by improving communication skills. These include learning to use "I" statements, doing active listening, and taking "time outs" when the intensity of the conflict is too great.

These are all helpful tools and I support and teach them myself. But they are all geared toward working with the couple to teach them skills they can both use to address the mutual responsibility they have for the problems in the relationship. That is not the context in which I found myself working for much of my career as a psychotherapist.

One frequent rough place in the development of an intimate relationship occurs when one party to the relationship wants to confirm that they have a "commitment" to each other or that they are truly "in a relationship." This is tough for a couple of really good reasons.

One reason is that this may be the first time that have actually talked about the relationship itself. It is one thing to be in relationship with another; it is another to make the relationship itself the focus of shared attention.

A few years back I had a man in my program I will call Rick. He was in his early twenties. He was ordered to complete the Abuse Prevention Program as a consequence of abuse in a relationship with a girlfriend. While in the program he found a new girlfriend. It was a much healthier relationship and Rick was able to understand and apply the principles of Creative Conflict Resolution in that new relationship.

Once a participant completes the Abuse Prevention Class he moves into the Practice Group.  Rick had completed the class months earlier and was addressing well the conflicts in his relationship with his girlfriend, but he had not addressed other conflicts in the group, particularly those at work. He was having trouble staying at a job.  As he interviewed well, he easily found a new one, which he would then again quit in anger.

Pros and Cons by Kieran Meehan

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.

We are hurt when we don't get what we need. It is healthy to act in ways that move us toward what we need. We use our best cognitive maps to guide us in figuring out what we can do to get what we need. Sometimes we use a poor map and, not only don't we get what we need, we actually create the opposite of what we need. Here we will examine a very common way this happens.

Having completed the winter 2009 conflict resolution class with Dr. Mark Robinson, I have notice an increased quality of life with my significant relationships. Dr. Mark has structured a working classroom environment challenging each group member to discuss patterns of conflict in their life and to recognize the signs when a conflict is upon us, behind us, or will be one in the future. Conflicts are around us all the time.

Dr. Mark has a simple approach to self analysis and how we should work through these issues. His class challenges each group member to work through your own personal tough issues. A tough issue for me was/is hidden trauma; that I had no idea was affecting me on a daily basis. This was discovered when breaking down some of my current conflicts, and discovering a pattern in myself that need to be addressed.

Dr. Mark Robinson, techniques has allowed me to re-think how I will 'show-up', with a different lens in my significant relationships. Acknowledging the barriers in myself has allowed me to handle current conflicts on their own unique terms. This has allowed communication to flow more easily and allows for tougher issues to be resolved in a quicker fashion.

Dr. Mark Robinson program has already improved/strengthened my current relationships and has set a 'map' for new relationships.

I think at times we can get lazy/comfortable with who we are; the class will remind you of your evolving self.

I still use many of the techniques learned, practiced, and discussed in Dr. Mark's class.

Suggest this class to anyone who dares to discover themselves.

Kind Regards,

MW

The most recent class [Spring 2009] has ended and we are building a list if interested persons for the next class.  This next will probably be for both men and women (we sometimes have single sex classes) and will most likely be on Wednesday evenings though the option exist to have it Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.  It will be from 7:00 - 8:45.   There will be a class starting in September as well.