Mediation

Mediation is an opportunity for people in conflict to switch gears and start to work together to achieve a mutually agreeable outcome. As a neutral third-party, I facilitate conversation and understanding between people to help them move towards what is important to each of them. Often we can become trapped in adversarial roles, in entrenched negotiating positions, in states where we are focused on “winning”, or worse, making the other party “lose”, and we can lose track of what values and interests we rely on in our everyday lives.

I work from the dual perspective that people have agency in their own lives, and that the circumstances they find themselves in, personally, financially, and societally, deeply effect the position from which they negotiate conflict.  I believe that if people are considering mediation, it means both that they are frustrated and affected by conflict, but also must carry some kernel of hope in the possibility that a more complete and effective understanding of the situation could be realized.