The ‘Magic’ of Mediation: Opening the black box

This time last week I was in Hertfordshire with the Church of England helping facilitate their Shared Conversations on Human Sexuality. Deep and powerful discussions on highly emotive topics.

A number of the participants mentioned how helpful it was to have facilitators in such a conversation.  One person said she was learning from listening to how the facilitators expressed themselves, the turns of phrase they used, when they stepped into a conversation.  She was absolutely right, these are things that people can learn from.  They can improve conversations.  I even run courses to help people learn how to apply these techniques.

But sometimes there is no substitute for third party involvement.  Often people do not reaslise this.  Sometimes even meditators need mediation.  The short article attached explains why.

UNMASKING THE ‘MAGIC’ OF MEDIATION

I wrote it for the UK Journal of Mediation and I hope you enjoy it.