This was a talk given by Joseph Haub, a prominent family law mediator (as well as marital therapist - interesting cross section, no?)
A Systems Perspective in Assessing and Managing Conflict as a Neutral:
Although as mediators we are often seeking to get the substance of the dispute, a systems perspective recognizes that often the dispute at hand is endemic of greater structural divides. It views conflict resolution as part of a greater system of social networks and approaches individual conflicts with a recognition of procedural aspects of these greater systems.
There are ten basic principles of a systems approach:
1. Impacting one part of hte system will impact the others. No part of a system exists in isolation.
There's something else going on in other parts in that system that may be more salient than what we see at the table on a given day. For instance, in a family a conflict between the husband and wife may manifest in an exacerbation of a potential conflict between the mother and her daughter, which then impacts the relationship of the daughter and the brother. While we may see one piece of this conflict, what we might miss is that it is a projection of conflict that is resonating throughout the entire system.
2. Systems are composed of interacting subsystems
When identifying conflict, the first step is to identify "what system is this person involved in" because the conflict within a system can project itself onto two individuals.
In a family, you have multiple subsystems. There are those on generational levels - husband and wife; brothers and sisters, grandparents. There are gender subsystems - mothers and daughters, and so on. There are subsystems between certain siblings and on and on.
Conflicts often arise when conflicting allegiances arise between various subsystems. They are also expected whenever we shift subsystems - for instance when people get married and they have to shift their allegiances from their birth families to these new created families and the in-laws related.
Subsystems have boundaries with varying degrees of flexibility. During a nasty divorce, a child may be promoted into the parental subsystem as one parent takes him/her on as a confidant and emotional support. Other times there are very rigid boundaries with virtually no communications between systems.
3. Every single system has rules and Rules are the Glue that Hold the Interpersonal System Together
They are often not particularly explicit.In families, for instance, there are rules like who washes dishes, who makes the food, where do the glasses go in the cabinet, where the forks and knives go.
One of the major unspoken rules of a family is how we deal with conflict. During the speech we broke into small groups to discuss our family's unspoken rules on conflict. No two groups had a similar set of rules. We reflected on how these rules may have affected us as adults, since our general attitudes about conflict stem directly from these worlds. I personally mentioned how funny it was that virtually our entire mediation clinic had accommodating and conflict averse personalities and wondered if this was some way for us to apply external and comfortable rules to conflict and thus take some control over it.
These internal rules can be seen particularly when two people come together into a marriage. As Karl Wittaker put it "you kind of look at marriage. Two families send out scouts to meet. Every single marriage is sort of a blending of rules"
John Gobbman is a researcher who puts couples in a fully videotaped house and observes how couples interact. From these hours of proto-reality-television he's separated people out into three categories distinguishing how they interact with conflict:
1. Volatile - These will scream and yell and holler and slam doors and will be quite demonstrative in their conflict.
2. Sweep-Under-Ruggers - That Midwestern, northern european non-overt style.
3. Validators - Those who use the strategies we envision when we discuss conflict resolution strategies to take a deep breath and try to understand each other, thus "validating" the conflict and using it to solve problems.
He concluded that all three of these styles are legitimate ways of dealing with conflict and one can find successful couples in each category. The problem really arose when couples had mixed conflict styles. Often he style of conflict is more of threatening to the relationship than the substance of the disagreement.
4. People within a system will seek to return to their previous state of functioning and interaction:
He gave the example of a woman who goes on a diet and exercise program and successfully drops a tremendous amount of weight. To celebrate, her husband gives her a big old box of chocolates. On some level, he understood that she loved chocolate, but on another level it reflected his discomfort with change and a desire to return to homeostasis. Similarly, when on member of a couple begins to emotionally disengaging, the other person will routinely amp up the conflict level because it demands engagement. The bitter divorce battle is yet another all too familiar example of people who put up barriers to change and seek to maintain a homeostasis they are claiming to move away from.
5. People in relationship will tend to function in a complementary fashion (for a while):
In essence, opposites attract... for a while. Unfortunately, after a while, those opposite tendencies will go from refreshing to oppressive and resentment replaces enchantment. Another facet of this is the "dance of the pursuer and the distancer" - the stereotypical interaction where on partner seeks to get closer while the other moves away... until the first partner, feeling rejected, retreats and the second partner advances until the first again moves closer. The dance breaks down when the first partner has been rejected one too many times and instead of moving closer, builds up an impenetrable wall around him/herself.
6. In interpersonal relations causation is circular
As legal professionals, we think of causation as a fairly linear equation: x happened, causing b, therefore x is liable. In interpersonal relationships, however, each party feels their action is simply a reaction to the other person's action in an unending chicken-and-egg spiral.
For instance: A wife complains her husband is "never around." The husband counters that he's never around because she nags him whenever he is, to which she responds "but I nag you because you're never around" but... both think the other person started the cycle and in a sense they are *both* right. As a conflict resolver you are going to be asked by people in conflict to be able to say where where the cycle began. You won't be able to. But what you can do is work to understand what the basis of each person's concern is and this is far more valuable.
7. Interpersonal Conflict Raises Anxiety. Axiety causes reactiveness in unique but predictable ways.
Under stress we likely have our own idiosyncratic reaction such as depression, anger, substance use, overeating, exercising, checking out, picking a fight, throwing ourselves into work... and on and on. They are not conscious, but reactive behaviors. If you are under stress, the degree to which you'll react emotionally and not think through things is your lack of "differentiation." We think what we're saying are absolutely right and logical but we act from pure reflex.
We are all subject to stresses, both vertical and horizontal. Vertical stressors are patterns of behavior that are inherited from our previous generations. Studies suggests that trauma can change people on a cellular level and family trauma remains within a family intergenerationally. Horizontal stressors are both the inevitable stresses of normal development - puberty, marriage, aging - and situational stressors - losing a loved one, illness, job loss. When we experience any of these stresses, we react in line with our idiosyncratic patterns. Our minds are also closed to conflict resolution and conscious, creative thinking.
8. A System is an entity functioning over time, with its own developmental stressors
Organizations are also entities in this sense and they will have their own developmental stresses including hitting certain sizes - when you need an office admin, when you take on a new department or shed one. In families, the addition of a new child, a change in economic status, the stresses on any individual of the family... all of these impact the system as a whole.
9. A system under stress will stabilize by focusing the stress on a member or subsystem - thus the tendency to scapegoat
If you can share this with people, some may have the capacity to realize that this is the case and begin to understand the bigger picture and approach it from a new angle. If a family's under stress, it will all reside in one person - often the kid. A kid may suddenly develop "behavioral problems," requiring interventions from therapists, teachers, doctors and other professionals. A deeper look shows that these "problems" are a symptom and not a cause of the family system under stress.
10. People in conflict will experience anxiety. They will attempt to quell the anxiety through the interpersonal triangle
In the emotional triangle, a triangle and circle have an ok relationship but it won't always be ok. There's no single relationship that will always be ok. There will always be a time when there's some stress on it. What people often do is that they will reach out to a third person seeking to "triangle" in this person into the conflict. We see this when people vent, when they seek affirmation that they are correct, and when they ask another party to intervene on their behalf. This creates conflict between the confidant and the second party. That conflict, in turn, lessens the conflict between the initial parties by transfering some of the conflict energy.
Lawyers must be particularly wary of triangulation. Perople will project their anger to their lawyers. These lawyers in turn will share the conflict between each other. If people have a sufficient amount of stress,they will seek to triangulate as many parties as possible in order relieve the tension in the initial relationship. They will involve their children as well. And then they'll involve a medical establishment as the children manifest physical symptoms of the stress they experience; they'll involve the schools as the children experience problems in school; they'll involve their work environments; they'll involve the grandparents and other relatives; they'll eventually involve government agencies like CPS. The energy of that one conflict exponentially expands throughout these various systems. Along comes the friendly mediator and all that energy rebounds towards them.
THE KEY TO AVOIDING THIS DYNAMIC IS SIMPLE BUT CRUCIAL: If the third person remains calm and neutral in the face of conflict, that person will automatically bring calm to the system under stress. If you know you are being triangled in and you have any two parties in dispute and cannot find a way of connecting with both of them and find self aligning with one side you know you've been triangled. If you are able to avoid triangling in, you can dissipate the energy.
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