The first mediation course is a special moment that each of us holds in our hearts and it represents the foundation of every mediator. The transformational process that we all go through during our training as mediators is materialized by the change in our attitude towards conflict and how to solve them.
When we go through our first training course we look for the perfect recipe based on ultimate rules and after we think we have found it, the reality proves that in fact diversity covers all the dimensions and almost anything is possible.
There are some controversial topics in the mediation field that invariably appear during the initial or advanced training courses, too. Some examples would be making the mediation compulsory, too much involvement of the mediator in reaching an agreement, use of the separate sessions, the necessity of taking notes or using a mediation table, the equitable time that the parties should benefit from in order to reach an agreement, extremely different training standards, etc.
As a matter of fact, we all speak the same language but we learn it and we practice it differently. I do not consider this aspect as being bad in itself. On the contrary, I consider this diversity as an asset for the mediator’s profession.
Before we could ask the clients of the mediation services to be open and able to accept it, we as mediators should understand today’s diversity range of the mediation services. I think that we can learn something out of each approach. Everything will be all right as long as we do not render some mediation techniques absolute in forming our own philosophy about mediation.
If we keep an open mind, each angle will offer us a different perspective, even if those perspectives may be completely opposite. In the end, this is the service that we provide in order to help others and we can apply it in order to discover ourselves and our profession.
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