Great Reads Book Club – Dan Simon and Tara West (interviewed by Clare Fowler)

The January 2023 edition of Mediate.com’s Great Reads Book Club: “Self-Determination in Mediation: The Art and Science of Mirrors and Lights” by Dan Simon, MA, JD and Tara West, JD, PhD (interviewed by Clare Fowler).

Mediators are often pulled in many directions—they want to help their clients reach a speedy agreement, ensure the agreement is fair, and avoid coercion so they can honor mediation’s primary value of party self-determination. Can we have it all?

In this groundbreaking resource, Dan Simon and Tara West illustrate how self-determination can mean much more than the absence of coercion—it can mean the opportunity for participants to increase their sense of agency as they gain clarity and confidence to make their own decisions, including those that express their highest values.

Offering psychological research, philosophical principles, and real-life mediation stories, the authors examine where self-determination belongs in relation to other values, such as fairness, protection, and efficiency, as they wrestle with how to apply their principles in particularly challenging divorces, workplace conflicts, and more.

Readers will be challenged to think deeply about how their values and assumptions guide their practice, and they will be inspired to more fully embrace their commitment to self-determination.

Purchase here: https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781538153857…

                       

Dan Simon

Dan is a leader in the field of transformative mediation. He is the author of the chapter on divorce mediation in the Institute for the Study of Conflict Transformation's ("ISCT") TRANSFORMATIVE MEDIATION SOURCEBOOK. He is a Past Chair of the Minnesota State Bar Association's Alternative Dispute Resolution Section. He served… MORE >

                       

Tara West

As a mediator, it’s my goal to help people in conflict have the best conversation they can have. I do this by supporting each of you as you make your own choices in the conversation. This support can help you to clarify and express your own perspective, while also hearing… MORE >

                       

Clare Fowler

Clare Fowler is Executive Vice-President and Managing Editor at Mediate.com, as well as a mediator and trainer. Clare received her Master's of Dispute Resolution from the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution at the Pepperdine University School of Law and her Doctorate in Organizational Leadership, focused on reducing workplace conflicts, from Pepperdine… MORE >