Reviewd by:
The Aternative Newsletter Editor,
Robert Kirkman Collins
Published by: Jossey-Bass, San Francisco 2000
(Hardcover, 263 pp.) ISBN 0-7879-5019-X
Hallelujah! Bernie Mayer has provided us all with a rational, insightful, and articulate perspective on dispute resolution.
Mayer’s volume explores the nature of conflict from several theoretical perspectives, and then proceeds to deal specifically with issues of
impasse, advocacy, communication, and mediation. Throughout, The Dynamics of Conflict Resolution provides a solid synthesis of the
theoretical and the pragmatic; as Mayer observes: “I believe that our most creative moments as practical theorists come when we attempt to
integrate the explanations of conflict and conflict resolution to which we are attracted with observations about what we actually do in real-life
situations.”
Mayer manages to synthesize other dichotomies as well. He acknowledges the emotional level at which certain conflicts function without
advocating abdication of a neutral’s responsibility to help forge a resolution of the dispute; he warns that “the art of conflict resolution is the
discovery of the level at which a conflict really operates, and the challenge is to find a way to work at that level. We can err by going too deep
or staying too shallow”. The book has a strong and distinct voice, yet remains refreshing in its avoidance of the doctrinaire, and offers the
delightfully modest disclaimer: “I do not put these ideas forward as the right conceptual framework, but rather as ways that I have found to be
useful and poignant.”
Straightforward, well-crafted, and sprinkled with examples from practice that instruct (rather than simply illustrate flattering professional
moments in the author’s life), Mayer’s book will prove useful to both the theoretically inclined and to the novice practitioner, as well as to the
reflective professional open to pondering about the essence of conflict and creative approaches to its resolution.
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