Lutheran Social Services of South Dakota

by Scott Moeller, Sioux Falls Area Counseling

Conflict is a part of life. Many of us spend our energy avoiding conflict until that no longer works and we then take an adversarial approach to the problem. This method often leads to unsatisfactory results, discouragement and despair.

Mediation offers an approach that empowers parties involved and leads them to satisfactory outcomes. Parties are allowed to take ownership of the process and as a result are more invested in producing comprehensive and customized agreements better serving all involved. Benefits to mediation include: an informal process, private and confidential, less expensive and less time consuming than litigation and it promotes healing instead of hurting. Experiences learned in mediation can be carried over into future conflicts.

Mediation can be useful in all types of conflict including (but not limited to): employer/employee, employee/employee, landlord/tenant, family disputes and conflicts between spouses/partners or x-spouses/x-partners.

Mediation regarding parenting in divided families can be particularly beneficial. According to divorce mediation expert Robert Emery Ph.D (Professor of Psychology and Director of the Center for Children, Families, and the Law at the University of Virginia), parents who choose to mediate their parenting decisions rather than litigate have a significantly higher long-term level of parenting access to their children. Mediation allows parents to identify best interests (of both parties and children) and in the process extinguish positions counter-productive to these interests.

The mediation process is facilitated by a neutral party who does not make decisions for the parties but creates an environment for parties to create their own solutions. A successful mediation can often be achieved within one or two sessions. If ongoing conflict is taking you down a path of discouragement and despair, mediation can lead you back out into the light of workable solutions.