When I mediate between spouses that are going through divorce, I have to recognize at what stage each person is at. I have to understand their emotional states and their fears, hopes, insecurities and needs.
Unless and until I understand what is driving my client or holding them back, I really cannot help them if I cannot reach them.
For me to be able to develop rapport and trust with my client, I have to be able to allow them to be vulnerable with me so that they may begin to open up and share with me their most personal and intimate feelings.
Building trust is not an easy task. It requires hard work, patience, active listening, mirroring and mutual respect. But once that trust is established, it can be very useful in modifying past perceptions, reframing the facts and building bridges to settlement.
But the work is incremental. It does not happen quickly nor in a straight line. Moreover, it requires the mediator to rid himself of false assumptions, implicit bias, stereotyping and anchoring. It requires the mediator to regularly check their views and biases and to maintain a fresh perspective, especially when going between the two spouses who may have diametrically differing views of the very same event.
This reminds me of a quote from Buddhism which states that we should only tend to the part of the garden that we can reach. As a mediator helping people through divorce, this resonates with me because of the different emotional stages that my clients travel through in their divorce journey.
By recognizing at what stage my mediation client is at, I am able to tend to the specific parts of the garden (ie. client) until I have a fully groomed garden (ie. a complete divorce settlement).
Steve Benmor, B.Sc., LL.B., LL.M. (Family Law), C.S., Cert.F.Med., C.Arb., FDRP PC, is the founder and principal lawyer of Benmor Family Law Group, a boutique matrimonial law firm in downtown Toronto. He is a Certified Specialist in Family Law, a Certified Specialist in Parenting Coordination and was admitted as a Fellow to the prestigious International Academy of Family Lawyers. Steve is regularly retained as a Divorce Mediator/Arbitrator and Parenting Coordinator. Steve uses his 30 years of in-depth knowledge of family law, court-room experience and expert problem-solving skills in Divorce Mediation/Arbitration to help spouses reach fair, fast and cooperative divorce settlements without the financial losses, emotional costs and lengthy delays from divorce court.
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