How are Mediation or Conflict Consulting different from therapy or legal advice?

Mediation

As an unbiased facilitator, I can hear your story without judging, and ask questions that will lead to answers that feel right to you.  In therapy, the goal is self-awareness and understanding of past patterns and responsibility for dynamics.  In mediation, the focus and goal is reaching agreements, by understanding options and information, and actively problem-solving to reach concrete solutions.  Mediation focuses on what you want to have happen in the future, not what happened in the past.  It is a “get you where you want to go” approach.

In contrast, using lawyers to resolve conflicts, while occasionally necessary,  is more costly in every way and often less effective as well.  There is generally a winning and a losing side, and little room for the parties to truly direct the outcome.  Even when there are the very best of intentions, speaking through lawyers will be a grown-up game of Telephone, wasting time, money and patience, and creating secondary challenges because of the inevitable communication bumps when repeating information.

Conflict Consulting

Conflict Consulting evolved out of my mediation work, and though different, uses a number of the same principles.  I bring the same tools to help you evaluate what your options are, and we’ll still focus on problem-solving rather than assigning blame. Unlike mediation it will be directed primarily on what you can do to improve your situation, without needing agreement about either the facts or strategies, from the other side.