Mediation or Alternative Dispute Resolution

Introduction

The School of Psychotherapy and Counselling Psychology offers an innovative ADR programme specifically designed to develop the particular skills and methods required for successful mediation, conflict resolution and conflict avoidance.

The School recognises the fact that skills for effective mediation run parallel to those required for successful counselling, and so the course employs established and well-proven methods of psychotherapy and counselling, developed over many years and applied in a wide variety of situations.

This uniquely-developed psychotherapeutic approach to mediation examines the underlying reasons for conflict. The course explores the strategies that parties employ when in dispute with others, whether they be executive directors of international corporations involved in multi-million pound commercial litigation, or Heads of State involved in political disagreements, or simply suburban neighbours arguing over their boundaries.

The school teaches participants on the course how to identify underlying areas of controversy and tension, and to deal with the rigid confrontational attitudes invariably adopted by parties in such situations. In this way the course is designed to revolutionise the participant's perception of conflict, so that a new and valuable tool in dealing with disputes is presented and made available to them.

The psychotherapeutic approach in the schools mediation training is an straightforward, practically-minded and attractive approach to conflict resolution. It is equally applicable in commercial disputes as it is in other more personal disputes, and highlights the behaviour patterns people adopt in any conflict situation. The skills acquired on the course will fully equip the successful participant to deal with all commercial and other mediations, whether the strictly time-limited models of mediation as adopted by many Court-annexed schemes, or the more open-ended mediations without a strict time limit. The skills will also prove invaluable in all areas of life, whether dealing with clients, opponents, witnesses, colleagues or staff, or in executive coaching - indeed in any situation where both skills in conflict avoidance and conflict resolution are required.

Objectives

The programme offered by the course:

• explores the strategies people adopt in conflict situations
• demonstrates how emotions interact on parties in dispute and teaches the skills required to listen to and accurately gauge others' emotions
• demonstrates the importance of ‘self-esteem' in affecting the outcome of a dispute
• explores the impact of uncertainties and inconsistencies in the market place
• explores the ways in which individuals and organisations develop their values
• investigates how values can become inflexible, leading to dogmatic behaviour and rigid attitudes
• investigates how individual self-confidence and vulnerability affects dispute situations
• identifies the influence of company culture
• investigates the advantages and limitations of ‘positive thinking' in the process of mediation
• explores the effect of hierarchical relationships and the effect of power in the context both of conflicts and mediation
• teaches prospective representatives at mediations how effectively to ‘handle' the mediator in order to secure a productive outcome
• explores how parties in conflict behave in a strictly time-limited environment, and demonstrates some of the skills and techniques that a mediator may use to overcome the difficulties precipitated by limitations of time.

Course Description

The course adopts a dual approach of law and psychotherapy and counselling. It is underpinned by case studies, many of which are based upon classic leading legal authorities, supplied and adapted by Paul Randolph (a practising Barrister and Joint Course Leader), and further underpinned by Dr Freddie Strasser's (Psychotherapist and Joint Course Leader) recently published book Emotions (Duckworth).

The course is aimed not only at prospective professional mediators, but also at all persons who are likely to encounter conflict on a day-to-day basis. Over the past few years, psychotherapeutically-informed mediation has been taught to barristers, solicitors and other professions, the vast majority of whom have gratefully acknowledged the profound impact it has had upon them both personally and professionally. The unanimous feedback from course participants is that the psychotherapeutic approach in the School's teaching provides an additional insight into the psychology of conflict, giving them an "edge" over mediators trained elsewhere.

While the School's emphasis in the past has been largely with the legal profession, the substantial success of the course, and the respect it has earned by those who have participated in the programme and by many other mediation providers, has convinced the School that this novel stance toward mediation can be of benefit to a diverse range of professions and expertise.

In order to prepare and assist our students more readily to deal with the difficult problems presented by strictly time-limited Court-annexed mediation schemes as operated in many County Courts throughout the UK, the course has recently been extended so as to include and cover some of the psychological aspects of time-limited mediation. This is again based upon some of the principles and theories borrowed from Existential Time-Limited Therapy, as taught at the School. This part of the course will enable our mediators to understand the core phenomena and characteristics of working in a strictly time-limited environment, and to recognize and distinguish these characteristics from those of more ‘open-ended' mediation.

Course Structure

The course equips participants with the skills to

• become an accredited mediator
• successfully resolve commercial, industrial and legal disputes without the need to resort to the Courts
• positively handle a wide variety of "difficult situations" in all areas of commercial, industrial and legal disputes
• quickly ‘read' emotions and accurately assess the aims of other parties, whether individuals or organisations
• work in a strictly time-limited environment, as operated for example in the Court-annexed mediation schemes, and to understand the different techniques required in these as distinguished from mediations without strict time limits
• prevent disputes running out of control and overcome the frequent impasse in negotiations; • recognise the onset of deadlock and how to avoid it
• break the deadlock and reach a settlement
• improve employer/employee relations and develop a beneficial climate in the work-place
• develop more effective decision-making and ‘solution-finding' by identifying value systems, behavioural patterns and vulnerabilities.

Course Assessment

Assessment is on a continual basis, with a final assessment in the last 2 sessions (the final day). The criteria upon which the assessment is based are set out in the ‘Mediation Assessment Guidance Notes' issued to each participant prior to the start of the course. At the conclusion of the course, participants are given the task of completing and returning a "self assessment", together with drafting a "Heads of Agreement" document, prior to the School's final assessment of their competence and effectiveness as mediators.

Those who upon final assessment are considered not to have reached the School's required standard of competence are offered the opportunity of attending a one-day Refresher Course at the conclusion of which they will be re-assessed.

Course Syllabus

The course teaches participants how to communicate effectively in both a professional and a personal environment, an ability which may be used far beyond the narrow realm of mediation. Ethical considerations are emphasised so as to prevent abuses of the skills acquired.

The courses are generally divided into 8 sessions over 4 full days. Each of the first 4 sessions is in turn divided into 3 parts:

1. Lecture
2. Training Skills with exercises and demonstrations
3. Mediation Role play under supervision.

Each of the second 4 sessions (the second two days) concentrates upon mock mediations, with ample periods of feedback and discussion within each session.

The secret of the course's considerable success is its emphasis on the experiential: the students partici[pate in a total of 16 mock mediations, each lasting on average 1 hour, with the 4 mediations on the last day taking approximately 1½ hours. Each participant on the course generally acts as the Mediator in no less than 4 cases, and role-plays one of the parties to the dispute in the remaining 12 mediations. Many of the case-studies are based upon classic "chestnut" legal cases, with a number of added case-studies to illustrate a wider variety of conflict situations.

Accreditation

Successful participants on the course will achieve Accreditation granted by the School, and may then hold themselves out, commercially and legally, to be fully Accredited ( SPCP ) Mediators.

The school's accreditation is now widely recognised and respected. In April 2001, the Legal Services Commission added the SPC's name to the Legal Services Commission Funding Code Manual, declaring that mediators accredited by the School (together with certain other bodies) "will be regarded as suitably qualified and capable of being funded under [Legal Aid] certificates".

The Judicial Studies Board has also added the School's name to the list of Mediator Providers which is circulated to Judges and Courts throughout the UK. The Law Society carried out an extensive "matching exercise" for the purposes of ‘vetting' the School's course, and have granted it full recognition and approval for the purposes of their Civil/Commercial Mediation Panel. Both the Law Society and the Bar Council have granted CPD accreditation for the course.

The Accreditation given by the School is now clearly on a par with that of other course providers, and we believe that the market is gradually beginning to acknowledge and appreciate the special qualities and effectiveness of a mediator "psychotherapeutically trained" by the School.

Validation

The SPCP course Mediation - A Course in Alternative Dispute Resolution has been approved and recognised by the following official bodies.

• Approved by The Law Society for CPD
• Approved by The Bar Council
• Approved by The Legal Services Commission as a Mediator Course
• Provider in the Funding Code Manual (entitles our accredited mediators to Funding Assistance (Legal Aid).
• Included by The Judicial Studies Board in its list of Mediator Providers circulated to Judges and Courts throughout the UK