The daily frustrations of a mediator

It is difficult to describe how frustrating it can sometimes feel for me, as a mediator, as I listen to one client after another, day in day out, try to persuade me, in their pre-mediation consultations (MIAMs), why going to court is the best option for them.

I can of course understand why, in so many circumstances, they hold this belief when the only experience they have had centres on numerous failed attempts to persuade the other person, through solicitors, to their way of thinking.

As a mediator, I have to sit there and listen to story after story, as my clients express a belief that their former partner is controlling, manipulative, narcissistic, and so on, and how their defensive behaviours have led my client to conclude that court is the only option.

Although, more often than not, it falls on deaf ears, I try to explain the very different solution focused approach I take, as a mediator, getting to the heart of what is driving the conflict and specifically what might be driving the defensive behaviours which my client is experiencing from their former partner (and presenting themselves !)

I explain that until I can help my client get to (understand) the root cause(s) of the behaviours (triggers), through a structured process of uncovering, discovering and understanding the behaviours driving the conflict, they cannot begin to work on what is needed to improve their communication and capacity to make decisions, together.

As I try to explain this ‘different approach’ I can almost hear the client shutting down, simply repeating their need and wish to go to court, because this is what they erroneously believe will solve everything for them, having already tried to solve things through solicitor-led negotiations.

Almost giving up, but feeling a duty of care towards my client, I offer them one more ‘olive branch’ of hope, explaining that should they wish to revisit the possibility of mediating with their partner, in the future, once they have experienced what the court process has to offer, I would be happy to contact their former partner and meet with them to explore whether, in my view, mediation is suitable.

However, I also stress that simply because two people may want to mediate, I might conclude, having met both of them, that mediation may not be the right place for them, stressing that mediation is not an opportunity simply to state positions and win an argument.

In most cases I can only decide whether mediation, in one form or another, is the right and suitable process, after I have spoken to each person so that I am able to carry out a ‘balanced’ suitability assessment of the situation.

Mediation is about being willing and able to have an open, honest and constructive dialogue, based around values and interests, from a number of different perspectives, which some people are simply not capable of doing, even with the active intervention of a mediator, for a long list of very valid reasons.

Having explained this again, and kept open the possibility of mediation for my clients, this is so often the last I see of them, as they enter the clutches of the court process which, for me, is very sad but I must simply move on to the next person, who is willing to listen and consider a better, more solution- focused and constructive approach to achieving value-based outcomes, and work constructively with me.