Mediation

Mediation is an intervention that (re)establishes a workable logic of collaboration between two individuals, between a person and a body, or between two bodies.

It goes well beyond “restoring dialogue” or “setting up a win-win strategy”. What characterises this work — what makes it necessary — is the repetition of the same interactional sequences, generating suffering. Every mediation happens in a crisis. This kind of work calls for the ability to hold emotions that are sometimes violent.

Before and during the intervention, the mediator holds three questions that serve as a thread and, at best, keep the work relevant throughout:

1. What purpose does the apparent impossibility of collaborating serve? This calls for a systemic reading of the situation.
2. How do they manage not to collaborate effectively? (Here, working with paradoxical logics is unavoidable.)
3. How are they going to use me in order not to get there? This question requires the practitioner to be both actor and observer of their own relationship with the parties.

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