Recent Posts in Mediation and the Brain Category

While we wouldn't say that co-mediating your dissolution or custody matter is necessarily superior to engaging a sole mediator, we find that there are benefits to co-mediation that particularly assist some parties. Could a team of two oppositely gendered professionals be more effective than the more traditional practice of using only one?

The reality is that men and women experience the breakup of marriages or non-marital relationships differently, and this assertion is supported by research in the mental health sciences. We suspect this comes as no surprise since many of the couples we meet complain how the other failed to understand differences in emotional views and experiences as the relationship unraveled - indeed, it is always one of the contributing causes. This tension accompanies people into the mediation room and without guidance it continues to block a dialogue that is necessary to sensitively address the needs and concerns of each partner; it is sometimes a source of immense frustration that actively inhibits a solutions based conversation that tends to swing some people into at least mild fits of outrage. Such moments are exactly what fuels the litigation alternative as one or both parties shuts down and gives up, ready to engage in an adversarial arm's race "no matter what it costs" or "to the last penny" that no calm person would want for themselves, much less for their children. The essence of conflict, and the best way to perpetuate it, is to wrap one's fist tightly around a core value seen only from the point of view of the observer and refuse to budge. Gender differences can take control of the dispute and yet be entirely unnoticed.

At DFMS we consider such moments to be opportunities to begin to reframe the discussion. Co-mediation can help each party to understand that the different approaches to conflict that seem so divisive (and truly can be) aren't so much 'personal' as they are a function of conditioning. This is not imply that mediators carry some magic wand of understanding that automatically relieves the tension and discord of views in collision, but where disputants are willing to open up just a little and to admit the possibility that differences in perspective are natural and unconscious  - conditioned and possibly even biological - mediators can facilitate movement that is otherwise unexpected. Whole new possibilities arise.

With one mediator and two parties a sort of triangulated interrelationship can seem to begin to develop. The parties' interactions become one side of that triangle with an energetic anxiety moving back and forth between them as difficult subjects relating to the functional consequences of divorce are aired and considered. Each party may be, quite reasonably, fearful that the familiar communication blocks will re-emerge and limit considerations relating to the needs of each side. Indeed that often does occur for a time. If that anxiety is not redirected by the mediator, each party attempts to align the mediator's views with their own in a bid for reassurance. If unchecked this inevitably leads to a sense of bias for the other party who worries that the mediator is being swayed by the first party, regardless whether bias in fact exists. Since with a single mediator for opposite sex parties one person is of the same sex as the mediator, suspicion or worry over bias can even reach panic proportions. Obviously it takes skill for the mediator to de-escalate such concerns, but perhaps you can see that a dual mediator model allows each party to feel equally supported and reassured.

There are many other benefits of co-mediation. Two mediator professionals assisting a couple always creates a synergy and a collective wisdom of what is actually happening in the room between the parties, and even an inspired approach to problem solving. It serves as a regulator on unconscious biases which might be held by the mediators and so enter the process.

At DFMS we believe that "two heads are better than one." We recognize that this can make the process more expensive than many families can afford, or to cost more than the parties want to spend even when their resources are substantial. We do not mean to imply that a successful mediation requires two facilitators. It is simply another tool to assist you these difficult transitions, of greater or lesser value depending upon the dynamics of your relationship. We are passionate about mediation and honestly love what we do. Co-mediation makes the process even more satisfying for us, but our joy derives entirely upon meeting and working with you towards positive outcomes. For this reason we reduce the fees together significantly below what each of us charges individually.

If you believe that some of the tensions that your relationship dispute includes relate to male/female differences in viewpoints, or if co-mediation is a process that has advantages that resonate for your life, please consider it is a worthy option.

There is a funny bit of nonfiction that has been making its rounds through internet emails. I think it illustrates a scientific basis why mediation may make sense for people who are unwinding their marriages, domestic partnerships, and other intimate relationships. It goes like this:

Do you know why railroad tracks in this country are exactly 4 feet, 8.5 inches apart? After all, this distance seems to be arbitrary number.

It is because that is the way railroad tracks were built in England, and English transplants helped design them in the United States.

But why were they fixed at this distance in England?

Because the tramways that preceded rail lines in England and Europe were designed by the same people who built the trams. They used the same tools and jigs that had previously been used for building horse drawn wagons, which had the same wheel spacing as the trams came to have. 

But why this wheel spacing? Because the roads that were many hundreds of years old were fixed at that spacing, and to use any other size would have destroyed the precious wagon wheels. The roads had become deeply rutted from centuries of use.

And why were the ruts grooved at this distance? Because the roads were first built by the Romans for their legions, and in particular their war chariots. These chariots that formed the initial ruts, which everyone thereafter had to match in order to not destroy their valuable wooden wheels, were spaced at 4 feet, 8.5 inches.

Roman war chariots were made just wide enough to allow the rear ends of two horses to which the chariots were harnessed. Yes, our railroad lines today are spaced exactly to accommodate two horse's asses.

This is a wonderful metaphor. We actually wear tracks into the neural architecture of our brains by how we respond to stimuli, and after awhile it may seem impossible to break free of the ruts. Neuroscience and brain scan imaging is developing evidence that has vast implications for the consequences of how we manage conflict, particularly in relationships that are ending. 

For instance, we now know that after birth the greatest developmental spurts for the brain occur when children or 3-5 and again between 10-13 years of age. Neurons - cells and the synapses that connect them - are being grown in younger adults in exponential leaps. What impacts might a contentious divorce have upon these developing organs? 

By the mid-twenties our brains contain more than four quadrillion neurons and synapses. They fire together in amazingly complex arrays. This ability of our brains to wire has made us successful since we could not have survived as a species if we could not cope with threats or meet complex biological and social needs. But a price we pay is that this hardwiring can be resistant to change, and even maladaptive. A "conditioning" develops that tends to energize and determine our thinking, emotions, attitude and behavior - particularly when we are not paying direct attention to it.  

Neurons that fire together, wire together. Just as with war chariot wheels racing across the same terrain again and again, as these combinations continue to fire in repetitive ways we follow the same ground. This looks like driving a car through previously unbroken fields of wheat.  If the vehicle is driven again and again over the same path, a ditch wears in. Most of us have gotten our wheels caught in a ditch - it becomes difficult to steer our way out. 

Our response patterns to conflict can cause 'furrows' to form in our brains that cause us to interact in ways that can seem impossible to escape. Our reactions to conflict, or our willingness to become locked within it, is in a very real sense a habit of the brain that has developed over time. Many of us have felt quite helpless in the face of some of our reactions, during and after the fact.

Fortunately, the cells and neurons that make up our brains are not static. Even as we continue to age our brains remain highly adaptable. There is growing evidence that changing the way we habitually respond to stress or conflict can cause neurons to begin to rewire differently. This is termed "neuroplasticity". It allows a possibility for different experiences and set of outcomes than those we supposed to be our fate or the only choice. We can engage in behaviors that themselves help to develop neural pathways that offer better and happier alternatives to other more familiar ones - neurobiologists liken this to the "pruning" we all know as amateur gardeners. 

I am not suggesting we take our brains to Gold's Mind Gym and sculpt them like we might our muscles,... yet. Those places don't exist today, but they will within a generation or two. I am making the point that there is a biological basis for understanding how we become conditioned in any number of ways, including how we become rooted in conflicted styles of interacting under the stress of divorce or separation. 

Given the capacity of our brains to rewire, and our amazing abilities to adapt once we develop an awareness of the outlines of any challenge, like overcoming patterned behaviors, I believe that mediation and mediated processes offer family law disputants an environment for safely exploring creative new solutions to old problems. When we become willing to consider how our own reactivity tends to keep us recycling, and that sometimes our response to anxiety producing circumstances are almost unconscious, we are suddenly freed to look deeply at how we might honor and protect our own interests while honoring the views of our former partners. This is a beginning for finding the common ground that always exists, but so often seems hidden, for parties who are uncoupling. It has its practical expression in dividing property, fixing support, supporting independence, and in nurturing and sharing children.

As a family law litigator for 30 years, my experience has been that when people are assisted in developing options that are more visionary and mutual than what Courts impose, the process costs them less, they are more satisfied, they reach agreements that are lasting, and that they can positively influence those around them and especially those who depend upon them for emotional and financial support. And, they feel better and begin to view their lives more positively. 

Which is a good way to support a useful rewiring of our brains.