"...many people initially prefer court to mediation: court appeals to our inner sense of fairness and need for revenge..."
After studying neuroscience for the past ten years, I have begun to think differently about mediation, and how we help others in general. Neuroscience is the study of the human nervous system, including the brain. The brain is in charge of all of our bodily functions. It also allows us to interact with others as individuals. Studying the brain provides an in-depth look at human nature and why we behave as we do. It explains why each of the different styles of mediation works -- some of the time: Facilitative mediation is driven by needs and interests. The brain is driven by needs and humans are motivated by both social and self-interest. Needs lie at the heart of evolution’s reciprocal altruism and of social relationships generally. The fact that many of our most important needs are unconscious makes this style’s emphasis on interests over positions a winner for the brain; Transformative mediation focuses on the relationship between the parties. It appreciates that stress negatively affects the brain and the body, and is disturbing and distracting in our relationships. This style’s desire to resolve conflict and potentially transform the relationship into something more productive and workable, or at least less onerous, is a natural motivator; Narrative mediation knows the brain speaks and learns through stories; that it maintains an ongoing and coherent story of “me.” Building on the constructive nature of the brain, this style uses new narratives to help people reshape old understandings into new beginnings and endings;
Insight mediation accepts that the brain needs a moderate challenge to learn. It uses the brain’s associative powers to elicit insights that help us better understand ourselves and reinterpret a conflict situation in non-obvious ways; and finally, Evaluative mediation speaks to the brain’s need for certainty, for fixed points and permanence. It builds on an accumulated knowledge base and provides definitiveness in an otherwise ambiguous situation. Neuroscience even has an answer for why many people initially prefer court to mediation: court appeals to our inner sense of fairness and need for revenge; it provides us with a feeling of certainty and rightness, and allows us to tell our story and place blame; it addresses our need to defer to dominance and rank, and lets us to equate survival with winning. Early in my study of neuroscience, Bernie Mayer, an author of many wonderful books on mediation, cautioned me not to take a reductionist approach, not to come up with a “neuroscience-based approach to mediation.” Staying true to that goal, in thinking about neuroscience and what it means for mediation, I have come up with the following thoughts: