What do Insight Skills teach us?

My journey to understanding the importance of insight mediation skills began with watching the magical Elizabeth Sterritt as she co-planned the new curriculum for the new Ontario Association for Family Mediation accreditation for “elder mediation” (now Intergenerational Mediation) with myself and Director Mary-Ann Popescu. I couldn’t quite put my finger on the difference I saw in her approach and yet I knew I wanted more.  Over time Elizabeth introduced us to the Insight Mediation approach and Dr. Cheryl Picard and my journey to understanding the insight view and the specific skills began.  Insight skills really teach us to pay attention to the reasons people disagreeing something escalate to being in conflict about the thing they disagree upon.  How things become interpreted and misinterpreted and how that atmosphere blocks learning, and in fact blocks true listening.  Escalation and the entrenchment of patterns ensues and very quickly people are locked in the threat/defend pattern.  A fundamental principle underscoring the way we teach mediation at INSIGHTful Mediation Training is that we believe families need more than a “settlement”.  They need to learn how to resolve conflict and improve communication and insight skills focus on helping them start to see how these patterns can prevent them from having the conversations they need to have.  In the end, they could still feel the fear, or the threat, associated with limited resources, sharing a child or making new housing arrangements, but they will have a better understanding of how that fear has led them to misinterpret or misunderstand the fear or threat experienced by the other partner as well.