Mediator Skills Discussion

Discussion 3: Mediator Skills

Instructions: Follow the procedure of emotional paraphrasing in the book and interpret the disputant’s speech when using the emotional paraphrase technique. Then, write a reframe for each. See example below:

Example

Disputant’s comment: “This neighborhood is becoming a mess. My neighbor is such a pig. I can hardly control myself when he leaves that trash all over his front year after one of his drunken parties”.

A student may paraphrase as: “You think he is messy” or “You wish he were neater.” However, emotional paraphrases are about the person making the statement rather than one person’s thoughts about the other person.

A better emotional paraphrase is: “You feel disappointed”.

A good reframe that changes or neutralizes the disputant’s negative words is: So, “You’d like a neat neighborhood”.

Write an emotional paraphrase and reframe for each comment below:

#1 Mediator’s Question: “What is a good neighbor?”

Disputant’s Comment: “Well, to be a good neighbor, I think you have to have respect for those around you. Maybe not just tell someone [said with sarcasm] ‘You’ll think about it.’”

Emotional Paraphrase:

Reframe:

#2 Mediator’s Question: “What brought you to mediation?”

Disputant’s Comment: “I’ve had enough with this degenerate’s loud parties that go on all night every weekend.”

Emotional Paraphrase:

Reframe:

 

#3 Mediator’s Question: “Where are your houses located in relationship to each other?”

Disputant’s Comment: “Way too close!!”

Emotional Paraphrase:

Reframe:

 

#4 Disputant’s Comment: “She really let the group down on this project. We all hoped that she would come through with her portion of the assignment, but it never happened.”

Emotional Paraphrase:

Reframe:

Watch the video below and report two examples when the mediator reframed what the disputants said in the mediation session.

 

Tenant-landlord Mediation (Links to an external site.)

 

#5 Video Example of Reframing

Disputant’s Comment:

Mediator’s Reframe:

 

#6 Video Example of Reframing

Disputant’s Comment:

Mediator’s Reframe: