Conflict Management and Dealing with Emotions.

Escalation of Conflict – Nine Stages

We, as human-beings have a special relationship to the law of gravity. When something seems difficult we feel heavy and it literally pulls us to the ground. The uninterrupted escalation of a conflict can pull us down as into quicksand, and if there is no turning point, we will end up in the abyss. At every stage, the dynamic of a conflict can escalate further when there is no conscious caucusing or moment of awareness and reflection.

Once you recognize the characteristics of the different stages of a conflict, you are able to act: You can either prevent the conflict from escalating even further or you can consciously let the conflict escalate further. Sometimes the latter is useful to make a conflict more visible to stakeholders and the social environment.

Once you have identified the stage a conflict is in, you can use this opportunity to find constructive solutions on your own, or you see that it is necessary to ask an outsider for assistance in finding a solution. Sometimes problems are just too big to be dealt with alone.

Always ask yourself: “Do I have a problem or does the problem have me?”

The Nine Stages of Conflict Escalation were developed in the 1980s by Austrian Professor Friedrich Glasl and in detail described in his book: “Conflict Management - A Handbook for Executives and counselors”, Germany, 2002.

Conflict Intervention Strategies

1)      Negotiation: Parties meet (usually without the help of 3rd party) to resolve differences.

2)      Facilitation: Neutral or professional 3rd party helps to improve communication between parties, usually in a meeting.

3)    Conciliation: 3rd party acts as “go-between” for parties to meet and resolve differences or disputes.

4)      Mediation: Neutral 3rd party helps parties to resolve differences themselves, improving relationship between parties.

5)    Arbitration: Neutral 3rd party hears both points of view and then imposes a decision.

6)      Adjudication / Litigation: Judge/magistrate imposes decision after hearing legal argument from both sides according to complex legal procedures.

7)      Force: Power or violence is used in a dominant manner to impose a decision or to force a ‘solution’.

Dealing with Emotions & Anger

In every conflict between human beings, our emotions play a critic role, either consciously or unconsciously. Especially anger can be very disturbing, as it can hinder us to enter dialogue and eventually resolve the conflict that we are having. Any conflict can be compared to an iceberg…….nearly 90% lies invisibly under the surface.

In most cases it is our behaviour and our statements and positions that are visible to all the others.

Invisible aspects of a conflict are the parties’ individual or collective backgrounds, attitudes, expectations, dreams, wishes, hurts, fears, needs, feelings, emotions, hidden plans and strategies.

The following texts may help to understand and deal with emotions constructively:

Emotions should not be judged or repressed!

Emotions are a vital part of you as a human being, and they need to be respected, accepted and expressed. You can look upon your emotions as your children, who need your attention and respect, and your guidance.

Emotions are your children!

The parallels between ‘being emotional’ and ‘being as a child’ are striking, as there is an impressive resemblance between the way you deal with your own emotions and the way you deal with (real) children. A child is honest and spontaneous in his emotions, and he does not hide or repress them until adults encourage him to do so. The fact that children spontaneously express their emotions does, however, not mean that the child experiences his emotions in a balanced way. Everyone knows that a child can be carried away by his emotions (rage, fear or sadness) and is often unable to put a stop to it. In such a situation, the child can almost drown in his emotions and that makes him unbalanced, i.e. out-of-centre. An emotion can best be viewed as an energy that comes to you for healing. Therefore, it is important to not be completely swept away by the emotion, but to remain able to look at it from a neutral stance. It is important to stay conscious.

One might put it like this:

You should not repress an emotion, but you should not drown in it either. For when you drown in it, when you identify with it completely, the child in you becomes a tyrant that will lead you astray!

The most important thing you can do with an emotion is to allow it in, to feel all aspects of it, while not losing your consciousness. Take for instance anger. You can invite anger to be fully present, experiencing it in your body at several places, while you are at the same time neutrally observing it. Such a type of conscious behaviour is healing. What happens in this instance is that you embrace the emotion, which is essentially a form of misunderstanding, with understanding.

Dealing with Emotions - Example:

Your daughter has bumped her knee on the table and it really hurts. She is upset, screaming with pain, and she kicks the table for she is angry with it. She considers the table to be the source of her pain.

Emotional guidance at this moment means that the parent first helps the child name her experience. “You are angry, aren’t you – you are in pain, right?” Naming it is essential. You transfer the root of the problem from the table to the child herself. It’s not in the table, it is you who are hurt, and it is you who is angry. And yes, I understand your emotion!

The parent embraces the emotion of the child with understanding, with love. The moment the child feels understood and recognized, her anger will gradually fade away. The physical pain may still be present. But her resistance to the pain, the anger around it, can dissolve. The child reads compassion and understanding in your eyes, and this relaxes and soothes her emotions. The table, the cause of the emotions, is not relevant anymore.

In embracing an emotion with understanding and compassion, you shift the focus of the child’s attention from outside to inside, and you teach the child to take responsibility for the emotion. You are showing her that her reaction to an outside trigger is not a given, but that it is a matter of choice. You can choose misunderstanding or understanding. You can choose to fight or to accept. You can choose.

Again Happy Vijayadashmi and more coming up shortly.