Family Law

Marion Stevenson

Mediator, PPC and Trainer:

This article looks at how three key mediation skills - empathy, impartiality, and questioning - are combined in the mediation process.  It discusses the role of these skills in mediation and at the way they are utilised in other approaches, such as counselling, coaching and advice-giving. It argues that the way the skills are combined and added to in the mediation process makes this a problem-solving approach that is distinctive and different from any other.  In being 'so near but so far' mediators need to have a strong sense of the role in order to be able to hold it successfully and apply the skills in a way that is congruent with the process.

The full version of this article appears in the January 2013 issue of Family Law.