We have experienced a heat wave here in Calgary the likes of which I can’t ever remember. And one thing I have learned in this new experience is that being too hot makes people grumpy. And being grumpy enhances the prospects of people acting out irrationally and making poor decisions. People become “hotheads” in the most literal definition of the term.
Being in the mired in a conflict can be as unsettling as being unable to cool down in a heat wave. Conflict stirs up all sorts of emotions including anger, fear, sadness, hurt. In the acclaimed collaboration between the Dalai Lama and Bishop Desmond Tutu, “The Book of Joy”, Bishop Tutu describes a conversation he had with the Dalai Lama about the close connection between anger and fear. His Holiness says: “Where there is fear, frustration will come. Frustration brings anger. So you see, fear and anger are very close.” When asked about how he controlled his own anger, the Dalai Lama laughed and told a story about a man who used to drive him in the 1950’s, and this man also did the repairs on the one car they had in his village in Tibet. One day the man was repairing the car, and was laying underneath it. As he came out, he banged his head on the fender. This made him lose his temper, and he was so angry that he banged his head on the car over and over again. What was the purpose or benefit of this man repeatedly banging his head? What did it accomplish (other than perhaps a headache)? Anger is described as foolish and not helpful.
Renowned neuropsychologist Daniel Siegel explains that when we get angry, we lose the benefit of our critical thinking cortex, and as a result, our prefrontal cortex, necessary for emotion regulation and moral judgment loses its ability to control our emotional limbic system, so we do foolish and irrational things – like the driver repeatedly banging his head.
In a situation of conflict, however, emotions, properly channelled are essential to reaching productive and satisfactory resolution. In his 2015 book “The Conflict Paradox”, Bernard Mayer explains what he calls the “emotion-logic paradox”, and postulates that if we do not access our own emotions when we are in conflict, we can’t engage effectively, make decisions and move the dispute forward in an effective way. Having said that, however, he also notes that emotions can also provide the fuel to escalate the conflict, which in turn leads to poor decision making.
One of the challenges for a mediator is to provide a space which allows and encourages parties to access their emotions – to experience them, use them and recognize the powerful role that they play in cognitive thinking and decision making, all the while ensuring that emotions are monitored and kept in perspective and under control. Mayer notes that this is “no easy trick” given that conflict is both a product of emotions and a catalyst for them.
There are various techniques in mediation that allow us to channel emotions in an effective way, and avoid parties being driven to anger and “hotheadedness” or to sadness and hurt, or any other in a whole range of emotions. These include, among many options, framing the issue as a mutual problem to be mutually solved, looking for joint interests, allowing an opportunity to “let off steam”, and encouraging parties to step back and try to view the conflict from a wider perspective. Most often we use caucusing at some point in the mediation process which can be helpful in clearing space for emotions to be expressed without a party feeling like she/he is “on display” or under scrutiny. An effective mediator pays close attention to the emotions of the parties involved, and proposes the most effective ways to approach each unique situation.
So in the heat of conflict, just as in a long, hot summer, even where seemingly unhelpful emotions emerge, a good mediator can take a hothead from banging her/his head against a wall (or a car) to a hug or a handshake by knowing the techniques to pull out of the mediator’s toolbox.
As Canadians, we also know that summers are short, and extreme heat or not, soon enough we will be into a deep freeze, which presents a different set of challenges, so we are encouraged to embrace each moment, hot, sweaty and uncomfortable as it might be, all the while knowing that too shall pass.