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Introduction:
How much should a mediator reveal about him or herself to the parties involved?
More than the standard wisdom indicates, says professor and civil rights mediator Wallace Warfield. He says that to share the occasional personal
detail with parties can help to humanize the mediator and actually gain parties'
trust.
For hear more about mediators sharing with the parties with which they are
involved, listen to interview segments with Susan Dearborn. | |
This rough transcript provides a text alternative to audio. We apologize for occasional errors and unintelligible sections (which are marked with ???).
Self Humanizing
Wallace Warfield
Associate Professor at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and
Resolution, George Mason University
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Humanizing yourself as part of a process of inserting a certain degree of
revelation. It's more than revelation, it's vulnerability of coming in like that I'm
not some sort of deux es machina, but I really am a human being that has my own
problems that I'm working with. While I have some authority (and you can't deny
you have authority as the intervenor), but I also have faults. I also have my own
concerns and fears. I find sometimes revealing parts of me to them
saying, "I'm not feeling very good this morning, I just feel like I'm not
really with it." They say, "Well what's wrong?" "I don't know. I'm
just kind of shaky." People start identifying with you, and there's a trust that
gets built up, because you sharing with them.
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