Small Group Intractable Conflict Threat
2. Intractable Conflict Threat and Opportunity
Although BI mostly focuses on societal-level conflict, we also have materials relating to interpersonal and lower-level conflicts, because intractable conflict wreaks havoc there too. It can destroy marriages, other family relationships, workplace relationships (hence, possibly jobs), and neighborly relationships when small grievances escalate into large grievances which are never resolved, but just fester and poison the well of any previous good feelings that people might have had. This has heavy emotional costs: anger, fear, shame, hate, that not only keep us up at night (thus damaging our physical as well as mental health), but it can easily transition into violence. Even short of that, it causes people to make poor, often costly and harmful, decisions as they simply lash out at the source of their distress, rather than working (either alone or together) to effectively address the problem(s) they have with the other.
Resources on this Topic
To see all Guide Resources on this topic, scroll within the resource box below.
Stars indicate resources that we think are especially useful.
