About Past Trainings:
SELF-REFLECTION FOR CONFLICT PROFESSIONALS
We seek to support participants to deepen and apply their own understanding of themselves to work more effectively with parties in conflict. These advanced courses are for experienced mediators, collaborative professionals, and/or lawyers interested in making a significant commitment to developing their skills in self-reflection as applied to working with people in conflict.
We conduct these trainings both in California and New York, teaching together with Norman Fischer, a poet, author, Zen Buddhist priest, former abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center, and founder of the Everyday Zen Foundation. (
www.everydayzen.org ).
New York:
Self-Reflection in Action for Conflict Professionals: Bringing the Depth of Who We Are to Our Work
Norman Fischer, our colleague and friend, will be joining us in this special program. He is a Buddhist teacher and priest, poet and writer, and former abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center, who has been applying the insights of his life’s work to the everyday application of Buddhist principles to the challenges of life and work. Founder of the Everyday Zen Foundation, (www.everydayzen.org). Norman regularly conducts workshops throughout the world focused on this interface.
We have been working with Norman for more than a decade, as we explore the inner life of conflict and our inner lives as conflict professionals. Based in California, Norman’s visits to New York always bring a deepening perspective and present a special opportunity.
In this program, we will seek to learn together about connecting with the deeper impulses that fuel our commitments to working with people in conflict — such as compassion and the search for greater self understanding and mutual understanding. We will also learn about dealing with the tendencies that can get in the way, such as anger, judgmentalness, and the desire forcontrol. While an appreciation for the deeper motivations, emotions and currents that underlie our work with conflict has always been a part of the Center’s approach, we have with Norman been exploring and integrating this inner dimension more deeply into our work with conflict
This advanced course is for mediators, collaborative professionals, and/or lawyers interested in developing our sensitivity and skills in self-reflection as applied to working with people in conflict and who have completed the Center’s Mediation Intensive Training. The program will include a meditative perspective as we seek to explore the inner dimensions of our work with persons in conflict and how that understanding directly applies to our cases and can help us deal more effectively and whole-heartedly with parties and clients.
The Essentials of Family Law: What Family Mediators and Collaborative Professionals Need to Know
Professionals working in both mediation and collaborative practice would benefit from the solid grounding this course will offer in the essentials of family law (including those serving as consulting attorneys in mediation and those financial and mental health advisors working in collaborative practice). For practitioners with a more extensive background in family law, this course will provide a valuable refresher on essential points of law as well as a substantive review of the significant changes expected to New York matrimonial law in the near future.
The course will focus on several pivotal areas: the grounds for divorce; equitable distribution; spousal support; child support; and parenting and custody arrangements. We will also address many of the more complicated issues that commonly arise in mediation and collaborative practice, such as: dealing with equitable distribution of businesses, licenses, practices and degrees; factoring in tax implications; planning for changing economic circumstances; disposition of the marital home; and planning for future contingencies.
The course will include explication of the law through lecture, written materials (with cases) and illustrations and some role plays of how to bring these elements into the mediation in a productive way. In addition to explaining the substantive details of the law, we will also address how the legal framework may be effectively integrated into the mediation and collaborative practice context without controlling the parties or the outcome.
California:
Self Reflection in Action for Conflict Professionals: Bringing the Depth of Who We Are to Our Work
Understanding our internal reality is essential to being a conflict professional. Deepening this process of self-reflection will be the focus of five Saturday sessions presented by the Center for Understanding in Conflict. Through a meditative perspective, we will explore the inner dimensions of our work with persons in conflict, and how that understanding directly applies to our cases and helps us deal more effectively and whole-heartedly with parties/clients. We have found that this inquiry brings a deeper appreciation for what is within us when we work with persons in conflict, a greater sensitivity to what is going on for the parties as well as the other professionals, and a framework and language for integrating that understanding into our work as conflict professionals – particularly with respect to mediation and collaborative practice.
In the course of five Saturdays, we will seek to recognize and articulate the impulses that fuel our commitment to working with people in conflict, such as compassion and the search for greater self understanding and mutual understanding. We also will deal with the tendencies that interfere, such as being judgmental or the need to control.
This series arises out of our experience in exploring these questions. While an appreciation for the deeper currents that underlie our work with conflict was incorporated in the conception of our approach, we have continued to explore these dimensions. Three years ago, joined by Norman Fischer, a Buddhist Meditation teacher whose work focuses on bringing together our inner lives with our actions in the world, we offered a nine month intensive training in these skills, which we then extended for another year at the request of the participants. The success of that intensive program led us to design an advanced training series last year which we will offer again for the next year.
Mar de Jade, Mexico:
Self-Reflection In Action: Using Our Inner Selves To Help People In Conflict
We are offering another week-long program in self-reflection in Mexico for conflict professionals.
In this program, we will have a continued focus on how we can work effectively with our own internal responses to help people in conflict. There will be a significant meditation component to the program. The program is open to people who have completed at least one program with the Center and are working in the conflict resolution field as mediators, collaborators, negotiators, ombudspersons, or traditional lawyers.
To register: We are accepting sign-ups now, with a limit of 32 participants. We expect this program to fill up quickly, so if you are interested, please let us know right away.
