Building trust-based relationships in mediation

I tell anyone who works for me, whether as an intern, a staff member, a volunteer or an associate mediator, that our primary function is to cultivate trust. From the person who offers you hot tea to the one who drafts your mediation report, trust is critical at all points. Without it, the process breaks down. Think about it--people come to divorce mediation because their marriage has broken down. Often, this downturn is ascribable to a lack of trust. Does that always have to mean that someone was intimately unfaithful to the other spouse? Certainly not. The lack of trust I’m talking about is very seldom an extramarital affair. Even the fact that the marriage vows that the couple professed for life now aren’t being honored is itself a breach of trust.

As such, when I’m dealing with people who are predisposed not to trust, because of the current life experiences that have led them to my office, I have to put their needs ahead of all else. It’s probably stupid not to fill out the client contract from the moment they walk into the door, but I don’t. I am not going to throw paperwork in front of grieving people from the second I meet them. That’s as callous as it is inhumane.

In almost every mediation, I hear one member of the couple remark to the other, “Don’t talk to him about that. This isn’t counseling.” True enough, this isn’t counseling. But unless the whole person is addressed, not to be mistaken for the isolated problem they’re trying to focus their attention on, the so-called solution we reach will not last. My goal is to get people a resolution that will still work ten years down the road, not one that just gets them out the door and then falls apart like a cheap carnival prize.