Changing the Quality of Conflict Interaction: The Principles and Practice of Transformative Mediation

Many practitioners now identify themselves as transformative mediators, who practice from the transformative perspective in some or all of their work. This article explains the unique character of transformative mediation by offering answers to three basic questions: Why is transformative mediation being sought and used by parties in conflict? What is the basic nature of the mediation process, especially the mediator\u27s role, according to this model? How does a mediator work with the parties in transformative mediation? Answering these three questions why, what and how-will provide the reader a good overview of the transformative model in theory and practice. We begin in the first section with the why of transformative mediation, because we believe the answer to this question provides the only solid foundation for answering the other two. Based on that answer, we offer a brief description of the process and the mediator\u27s role in the second section. Then, in the final section, we discuss at greater length the how of transformative mediation practice