Guiding Metaphors in the Practice of Mediation of Conflicts: Notes On Metaphors Chosen By a Mediator For Intervention
We all know of cases where a well-chosen metaphor
has been key to resolving conflict.
Now, when we, as mediators, choose a metaphor, what we are doing is choosing
a Source Domain we think might in some way be helpful to influence thinking
about the problem or conflict (Target).
While the section "Uncovering Metaphor"
(see Main Menu) should sensitize you to aspects of the Target Domain that
indicate the presence of metaphor, this section on forms of metaphor presents
several ways to think about the Source Domain of a metaphor.
Mediators quite naturally take advantage of common metaphors to guide
a shift in context and reframe content.
This is generally useful and illustrates the power of even the most
casual use of metaphor to direct clients' attention to ignored aspects of their
situation and to possibilities not yet considered.
Consider this, quoted from James Melamed's website,
as an example of mediators' proclivity for the Guiding Metaphor:
Indirect
Techniques:
Metaphors,
analogies, quotes, and normative statements are ways of introducing ideas and
options through the back door. In doing so, the mediator is advised to work
within participant belief and perceptual systems. The mediator will also want to be outfocused to notice responses
from participants. If the idea being introduced is attractive to a participant,
you will see the sparkle of attraction in their eyes. If you sense resistance to the idea being indirectly introduced,
be flexible and offer another idea, perhaps by beginning with the word
"or."
Shift
Participants from Battle Metaphor to a Journey Metaphor. Most participants will come to the mediation
well steeped in the metaphor of conflict as a battle. Mediators are encouraged
to work with the participants to convert this war metaphor into a journey
metaphor. The mediator can speak in terms of the mediation having a beginning,
middle and end. The mediator may speak in terms of going down the path or down
the river together, and in terms of ups and downs, or sometimes encountering
rough water.
Also see N. Page's
list of metaphors and when to use them in mediation. John Haynes
suggests a similar approach.
It is interesting that in speaking of metaphor in
mediation how many people take for granted that they will easily know that
clients are using unhelpful metaphors and that these client metaphors need to
be changed in order to facilitate resolution.
This is the idea that a metaphor forms a perceptual filter, lense
or prism "installed in the brain... bends everything we see" (as G.
Johnson says in "Fire in the Mind") through which a disputant regards
the conflict situation -- and this filter or prism must be altered, removed or
replaced.
To this end Suzette Haden Elgin (who states regarding
metaphor that, "I know no more powerful or more valuable tool for
resolving conflict") presents three methods of coming up with a suitable
metaphor to counter the unhelpful ones clients are already using,
and then a number of steps for introducing it into the mediation:
Two
of the methods for finding more constructive governing metaphors are analytic
in nature. (1) Listing the semantic
features of the key term in the governing metaphor, then finding an alternate
key term with most of the same features [somehow such key terms define an
alternate metaphor]. (2) List
"reality statements" in place of the semantic features and look for
ideas that come to you [this one wasn't clear]. (3) Dream-mapping, which consists of using a kind of mind map to
name the principal term at the center, quickly write down seven aspects of
this, then seven aspects of each of these -- looking for the flash of insight
or a crucial term that suggests a better, alternate metaphor.
Introducing
the alternate metaphor into the mediation discussion involves (a) trying not to
use the terminology of the clients' governing metaphor, (b) or if this is not
possible, identify the roles involved in their metaphor and begin to speak from
the most helpful role possible (e.g., if the metaphor is football, choose
coach), (c) if your alternate metaphor is a big leap from the one already in
play, try intermediate ones first that aren't so different (e.g., needing to go
from car on highway to spaceship in space, use sailing ship as intermediate),
(d) look for common ground between old and new metaphors (e.g., if one
disputant is using football and other is using school teacher, use polite liar
as something in common).
Further supporting the notion that mediators can assist disputants in understanding conflict in terms of metaphor Wilmot and Hocker (2001, pp 16-26) discuss sixteen common metaphors. These can be used to approach conflict or to form one’s perspective on conflict (conflict seen as warlike or violent, as explosive, as a court trial, as a struggle, force of nature, animal behavior, as a mess, as communications breakdown, as a game, as heroic adventure, balancing, bargaining, a tide, garden, dance, or as quilt making). Their discussion is interesting, not just because they describe so many metaphors, giving entailed characteristics and language examples, but also because they point out which are constructive to the resolution of conflict and which are not. This is a useful account of the constraining and focusing effects of metaphor, revealing some inference structure (although they do not use conceptual metaphor theory in their discussion).
When a mediator chooses a metaphor not only will the choice
be based on metaphor elements and dynamics intended to be helpful to clients,
but also the mediator will want the presentation to be evocative without
stimulating resistance. (Professional
accountants take this further, sometimes speaking of “metaphoric
defamiliarization” (Walters-York, L. M. (1996) “Metaphor in
accounting discourse”, Accounting, Auditing and Accountability
Journal, 9(5), 45-70[1])
as the introduction of metaphor that is new or different to the listener in
order to break old conceptual connections and examine things in a new light,
such as when accounting standards are presented not as a conceptual framework
but as “conceptual
underwear” (Page, M, & Spira, L. (1999), “The Conceptual Underwear of
Financial Reporting”, Accounting,
Auditing and Accountability Journal, 12(4)489-501). Professional copy writers are pitched as
follows: “…Communicators too often think of metaphor as a poetic doodah that
has no place in serious nonfiction writing. Not true. Metaphors are a workhorse
of all meaningful writing… get their power from the fact that they compare the
subject you're writing about to something that's more familiar to the audience.
That way, they help our audience members understand new, complex information by
means of something they already understand.
[Buy this book of] techniques for crafting compelling metaphors.”[2])
Allegories may contain an element or character that corresponds
metaphorically with one of the clients.
This may allow the client to consider logic, inferences, directions or
behavior appropriate for him/herself without consciously applying it.
"Sensitizing" or "priming" is an
effect in psychological laboratory experimentation that direct subjects to
modes of thinking that might bias responses.
This effect can be used deliberately also in order to amplify and make
more measurable certain possible differences between subjects. This paradigm might be modified for use
where it was desired to sensitize or prime clients to use metaphors the
mediator might introduce. For example,
drawings or stories might casually be shown that show mappings in one (e.g.,
visual) modality, and then the mediator could introduce metaphors later
(aurally) and expect mapping to be more readily achieved (see sensitization in "Related
Subjects" at bottom of right column of Main Menu).
Cameron (2003) reviews
several ways that metaphor has been shown to mediate learning:
·
Simple transfer of
attributes and relational structure from source to target (depends upon one’s
knowledge of the source domain).
·
More dramatic breaking down
of existing structure to restructure one’s concepts or understanding using a
new frame or terms of reference.
·
Filling in gaps in existing
knowledge or understanding through a comparison between target and source,
which might lead to a search for additional information.
·
Analogical reasoning, where
what is to be learned, or problem to be solved, follows the pattern set up in
an analogy; this also depends on one’s prior knowledge of the source domain
(often lacking in younger or less experienced individuals) as well as prompting
or suggestion to make use of the analogy.
·
Mnemonic value, when a
metaphor reminds one of something already known.