HANDOUT: The Role of Anxiety in Mediation.(Milan Slama)
20th century was described by British poet W.H. Auden as ‘the age of anxiety’. There are some good reasons for such a claim. The more it is asked of us to be self-reliant, more responsible for our decisions, and more authentic as individuals (true to ourselves), the more we are on our own. The more we compete with other persons, the more we become separated from them and the price we pay for our individual freedom and self-determination is often isolation and disconnect from the community. We try to structure our lives to avoid uncertainty and to be able to control our future, yet the future becomes often quite uncertain. We worry about our jobs, about our health, about our children,about money, our relationships, what other might think about us. We worry if we can perform to the expectations of others or if we can live up to our own expectations. We find ourselves in the middle of struggle between self-expression and the self-realization (our goals, our commitments, the purpose in our lives) and conformity imposed on us by the necessities of a daily live and obligations to others. And so we often find ourselves choosing between things we want to do, we should do, we need to do, and we have to do.
It looks like that our worries are often present in ourminds. The more severe anxieties become, the less awarewe are about what contributes to them, how do we deal with them, and what can we do about them. Our sense of security is threatened and yet we cannot admit to ourselves and to others that occasionally we are inflicted by specific anxieties developed early or later in our lives. Our culture dictates not to show them otherwise we appear weak. It is then important to acknowledge them and learn how to overcome them, consequentially making ourselves stronger.Personal courage and risk taking become necessary.
During mediation mediators can hear many stories related to anxieties.For example, if the boss does not say ‘hi’ passing you by, does it mean you are disrespected, your work is not valued enough and your job in jeopardy? If your mother complains about the severe pain, should you or shouldn’t you immediately drop everything and run to her place, thinking that she might feel lonely and therefore she tries to manipulate you or is she in real pain? If you are mediating a litigated case, you might be anxious about the outcome and the judgment, especially if you do not trust your attorney or the judicial system in general.
While mental health experts mostly focus on the abnormal aspects of anxieties, they often disregard the normal and positive aspects of anxiety. Therefore it is good to start with some distinctions.
Anxiety versus Fear
In the past fear and anxiety were considered as the same phenomena. Nowadays, distinction is made by experts when it comes to these two terms. Fear is understood as an emotional response to the specific threat. Once the threat is gone, fear disappears with it. Hearing a strange sound in the abandoned house can make us fearful. Once we determine that it was just a cat recklessly playing with the broom stick,the fear goes away. Anxieties are quite persistent, resilient and often long lasting and they are responses to non-specific threats. If one grows up in the family where the parents constantly worried about money and had many quarrels related to finances, hearing heated exchanges can create a persistent worry of becoming poor and despondent. These anxieties can be completely paralyzing in the moment of crisis. No amount of money is enough and the disaster is looming due to some unpredictable events. Occasionally, there is a possibility of commingling of fears and anxieties. The dread of death allows for both. We know that death is certain, yet we don’t know when it will occur. The more we are vulnerable the more we become anxious about dying. If weperish, who will take care of our children or our parents? Can a project succeed in the mind of the person who worries about death or about being incapacitated and believes that she or he is completely indispensable and irreplaceable and without her or himtheproject will collapse?
Normal versus abnormal (pathological) Anxiety:
The majority of anxieties are normal. Our worries are fairly justifiable, after all uncertainty and contingencies in our lives are constantly present. The question is how well we learn to deal with them. Personal histories are often good indicators, how successfully people learned to cope with a variety of threatening situations. Next to genetic factors, anxieties are learned as we go along. They can also be fixed as we go along. The majority of anxieties are gained during our childhood and youth, where dependencies and attachments toour significant others create the sense of safety, security, and comfort.At the same time we crave independence and autonomy as we grow up. So the labels such as abandonment and separation anxietycome to mind. To gain control over anxieties we start with self-awareness, admissions, and acknowledgments that we have them. The next step is more difficultbecause we need to challenge ourselves and be willing to go through those situations we find quite uncomfortable and most threatening.
Anxieties are associated with the concept of possibility. Possibility means to create new things, to have new experiences, to be creative and imaginative and to come up with new solutions orinventions. Possibility means to open one self to the world,take risks, and face new opportunities. Formediators it means to take on new challenges and to mediate courageously. That is, to expend the horizon of experience and practice by taking on challenging cases, complicated situations, and to deal with difficult clients. Yet all this must be done with certain amount of prudence and without endangering the process of mediation. It is not good to underestimate oneself as well as overestimate one self.
These are all positive aspects of anxiety which propel people to move forward, to overcome difficulties, and to defy their limitations.
The pathological aspects of anxiety occur when the possibilities are taken away or cannot be imagined. The sense of entrapment creates a panic response and is accompanied by some sort of internal conflict which a person does not know how to resolve. It threatens the core values of who we are. Under these circumstances our personal identityis diminished by the loss of authenticity.
External threat versus internal conflict (Identity endangered: The case study)
The conflict occurred between a transgender who was going through prolonged sex change procedure and her friend who ‘outed’ her using Facebook without her consent. In legal terms it was ‘defamation’ and ‘the infliction of emotional distress’ case. The external conflict was between two close friends where one friend violated the trust of the other friend. The external conflict was also created by the set of cultural norms which do not approve of certain type of people and their life styles. Trans-genders are considered as outcasts and often ostracized by the mainstream society. They feel that they are victimized and at the same timesome of them are willing to take extraordinary risks to go through procedures which carry a lot of uncertainty and unclear outcomes, physical and psychological. The internal conflictwas manifestedby a tension between what the injured party attempted to become (a woman), that is,her core (desired) identity she kept in secrecy and the possibility that the people around her could find out. Being exposed on Facebook by the friend not only felt as a betrayal but also as a threat to hercore identity. Anxiety propelled her to seek a risky procedure (a courageous move) and yet she lived in the constant dread of exposure. Once her identity was exposed she looked for the remedy and vindication using the court system. During the mediation she was able to reconcile with her friend but her underlining anxiety never went away. She was constantly struggling between pride and the pressure to conform, between assertiveness and submission to the societal pressures. Between self-actualization (attempting to realize a deep seeded aspiration to become a woman) and the potential ridicule and disgust, she often pondered and imagined.
Recognizing participants’ and mediators’ anxieties
For mediators to learn how to recognize and to deal with participants’ anxieties is essential. First they have to be comfortable in the presence of anxious people. If they are not comfortable they can quickly lose the controlover the mediation process and consequentially they lose self-control. If they are not aware of their own discomforts, biases, and prejudices, anxieties in others can trigger anxieties in mediators. Only when mediators are at ease around anxious people they can securely maneuver through occasionally treacherous waters of mediation. (Especially close family or business relations are full of anxiety driven ploys and behaviors.) For mediators learning how to maintain composure is indispensable and can only be acquired by willingness to take on difficult challenges. The more in control mediators are the more capacity to calm the parties they possess and the better capability they have to connect with parties by gaining their trust. Trust deficit between parties is a permanent feature of virtually all mediations.Therefore mediators need to understand to what extent anxieties contribute the intensity of conflicts and disputes .Through vigorous practicing mediators can learn how to distinguish deep seated, pathological types from fairly normal types of anxiety. The pathological types should be left for mental health professionals, the normal types can be easily managed by skilled mediators.
It is helpful for mediators to subject themselves to vigorous self-scrutiny. It is also helpful to accept a constructively meant criticism from others about mediators’ own weaknesses and trepidations. Therefore staying permanently open-minded and practicing self-awareness is a necessary skill to learn.
Mediators’ Performance anxiety
On many occasions mediators can encounter a lot of unpleasant and from time to time menacing situations.Their confidence can be easily eroded and the performance anxiety settles in. Here is a short list of challenges mediators can encounter and need to learn how to deal with. Any of these can be enacted by the parties, their representatives, or other participants in mediation (attorneys, HR personnel, family members).
- Provocations
- Confrontations
- Threats
- Challenges of Incompetence
- Manipulations
- Blames and accusations
- Discreditations
It is more than possible that you encountered some of them during your tenure. Try to recall how youresponded, what did you learn, and what will you do next time when one of these challenges will occur again. These types of experiences enhance your confidence as a performer and will make better at what you do.