Practicing Narrative Mediation

Practicing Narrative Mediation provides mediation practitioners with practical narrative approaches that can be applied to a wide variety of conflict resolution situations. Written by John Winslade and Gerald Monk—leaders in the narrative therapy movement—the book contains suggestions and illustrative examples for applying the proven narrative technique when working with restorative conferencing and mediation in organizations, schools, health care, divorce cases, employer and employee problems, and civil and international conflicts. Practicing Narrative Mediation also explores the most recent research available on discursive positioning and exposes the influence of the moment-to-moment factors that are playing out in conflict situations. The authors include new concepts derived from narrative family work such as "absent but implicit," "double listening," and "outsider-witness practices."

Preface vii

1 How to Work with Conflict Stories: Nine Hallmarks of Narrative Mediation 1

2 Negotiating Discursive Positions 40

3 Tracing Discursive Positioning Through a Conversation 64

4 Working with Cultural Narratives in Mediation 99

5 Divorce Mediation and Collaborative Practice with Chip Rose 129

6 Outsider-Witness Practices in Organizational Disputes with Allan Holmgren 166

7 Employment Mediation with Alison Cotter 185

8 Restorative Conferencing in Schools 215

9 Conflict Resolution in Health Care 242

Epilogue 283

References 289

About the Authors 299

Index 303

THE AUTHORS

John Winslade and Gerald Monk are leading figures in the narrative therapy movement and authors of basic works in the field, Narrative Mediation and Narrative Therapy in Practice, both from Jossey-Bass. They began their work together at the University of Waikato in Hamilton, New Zealand, where they were also involved in the work of Waikato Mediation Services. John Winslade is a professor and coordinator of the Educational Counseling Program at California State University, San Bernardino. Gerald Monk is a professor at San Diego State University, Department of Counseling and School Psychology.

PRACTICING NARRATIVE MEDIATION

WHEN IT WAS published in 2000, John Winslade and Gerald Monk's groundbreaking book Narrative Mediation quickly became the classic work on the theory of narrative technique in mediation. Practicing Narrative Mediation is the next-step resource that explores the explosive development of narrative practice that has taken place in the past ten years.

Practicing Narrative Mediation provides mediation practitioners with practical narrative approaches that can be applied to a wide variety of conflict resolution situations. Written by John Winslade and Gerald Monk—leaders in the narrative therapy movement—the book contains suggestions and illustrative examples for applying the proven narrative technique when working with restorative conferencing and mediation in organizations, schools, health care, divorce cases, employer and employee problems, and civil and international conflicts. Practicing Narrative Mediation also explores the most recent research available on discursive positioning and exposes the influence of the moment-to-moment factors that are playing out in conflict situations. The authors include new concepts derived from narrative family work such as "absent but implicit," "double listening," and "outsider-witness practices."

Practicing Narrative Mediation will help both family and community mediators hone their skills to make sense from and generate meaning within the conflicts they encounter.