Multidimensional Practice
This page summarizes current work in the area of what Dr. Goldberg and Dr. Blancke are calling 'multidimensional' practice, described in new book, soon to be released, Multidimensional Conflict Resolution: Engaging Cognitive, Somatic, Emotional, and Spiritual Intelligence in Practice, Edited by Dr. Rachel Miriam Goldberg, and published by Kumarian Press.
Goldberg and Blancke have published and presented on this topic. Below are links to their presentations and handouts from the last three years, and then a description of the goals of the book from the introduction.
Their presentation from the Association for Conflict Resolution (ACR) conference, 2011 summarized Goldberg's research and presented a new framework for multidimensional practice. For a pdf of the PowerPoint, click here:
Their presentation at ACR 2012 built on the work presented in 2011 to share tools and techniques from our practice and other disciplines that could be used in conflict transformation work to support multidimensional practice. For a pdf of the PowerPoint, click here:
For a copy of the handouts, click here:
Dr. Goldberg brought together five practitioner authors from the book in a panel presentation at ACR 2013. The handout combines a summary of the goals of the book, a brief summary of the research, the 'framework for multidimensional work', developed by Goldberg and Blancke, and bios of the presenters, their beliefs on the importance of the work, and brief descriptions of their chapters. for a copy of the handout, click here:
From the Introduction to the book:
This book is an exploration of a relatively new set of frontiers in the Conflict Resolution, pushing boundaries in a way that has been somewhat marginalized in the field. The boundaries in question are the spirituality, religion, body, and emotions of the practitioner and the parties. Nor are the concerns that promoted the marginalization unreasonable. Like all new fields in creation, we argue over different ideals and approaches, Transformative Mediation versus Evaluative Mediation, and even, what this concept of mediation means. However, the one thing all of us can agree on is that one of the core tasks of any kind of practice is to support the self-determination of parties…If the faith, body, or emotions of an practitioner leads to an imposition of the practitioner's agenda on parties, it breaks the core of our work.
What if, conversely, by holding to rigid norms of neutrality, we are actually shutting down needs that are core to the parties? For instance, by side-stepping the faith of the parties as an aspect of a conflict because, we, as interveners, as uncomfortable with it (despite the fact that the parties feel it is important)? Or ignoring the emotions in the room in order to get back to the task? Aren't those, also, ways of damaging the self-determination of parties? In my research, I found that the field of Psychology has forged a path far ahead of Conflict Resolution, and, in fact, respect for the spirituality and religion of parties is now listed in the code of ethics for psychologists, such that ignoring it is considered a breach of good practice. This book is an exploration of what my colleague Dr. Blancke and I are calling multi-dimensional practice - asking what it would look like to bring more of ourselves to the table, and make space for parties to do so, as well. Needless to say, the most controversial part of this is: faith.
The goal of this book is to examine both theoretically and through the work of practitioners, what it looks like to hold two difficult and important goals: to engage ourselves as peacemakers with our whole selves, and to do so in a way that is dedicated to protecting the self-determination of parties. In exploring these goals, the book undertakes three tasks: 1) to introduce an argument for the plausibility of wholeness as practitioners and a framework for considering that concept, 2) to present the thoughts and practices of excellent practitioners who are peacemakers in a multi-dimensional way, 3) and to reflect on what those practitioners tell us about this moment in the field by considering their work through our framework.
The case psychology and the authors in this book are making is that the faith and multiple intelligences, the wholeness, of the practitioner may be a resource worth cultivating. And certainly, there is sufficient research that being fractured is not functional. Research on trauma and abuse survivors shows that disassociation, distancing, removing oneself from an abused body and shattered emotions, while a not uncommon response to trauma, is a damaging and unhealthy way to live (Thompson, 1994; Yoder, 2005). Eventually the abuse survivor needs to reintegrate mind, body, and emotions, in order to live a healthy life. Interestingly, the research on trauma also suggests that those who practice regular meditation have a developed frontal cortex, and are less likely to draw entirely from the amgdala (the lizard brain), responding to threat with a capacity for rationality instead of a flight-fight-avoid response. Schirch feels that much of the world's religious practices are about helping one develop this capacity (Schirch lecture, 2013).
As conflict resolvers, we have a strange job: we help people find the capacity in themselves to believe they can talk to their enemies, recover from their wounds, and rebuild their societies, when all around them are the signs of their previous destructive circumstances. And on one level, having faith is actually the root of all change -- believing in something new before it has manifested. John Paul Lederach calls this the 'moral imagination', which he defines as “the capacity to imagine something rooted in the challenges of the real world yet capable of giving birth to that which does not yet exist” (2005, p. ix). It is, he feels, the capacity which allows humans to:
…transcend the cycles of violence that bewitch our human community while still living in them...Stated simply, the moral imagination requires the capacity to imagine ourselves in a web of relationships that includes our enemies; the ability to sustain a paradoxical curiosity that embraces complexity without reliance on dualistic polarity; the fundamental belief in and pursuit of the creative act; and the acceptance of the inherent risk of stepping into the mystery of the unknown that lies beyond the all too familiar landscape of violence. (p. 5)
For Lederach this capacity goes beyond any skills, techniques, and processes our field encompasses to address what Bowling calls presence - who we are, instead of what we do.
This book talks about the need to take these ideas seriously for practitioners. If one of the things we have to offer is bringing peace into the room, as Bowling and Hoffman have argued, what does that looks like?
Bowling and Hoffman (2003) note that there is no real formal training in how to develop presence. This book focuses on how conflict resolvers can work to develop 'presence' and how they can draw on multiple intelligences to transcend the limits of the situations in which they find themselves, and in the limits they place on themselves. The topic is, then, how practitioners and theologians and others who study or engage conflict, can cultivate these abilities in themselves.
The new, multi-dimensional framework for understanding integrated practice provides a way to think about conflict resolution practice and how multiple intelligences (cognitive, somatic, emotional, and spiritual) can be incorporated into the work. The book begins with two theoretical chapters that summarize reseach into how these quesitons are being responded to in psychology and law, followed by chapters written by conflict resolution practitioners, introducing the reader to conflict resolvers who are already creating extraordinary practice by doing multi-dimensional work to transform conflicts. The book presents the theories, orientations, and principles of these interveners, case stories from their work showing how those ideas really work in practice, and practical techniques and exercises that the reader can apply in their own practice.
The reader will leave with an understanding of tools and methods to engage emotional intelligence, somatic intelligence, how to respect the spiritual knowledge of the parties, and with techniques to develop their capacity as a practitioner.
References
Bowling, D. and D. Hoffman. eds. 2003. Bringing Peace Into the Room: How the Personal Qualities of the Mediator Impact the Process of Conflict Resolution. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Goldberg, R. and Blancke B., “God in the Process: Is there a place for Religion in conflict resolution? Conflict Resolution Quarterly, Volume 28, Issue 4, due in print 7/15/2011.
Goldberg, R. "How our worldviews shape our practices." Conflict Resolution Quarterly, 2009, 26 (4), 405-431.
Lederach, John Paul. 2005. The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Thompson, Becky W. 1994. A Hunger So Wide and So Deep: A Multiracial View of Women's Eating Disorders. Minneapolis, MD: University of Minnesota Press.
Yoder, Carolyn. 2005. The Little Book of Trauma Healing: When Violence Strikes and Community Security is Threatened. Intercourse, PA: Good Books.