Finding Tranquility Through Mediation
Finding Tranquility Through Mediation
BY ANTHONY MUNDAY
“I regard mediation as a therapeutic process. It is my professional responsibility to ensure that it takes place in ‘a safe space‘ for all participants.” says mediator Tony Munday. He explains how he deals with conflicts that have often been festering for years and leave people struck, stressed and traumatised.
In mediation, my purpose is to deliver tranquillity out of trauma. This is a strong statement that reflects the reality of the participants that I see. My area of speciality is workplace mediation; particularly working with conflicted senior teams. The impact of the corrosive toxicity that subsequently seeps through the organisation, can well be imagined. Workplace Conflict that has persisted over months and, in some cases, years, leaves people traumatised by their experience.
I regard mediation as a therapeutic process. It is my professional responsibility to ensure that it takes place in ‘a safe space ‘for all participants. This requires the venue for our mediation process, to be both neutral for the participants (not part of the estate of the organisation in which they work), and conducive to a professional, but relaxing environment. These aspects assist the diffusion of the state of the participants., from an initial sense of concern and sometimes trepidation, to one of positive engagement with the process and the mediator.
My mediation process includes an ‘icebreaker’ stage before the individual meeting. The principal purpose is to develop authentic rapport between the mediator and the individual participant. There is no discussion of the subject matters of the mediation. The participant is not accompanied by a friend or staff association representative.
