Aspects of Grief in Conflict: Re-Visioning Response to Dispute

MICHAEL J. EVANS

MARCIA TYLER-EVANS

Although there are multiple theories on the causes o f conjlict and meth- ods of managing dispute, one factor is not explicitly discussed: gri$]ust as griefattend the physical loss of a loved one, it ah0 attend the loss associated with conjlict. Whether the loss is theposition as winner, part- ner, provider, or good neighbor, being deprived of that identity is emo- tionally threatening. Gri4affects the person: ability to finetion within the resolution process. By learning to acknowledge and allow expressions o f grief within the conflict process, we increase our ability to promote resolution.

ere are multiple theories on the causes of conflict and the alternative T“ methods of resolving dispute. Moving through the gamut of causes, such as resources, position, power, and identity, we intertwine interest- based, narrative-based, and identity-based resolution methods. Then we add the options of facilitation, mediation, arbitration, and the ever-popular litigation. Each approach and theory adds to the knowledge and scope of possible methods for viewing and managing conflict. Two more perspec- tives are discussed: grief and anticipatory grief.

James and Friedman (1988) describe grief as a natural and normal response to loss. The list of losses they describe includes divorce, financial change, retirement, legal problems, and loss of relationship. Add to this small list the situations that create anticipatory grief, including job or income loss and dislocation from your home, and the possibilities grow. Gergen (1 994) observes that “when a conflict is resolved, we are insensitive to the suffering in the wings” (p. 58).

CONFLICT RISOLUTION QUARTERLY, “01. 20, no. 1, Fall 2002 0 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 83

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Errante (1 777) points out that the act of peacemaking becomes grief work when resolution is approaching. In the midst of conflict, particularly a protracted one, the disputants develop survival strategies allowing them to continue with life despite the conflict. Once the dispute is resolved, all sides of the situation must change their coping behavior again to the new reality. Grief accompanies the loss of previously successful behaviors just as in all loss settings.

The layers of conflict that have significance in relationship to the pres- ence of grief include interest and identity. Interest-based conflict has to do with allocation of or access to resources (Stitt, 1978). Identity-based con- flict creates a threat to the foundational view the person has of himself or herself, such as provider, competent person, valued individual, or being not a victim (Rothman, 1777). Issues overlay each of these settings and are the presenting symptoms of the interest and identity problems.

Defining Grief

Grief is defined as “keen mental suffering or distress over afflictions or loss; sharp sorrow, painful regret.” Freud (1735) describes griefas “a perfect example of an affective fixation upon something that is past, and . . . it involves a state of complete alienation from the present and the future” (p. 244). Still, knowing the technical definition does not help to understand the experience of grief and how it is manifested. Bridges (I 976) identifies the losses leading to grief: attachment, turf, structure, future, meaning, and con- trol, among others. This list applies to all aspects of change or conflict that we encounter.

Noer (1 773) asserts that how a grief experience is expressed within an organizational change setting is a leading cause of organizational conflict. We lack sufficient training or permission, within American culture, to outwardly express grief over the nonphysical losses noted by Bridges (1776). The grief over loss manifests as changes in organizational func- tioning. Managers comment about decreasing morale, suggesting loss of a sense of common purpose, enthusiasm, confidence, and even loyalty to the group. As the sense of loss remains unresolved, disagreement becomes more frequent. Problems that were once discussed among coworkers, now erupt into argument that leaves all the group members who are involved angry and isolated. Or people talk at each other without really communi- cating; workers appear to listen but do not hear what is said (Bridges, 1976).

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As Kiibler-Ross (1975) notes, the person experiencing grief also suffers sleep loss, diminished optimism, and feelings of guilt associated with the grief response. These emotional responses demonstrate as changes in behavior and the person’s sense of well-being. An increase in alcohol or drug consumption or a sudden change of weight may occur. Unusual and excessive anger responses and sudden crying can appear as well. Finally, the person’s ability to perform critical thinking skills is impaired.

Anticipatory Grief

When we experience an ongoing loss, anticipatory grief comes into play. Kubler-Ross (1975) and Bowlby (1980) both discuss the experience involved when a loss is anticipated but not yet completed. Kubler-Ross (1975) worked with terminally ill patients. Her research dealt with patients recently informed of their terminal illness, as they worked through antici- pation of their final loss. Listing the now-famous stages of grief (anger, denial, bargaining, depression, and acceptance), Kubler-Ross ( 1 975) delin- eated the process of anticipatory grief.

Bowlby (1980) speaks to the concept of the phases of mourning (or grief) in relationship to the parents of fatally ill children (p. 115). The phases Bowlby presents are numbing, disbelief and trying to reverse the outcome, and disorganization and reorganization. A careful look at the phases of mourning (Bowlby, 1980) and the stages of grief (Kubler-Ross, 1975) suggests a corollary with the anticipated grief experienced by the per- son facing a potential loss owing to conflict.

Some explanation is appropriate regarding the terminology used. When Kubler-Ross (1975) speaks of denial, she is referring to the idea of not being able to accept the situation. This is similar to the employee or spouse in a dispute who says, “I just can’t believe this is happening.” The person is not denying the existence of the situation but instead expressing a mental difficulty with accepting it. In a like manner, Bowlby (1 980) uses the term numbing, The result of experiencing numbing is inability to cog- nitively process the concept of the factual future. In the conflict setting, the disputant who seems stuck at the stage of discovering that the conflict exists may delay or derail effort to move toward resolution.

The important difference between the experience of grief and antici- patory grief is the availability of options. The person who has already experienced loss of a relationship or identity faces the options’ of how to manage the outcome of the dispute. The person actively engaged in a

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process building toward conflict is dealing with options in regard to an ongoing process. The spouse who has just been informed that a divorce is approaching is faced with ongoing and future loss. For the spouse respon- sible for announcing the decision, the loss and grief experience is already present.

Noer (1 993) describes discussion with members of organizations who give another perspective. One executive comments that he goes home every night and “I wonder am I going to be here tomorrow, the next day, or three days from now?” A clerical worker says, “I find it frightening. At my age, I would really hate to go out and walk the sidewalks. I wouldn’t even know which sidewalk to start on” (pp. 54-55). These are both good examples of an expression of anticipatory grief.

How Grief Affects Conflict

One characteristic of grief is that it is uniquely personal. Whether we speak about a pair of disputants or a family dealing with a personal loss, the expe- rience is unique to each person involved. Siblings in the same family view the loss process individually, as do members of a group that is dissolving. The spouses in a divorce or the partners in a business each have a distinct perception of the relationship that drives the conflict and grief process. Because of this, grief within the conflict setting complicates the human aspects of the resolution process; grief prolongs or obstructs progress toward conflict resolution.

This leads to an important consideration for us as conflict managers and workers. The primary concern becomes, When do we need to add the impact of grief into our dealing with conflict and the individual disputants? Which settings are suggestive of a need to consider grief experiences, and which are not suggestive of this aspect of conflict?

When Grief May Be a Consideration

In a conflict situation, grief brings into focus three aspects of the ongoing dispute. The first is the depth of the relationship. Depth involves the per- ceived investment made by all of the participants. Located at the shallow end of the scale we encounter the new car buyer who has never dealt with a particular dealership before. The buyer may be dissatisfied with the car’s performance or the final financial arrangement. In this case, the disputants share a superficial relationship. The salesperson and the customer have

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never met before and have invested few hours in their interaction. The need to resolve is based on surface-level issues and interests.

Comparatively, the fleet customer who has purchased forty vehicles from the same dealership creates a deeper relationship with the company. Now we are dealing with a setting in which both the dealership and the buyer have a greater investment. The buyer demonstrates a level of trust and expectation far beyond that of the one-time buyer. The salesperson has a stake in the relationship thanks to the ongoing income for the deal- ership and the salesperson herself.

Breadth refers to the longevity of the disputants’ relationship. Essen- tially, the longer the relational experience between the parties, the greater the potential for the grief component. In the automotive example, the first- time buyer and the salesperson have a short-term relationship without pre- vious history. The repeat fleet buyer has established a history with the organization and therefore deeper identification with the outcome of a dis- agreement. The same holds true with a ten-year intimate relationship or an employment history of five to ten years.

Finally there is the level of commitment to the ongoing relationship. In a long-term relationship, there is more at stake than the content of the dis- pute. If a commitment exists to salvage the connection between the disputants, the possibility of losing that connection leads to anticipatory grief. This is frequently experienced within a deeply emotional relationship such as a marriage. A major component of the commitment to relation- ship involves the identity issues within the interaction.

Clearly, grief arises as future uncertainty and the threat of loss of an identity or a relationship to which we are committed increase. In a con- tract dispute (say, having a house built), the commitment ends once the contract is fulfilled. A dispute in that setting usually remains at the plateau of issues and interests. A dispute over renewal of a labor contract carries an intention to maintain the relationship. In fact, the entire purpose is to determine how the current situation can be maintained and strengthened. If negotiations move toward deadlock and possible dissolution of the rela- tionship, the anticipation and experience of grief expands.

The Role of Grief in Conflict

Just as conflict is neither good nor bad, the same holds true with grief in a dispute. The impact, whether positive or negative, depends on how the grieving process moves toward closure as the resolution is accomplished.

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When Errante (1999) proposes that peace work may become grief work, she refers to ongoing grief or chronic grief.

When a griever is not allowed or encouraged to express feelings of emo- tional loss, the emotions linger. Much like an ignored infection, the grief goes deeper into the person’s emotional makeup, often amplifying other emotions such as anger, frustration, bitterness, and despair. With the escalation of the emotional aspect of conflict, our ability to promote inter- active problem resolution weakens. As the cycle of anger, despair, and sad- ness becomes magnified, cognitive examination of the ongoing problem becomes of secondary importance for the person. Accompanying the mag- nification process is growing resistance to resolution, as the person becomes more entrenched in self-protection and even a desire for retribution.

Acknowledging and supporting the grief experience offers a positive influence by promoting the forward movement required for resolution and closure (Bridges, 1996). Expressing the emotional response to loss may lessen the sense of loss. Because few relationships are 100 percent negative, releasing the strength of the mourning allows for recognition of the posi- tive aspect of the now-conflicted relationship. As conflict management focuses on obtaining the best possible outcome for all parties, this realign- ment of emotion supports working through to resolution.

As Bar-Levav (1988) explains, open expression of the hurt caused by loss is an opportunity for clarification and healing within the relationship. Perception can be reexamined with the input of the other person and mis- interpretation corrected. The other person is given a chance to gain under- standing of the griever’s actions. Once anger or isolation is exposed as a reaction to grief, the disputants gain a more complete picture of behaviors that may have appeared to come out of nowhere.

Identifying Grief

Ask most of the people if they have ever experienced grief and they will probably respond, “Yes, that was when (fill in the blank) died.” We iden- tify grief with death. Amazingly, this concept is not far from the point when considering grief in conflict. Among the primary losses in a dispute are a close relationship, security, a stable lifestyle, and self-identity.

When we hear that someone has experienced a personal loss, we are pretty sure we will see signs of crying from the griever. We would not expect him to be laughing or telling ribald jokes (although inappropriate emotions are also part of the grief cascade).

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How people demonstrate grief varies by culture and belief system. The most common sign of grieving is tearfulness. Red and swollen eyes, dabbing away of tears, and sobbing tell us that someone is expressing her grief. One controlling factor is how we are socialized as males and females in our cultural community and family. Experience working within a hos- pital setting shows that men are generally more reserved about expressing feelings of loss. One often sees a male clenching his teeth and avoiding looking at the person associated with the loss; he looks away toward a neutral space or downward. A man usually speaks of the loss in controlled and measured sentences, lapsing into silence if the emotional feelings become too strong.

In contrast, women tend to cry more openly, while verbalizing their sense of loss and grief. Men often stand next to a fellow griever with a hand resting gently on the other person’s arm or shoulder. Women tend to openly hug, as if physically supporting the other’s grief.

However, when it comes to conflict the rules seem to change. Outward expressions that say “I am grieving because of this experience” are not encouraged outside of private conversation. Open expression of grieving over a loss related to a dispute is often seen as a sign of weakness that may be exploited by the other side. So we hide our response behind safe behav- ior. As mentioned before, anger and frustration are common expressions of underlying grief. The anger response most often appears out of proportion to the surface content of the conflict.

Rehsing to talk about the foundation of the dispute can also signal unex- pressed grief, When the details of the conflict are brought to the surface, the grief is dragged along with them. Only by avoiding the specifics can a person avoid feeling the deep sense of loss he is attempting to suppress. Avoidance can mean refusing to meet with the other party, forcing the conflict manager into a form of shuttle diplomacy. Another example is the client who can recite every detail leading up to the dispute but cannot begin to move into the res- olution process.

Refusing to accept responsibility for at least part of the dispute also sig- nals unaddressed grief; it is too painful to admit to being a party to the cur- rent situation. This may be expressed through excessive blaming or holding to a victim position, expressed in repeated statements such as, “How can you do this to me?” A related behavior is refusal to talk about the origin of the problem, focusing instead on “getting this over with.” This response is a method of bargaining for something that will make the associated grief easier to deal with later.

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Frequently, a person has trouble making complex decisions. Asking for clarification on how she views the dispute may be answered readily, while trying to articulate what outcome she wants does not go beyond “I just want this over.” This aspect is also exhibited when disputants are asked to present possible approaches to resolving the dispute. A person who appears articu- late and intelligent but is unable to offer any idea for resolution is experi- encing grief that interferes with her ability to think critically and creatively.

Looking for causes of the grief experience frequently preoccupies the person. Asking “Why has this happened?” may occur repeatedly. Technical answers do not satisfy him. Why? Because, technical answers only explain how, and not why. Just because the company registered record losses in the last two quarters does not explain why he has to lose his job. The accom- panying question is, “Why didn’t it happen to someone else?”

The onset of grief results in absentmindedness, confusion, and feelings of panic. People experience the sensation of shortness of breath or a rapid heart rate when trying to work toward resolution. All of these experiences are known as psychosomatic symptoms, because they result from an emo- tional response to a situation. Although they are usually not life threaten- ing, such complaints should not be ignored. The symptoms signal that the loss associated with the dispute is very strong.

The final setting is where the person expresses no grief at all. In the case of a one-time relationship, as noted earlier, this may be appropriate. How- ever, when dealing with a long-term relationship such as a marriage, certain employee disputes, organizational downsizing, or community conflict, this behavior merits deeper exploration. Considering the heavy emotional impact of grief on the individual, we should not be surprised to find that some people just do not want to deal with it. The problem that arises, as Bar-Levav (1988) points out, is that a suppressed loss or grief emotion leads to escalating anger response. If the person who does not appear to show any signs of loss demonstrates a high level of anger or impatience with the res- olution process, buried grief is probably the root of the behavior.

Examples in Conflict

Reviewing the preceding, you may recognize some of the same behaviors among clients in your practice. Whether we are dealing with dispute in a family, at work, or with a neighbor, we frequently encounter the same responses-such as the spouse who can’t seem to come to a decision, the ex-employee who just sits there and cries, or the neighbor who refuses to talk to another.

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Consider a worker‘s compensation case, where the employee, a twenty- year welder for a steel firm, demands a large monetary settlement. You are called in to try to prevent costly litigation, so you interview the employee. During the interview, he expresses the idea that the employer just doesn’t care about him. Let‘s play this out in a scenario:

MEDIATOR: Why do you believe that? EMPLOYEE: Because I’ve become one of their best welders and now they

just want to kick me out with a check that won’t last six months. How am I supposed to support my son in college and my wife?

The normal response, considering an interest-based approach, would be to think that the employee’s main concern is loss of income and worry over supporting his family. Those aspects are legitimate in the situation, but deeper review reveals a larger picture. Identity-based conflict the- ory (Rothman, 1997) looks at what identity need is threatened. In this scenario, we could say that the person’s identity as breadwinner is at stake. In addition, the identity of “the best” is also threatened. From a grief per- spective, the worker is saying, “Two parts of me are about to die.” The grief issue is about the permanent loss of a part of the worker’s function- ing identity. The loss associates with relinquishing long-established coping mechanisms. The surface negotiation frames into monetary terms. How can we now address the grief issue that is hidden in the sur- face anger? Let‘s continue with some examples before we answer that question.

Now consider one of the hardest settings, a family dispute and divorce. In this case study, we are dealing with the wife, although these feelings are common to both sides. We’re called in to help the couple work through division of assets as well as establishing custody and visitation rights. When you start the initial intake with the wife, she says something along the lines of “I can’t believe this is happening. How could this happen? Now I’m going to lose my house, the one I decorated and cleaned for fifteen years. And the kids, what are they going to think of me if I let their father have them half of the time? I was the one who was always there.” The scenario unfolds something like this:

MEDIATOR: So, you are worried about losing the house and how the

WIFE: Of course I’m worried; my whole life has been in that house and division of custody will affect the children.

my children. What am I supposed to do now?

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The surface, interest-based ideas are security in her established home life and how the children will deal with the custody issues. The identity-based concerns include being the woman of the house and the constantly present provider for the children. From a grief perspective, she is anticipating the loss of the secure base she identifies with owning the house. In addition, she fears loss of identity as primary caregiver of her children. The dual identi- ties of “mistress of the house” and center of her children’s lives are threat- ened. She is also losing the long-established coping behaviors associated with marriage and motherhood. Although the surface issues involve who is going to gain and who will control, the anticipatory grief issue is how to respond to the loss.

Working with Grief in a Dispute

As a conflict management professional, you are not expected to take on a new field and learn about grief and grief recovery If you are a social worker or counselor, you already practice some of the skills we address. For the rest of us, the main point is learning how to work with grief associated with dispute.

The strength of conflict resolution processes is that they are already formulated to allow for the aspect of grief in dispute. With the focus on problems, not people, resolution practitioners are prepared to include this part of the human experience with conflict. Eliciting the story, or history, of a conflict situation is the same starting place for discovering the grief intricately tied to the dispute.

The greatest strength that we bring to this aspect of conflict is the depth of our ability to listen. In conflict, the people involved most want to know they are heard. So listening to the grief that accompanies loss is a strong statement of empathy and connection. The most frequent response we encounter is generalized in the idea that, once the grief aspect is acknowl- edged and accepted, the disputants are better prepared to move forward.

When you find yourself working with grief as one aspect of dispute, there are some things you can do and some you can not. Grief in a conflict situation, as in any loss setting, is a natural and normal response. In gen- eral, the conflict resolution process does not go on long enough to resolve the grief issues, so don’t try. One primary principle of dealing with grief is that the griever is not broken, so don’t try to fix the person Uames and Friedman, 1988).

When dealing with grief, one of the first desires is to make it better. Peo- ple experiencing a loss hear at least 117 statements of condolence during

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the first seventy-two hours. Of those 1 17, only 2 1 (1 8 percent) will actually be perceived as helpful (James and Friedman, 1988). People say things like, “Don’t think about how bad it is; think about the good times.” Exactly what do we think the worker who has just lost a job after twenty years is thinking about?

The same holds true with a spouse facing a divorce. In divorce, one partner sees it as the funeral of the relationship; the other sees the approach- ing loss. The partner grieving the death considers it a current loss. Some of us might be tempted to say, “But you have three beautiful children. Think about the future you could make for them.” Again, what do you suppose they are thinking about as they face dispute over custody?

Another approach to making it better is trying to get them to think about the future. A response we have often heard is, “Don’t think about the past, and let’s work on the future.” The past is where the grief experience and the dispute live. Every time a person enters a conflict management set- ting, she is dealing with events from the past. Telling her to ignore the past and focus on the future requires that she try to ignore loss of part of her existence. Tv to mentally erase the last ten years of your life, and you get a small example of what this person is being asked to do in her life.

Finally, time is the great healer. One frequent piece of advice grievers receive, regardless of the setting, is that time heals all wounds. Imagine attending a meeting and one of your colleagues falls, breaking his arm. Would you step past him and suggest that it only takes time to get better? How long is long enough?

The presentation of grief within the conflict is subtle and protected. However, as the list in Table 1 shows, there are signs that the conflict prac- titioner can recognize.

What We Can Do

How do we include grief in the panoply of experiences we deal with in dis- pute resolution? The most important idea is awareness of grief as a part of conflict. For many dispute scenarios, there is a layer that expresses grief or anticipation of grief. Ignoring grief may well result in protracted resolu- tion efforts because the root feelings are ignored. The bigger settlement may be the surface goal of the client; the underlying cause is anticipatory loss of the role of provider.

First, we need to overcome our socialized tendency to avoid the concept of grief and dealing with a grieving person. As humans, most of us are

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Table 1. Signs of Grief in a Dispute Setting

Verbalizations, Repeated frequently

I just can‘t believe that this

I just can’t get past what happened.

Why did it have to happen to me?

Everything is lost now.

Behavior, Ongoing Without Change

Distracted and unable to concentrate

Unable to perform critical thinking required for option building and so forth

Rapid breathing or complaints of chest tightness when discussing the dispute

Red eyes, unexplained loss or gain in weight

has happened.

I just can’t thinkabout it now. Frequent, forceful expressions of anger, usually out of proportion to the situation

I’m sure I could do better if I could

Let’s just get it over with. I don’t care

Avoidance of the resolution setting

Sleeplessness just get some more rest.

what happens anymore.

uncomfortable with someone else’s emotions of loss. This results in such well-meant action as leaving the person alone to pull himself together. We express respect for someone who demonstrates stoic control during a grief experience; meanwhile we believe that someone who expresses grief out- wardly and strongly has somehow lost it.

The second step is to follow the person’s lead. If he talks only about sur- face issues, you can’t assume any grief component. However, if he reveals the issues living at the grief level, you should acknowledge them. If he gives an opening, our first response must be to acknowledge that his experience is unique. The second response is to identify what this situation means to the person. Using the opening statement “No one knows what this is like for you” is a powerful door opener. It doesn’t matter that millions of divorces occur every year; no one else has gone through this divorce. Hun- dreds of thousands of workers are injured every year, and none of them was this client.

Third, avoid fixing mode and trying to make it better. The person is not broken, though she is grieving. Efforts to fix someone emotionally can result in loss of confidence. This is because the only basis we have for fixing is our own experience, and we have never lost her job or her marriage. This means an open expression of empathy is welcome, but fixing is not. This simple act frequently results in an opening of the emotional floodgates. Just sit and lis- ten. Once you open the door to expressing grief, you must be prepared to

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stay and hear what is to be said. There is no time limit on unburdening someone’s feeling of grief. If you must restrict the time, do s-with the promise to return to the discussion, and then live up to that promise. The pay off is the release of some of the emotional charge allowing her to work effectively with you. The energy released from grieving then becomes available for healing, and by extension resolution (Mount, 2000).

Finally, look at conflict and the associated grief as layers of the same experience. Conflict comes to dispute resolution with a presenting prob- lem, which can be a symptom of the underlying identity and grief issues. Dividing a couple’s assets during mediation is the surface, interest-based issue. In most cases, the interest-based issues are explored in relation to physical equity such as division of property or compensation for long- term employment (Stitt, 1998). In contrast to an interest-based issue, an identity-based issue speaks to the unsatisfied or threatened personal needs of the disputant (Rothman, 1997). Identity-based issues, which dwell at the second layer, bring forward the grief components residing in the third layer. Returning to the previous scenario with a wife going through divorce, let’s apply this concept as an example of mining deeper layers of the dispute.

The first layer, as already discussed, is the presenting problem to be resolved (property division and child custody). As difficult as dividing up the products of a marriage can be, it is frequently less mentally and emo- tionally challenging than addressing the threatened, deeply held identity needs. In our example, the threatened identity needs are woman of the house and the primary source of parenting for the children.

Eliciting identity-based issues is tricky. First, most people seldom revisit a need once it has been satisfied. For this wife, the need to be the woman of the house was satisfied several years ago, and it is now assumed that it will continue to be satisfied. The same applies to her role as the primary presence in her children’s lives. Thus, with the advent of the divorce, these needs are forced to the surface in a state of threat and the loss of previously effective coping behaviors. The threat of loss brings forward the grief response.

Grief, the third layer, can be actual or anticipatory. In the case of a divorce, where the couple is down to dividing everything up, the loss is definite and the grief is actual and real. In the injured worker case, the loss of identity as supporter of the family and being the best at what he does is also final. In both cases, the relationship attached to the identity needs has been terminated. In a case of dispute with a neighbor, where a

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conflict arises between people who are neighbors and friends, the grief of a loss of relationship is anticipatory. The relationship is injured but it still exists, and it may well hinge on the outcome of the conflict manage- ment process.

Conflict resolution and management methods are well suited to includ- ing grief as part of the resolution process. The focus on listening strength- ens our ability to connect with all levels of the dispute, including the layers of grief or anticipatory grief. Emphasis on problems, not people, reinforces an environment that is accepting and supportive of expressing the emo- tions of loss within the conflict venue.

When dealing with grief in a conflicted situation, the first point to remember is that you are not there to fix the parties. Your client is experi- encing a natural response to a deeply emotional event. Although you are unable to fix his grief, you can empathize with him. Acknowledging that his situation is unique, you create the opportunity to express the grieving part of conflict. Then you have to listen. Just the chance to tell someone about his grief feelings decreases the emotional load and improves his abil- ity to participate in ongoing conflict resolution.

References

Bar-Levav, R. Thinking in the Shadow of Feelings: A New Understanding of the Hid- den Forces That Shape Individuals and Socieq New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988.

Bowlby, J. Attachment and Loss. &I. 3: Loss, Sadness and Depression. New York: Basic Books, 1980.

Bridges, W. Surviving Corporate Transition: Rational Management in a World of Mergers, Start-ups, Takeovers, Layofi, Divestitures, Deregulation and New Tech- nologies (5th ed.). Mill Valley, Calif.: William Bridges and Associates, 1996.

Errante, A. “Peace Work as Grief Work in Mozambique and South Africa: Post Conflict Communities as Context for Child and Youth Socialization.” Peace and Con& 1999,5 (3), 261-281.

Freud, S. A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis (J. Riviere, trans.). New York: Liveright, 1935.

Gergen, K. Realities and Relationships: Soundings in Social Construction. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994.

James, J., and Friedman, R. The Grief Recovery Outreach Program. Los Angeles: Grief Recovery Institute, 1988.

Kiibler-Ross, E. Death: The Final Stage of Growth. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1975.

Mount, B. Lessons on Living from the Dying. Paper presented at WCCM Inter- national Centre Conference, Ontario, Canada, 2000.

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Noer, D. Healing the Wound: Overcoming the Trauma of Layofi and Revitalizing

Rothman, J. Resolving Identity-Based Conjicts in Nations, organizations, and Com-

Stitt, A. Alternative Dispute Resolution for Organizations: How to Design a System

Downsized Organizations. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1 993.

munities. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1997.

for Effective ConfEict Resolution. New York: Wiley, 1998.

Michael J. Evans is a new 200 1 member of the Association for Conflict Res- olution; he has been a certified mediator since 1996 and is a certified grief recovery specialist.

Marcia Tyler-Evans is a new 2001 member of the Association Conflict Res- olution; she is a certified mediator.