Volume 7 – 2014, No. 2

One of the fields in which conflict mediation is developing further is that of organizations, and its goal is to become a suitable tool for both organizational change and conflict resolution so that they primarily recognize its origin in the work being done by the members within the organization. This article reviews the state of the art regarding organizational change through facilitation while proposing appreciative mediation as a possible methodology through which mediation could be introduced in the organizational field. 

The mediation space, which is where a conflict is dealt with, should be the first thing the mediator needs to attend to. He has to consider three aspects, the three C: The first C, as in Comfort, is analyzed according to 4 different moments that go from the initial framework –through the «returning moment» based on the delegation of power, discourse and prominence– to exploratory and generative conversations, before reaching the settlement phase. Also, he has to prepare an adequate psychological space; this requires a positive personal connection to the parties and between them. These three aspects will be shown through international mediation cases in which the author participated.

The contribution of two models is presented in this article, Party-Directed Mediation (PDM) and Negotiated Performance Appraisal (NPA) to deal with peer mediation and hierarchical mediation, respectively. Somewhat controversial tools are used such as pre-caucus and joint session in which the neutral sits apart from the parties –at a distance of four meters– thus reducing interference. An effort is made to help the parties to take more responsibility to resolve their own conflicts and offer them tools to do so, after listening to them empathically during the pre-caucus. Both models are especially useful for dealing with deep seated interpersonal conflict. Originally, they were used as organizational mediation models.

In family cases, the source of a fragmented institutional intervention is the scientific linear orthodoxy, a diversity of rules and regulation and a variety of protocols. In this framework, the different social bodies and practitioners have their own agenda that aims at part of the family system with no communicating vessels that enable to cast an all-encompassing meta-look to the concerned family.

This is a reflective paper on the mediation in the context of multi-issue families as a hub in a network of other approach methods. The analysis focuses on the arguments proposed by some theoretical and epistemological frameworks on which the aforementioned mentioned proposal is based on.

In this article we intend to analyse mediation in the Portuguese legal system. We shall start by analysing its basic characteristics, to present further its field of action at a public level – public systems of specialized mediation and the mediation public systems at the Justice of the peace level – to conclude with a brief analysis of the latest piece of legislation passed in this regard: Act 13/2013 of 13 April.