Content area
Full Text
STRATEGIC MEDIATION:STRATEGIES IN SERVICE OF FAMILY EMPOWERMENT
by Thomas W. Blwne" and Jerome A. Price"
ABSTRACT
An approach combining strategic therapy withfamily mediation is proposed/or the extremely conflictual divorcing couple. Utilizing the different skills and different expectations of two specialists working as a team, this strategic approach is organized to emphasize stabilizing or destabilizing interventions at different times.
Several authors (Gadlin & Oulette, 1987; Grebe, 1986; Saposnek, 1983) have attempted to merge the tradition of family mediation with that of strategic family therapy. But no single work can encompass the possibilities inherent in this merger. Strategic therapy itself is a broad tradition with many variations and component techniques, and therefore the term is inadequate to define a particular approach. Mediation as well is varied and complex, with a rich assortment of approaches which often reflect the influence of one or the other "founding fathers" of the field, Coogler (1978) or Haynes (1981; 1982). This paper presents, then, one specific type of strategic mediation.
The mediation literature documents ongoing debates over two significant issues. The ftrst, and historically older, issue concerns the appropriateness and/or ethical status of a mediator's use of therapeutic techniques. The majority of mediators seem to oppose such "mixing" of therapy and mediation, although their arguments tend to focus on the insight - oriented therapies (Dworkin, Jacob, & Scott, 1991). Our approach, therefore, joins those of a small number of authors (e.g. Marlow, 1985; Milne, 1988) who have suggested that the therapist's full range of strengths should be utilized in service of the goals of mediation.
The second major issue relates to mediating with the violent family. Increasingly, mediators have come to take the position that mediation is inappropriate when there is a history of violence. This position results from a view of the violence-exposed family member as too easily manipulated by threats. Screening for violence has been proposed as a way to protect clients from being inappropriately
This paper is an expansion of a workshop presented at the 1992 Annual Conference of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, Miami Beach. Florida.
Thames W. Blume is Associate Professor of Addiction Studies at the University of Detroit Mercy, P.O. Box 19900, Detroit, Mi 48219 and in private practice in Birmingham, Michigan.
......