Emotions, frustration, and conflict: emotional detection as a hinge for reaching agreement in mediation

Abstract

Emotions in mediation processes as an alternative method of conflict resolution and/or transformation are of vital importance throughout the entire process. The detection, identification and naming of the encapsulated and latent emotion in the parties involved in the conflict and even in the mediator in such case will be the key to disintegrating the frustration derived from the unsatisfied needs which have evolved in a conflict of a priori interest. The detection of emotion at the origin of the conflict and during its formation will make it possible to advance the process towards the real emergence of the creation of the transformative Agreement.

Emotions are an element that mediation professionals must know how to detect and manage with mastery and care since they work with the subjective structures of the parties and subparts of the conflict.

The detection of emotions, whether positive or not, favorably conditions the conflict in which the parties involved find themselves. This detection will make a click because it will include in the process the perception of the real subjectivity of the other, directly impacting the improvement of communication, both between the parties involved and with the mediator, which favors the reduction of frustration derived from the unsatisfied need, modifying the three basic elements in the formation of conflict: cognitions, attitudes and behaviors. The ABC of conflict. Therefore, emotion and conflict are two concepts closely related to each other.