Using Disputants Metaphor in Mediation by Thomas H. Smith - Article Example

Similarly, when the mediator adopts a metaphor that “being in a conflict in not being in a war”, then the parties will strive to make an assumption and find a solution to their problem. Smith also presents that metaphors work by structuring and evaluating an individual’s experiences by positioning them to the problem (Smith, 2005). Through this process, it is possible to discover an individual’s hidden assumptions, needs, behaviors, emotions, facts, and intuitions, and bring them working as a whole.

As a psychotherapist, I feel that the use of metaphors can successfully reconcile conflicting parties. This is because metaphors can highly influence and work effectively to promote a negotiation problem. The use of metaphor offers a mediator an opportunity to treat each viewpoint as a ration argument, making him or her take a neutral stance in the dispute being resolved. This also improves the mediator’s influence to avoid hostile confrontation. Lorig Charkoudian, in his article, identifies that police officer is frequently called to solve neighborhood disputes, which range from minor conflicts to violent confrontations.

However, police interventions usually stop the conflict just for some time. Additionally, police response is usually inadequate, and successive calls to solve the same problems can be expensive to the police department. Police are currently encouraging the community to resort to dispute resolution centers to prevent repeat calls, reduce time spent on solving disputes, and limit police work in processing lawsuits (Charkoudian, 2005). I agree with the author, over these two claims, that police are frequently called to solve even minor conflicts, in the community, and that police response is usually inadequate.

Therefore, it is necessary to formulate a measure that can solve these challenges effectively. The author's research determined that mediation has a considerable effect on decreasing the number of police calls to a conflict situation (Charkoudian, 2005). Most of the respondents preferred mediation to call the police for services. I find flawlessness in the data presented concerning the number of parties who abandoned court cases and resorted to solve their conflict on their own through mediation.

This is because the author claims that the data in this information did not allow them to test what happened to lawsuits where the call for police services decreased when there was no mediation (Charkoudian, 2005). This means that these data contained insufficient information to be treated and presented for analysis. This also indicates that this data is insufficient to present valid information regarding this issue. However, I find that portion of the budget of schools, businesses, and communities should be channeled to establish mediation programs that are directed to solving minor conflicts within the communities.

This will significantly reduce the rate of police calls for services.