Being Human: Exploring Our Blind Spots and Biases Conference in Santa Fe, NM

Register here. This is the companion lens to the conference.

We'll explore and experience the facts and implications of science, ethics and spirit for conflict in your life, with presentations by:

• Gini Nelson, MA, JD, Principal, GN Conflict Management Services of Santa Fe, NM, and author of the Engaging Conflicts blog, will do workshops on what neurosciebnce, evolutionary biology, and cognitive psychology can tell us about conflict and stress, health and spirit; and on styles of conflict and communication in conflict. GN Conflict Management Services is producing the Conference.  
  
• Kristine Paranica, JD, Director of the University of North Dakota's Conflict Resolution Center (CRC), Adjunct Professor of Law in Alternative Dispute Resolution at the UND School of Law, and Administrative Director and Fellow of the Institute for the Study of Conflict Transformation. The CRC is also putting on the Transformative Mediation pre-conference training.
• Victoria Pynchon, JD, LLM, Principal, Settle It Now! Dispute Resolution Services of Beverly Hills, CA, and author of the Settle It Now Negotiation Blog, will do workshops using improvisational theatrics.

Both events will take place in Santa Fe, NM, at the Upaya Zen Center, where you are urged to interact with the Center's diverse residential community of monks and lay people. You are welcome to lodge at the Upaya Zen Center while in Santa Fe. If you are interested, contact Natalia Calia directly at registrar@upaya.org. Do you have to stay at the Upaya Zen Center? No, you can stay anywhere you like; you'll simply have to provide your own transportation from where you are staying to the Upaya Zen Center everyday. Here's a link to some of the Bed and Breakfasts and other places to stay in Santa Fe.

As if the conference options weren't enough, Santa Fe is a great destination! See this post for more. Other events in Santa Fe at the time include the 17th Annual Santa Fe Wine and Chile Fiesta (September 26-30) and the High Road Art Tour, exploring the arts and culture in the mountain villages of Northern New Mexico on the high road to Taos between Santa Fe & Taos (September 22-23, and 29-30).

 Here's the fuller program description:

Sep. 24-25, 2007 Pre-Conference Transformative Mediation Certification Training Option: (providing certificate of completion of basic TM training)

Training in Transformative Mediation is among the most contemporary, distinctive and innovative training offered in the conflict resolution field. The CRC's TM training programs are based upon the complementary principles of empowerment (facilitating and supporting the considered, deliberate decision-making of the parties) and recognition (highlighting opportunities for voluntary interpersonal perspective-taking and understanding). These principles—so simple to understand yet challenging to transfer to practice—guide the content of each training program as well as the training process itself. Trainees emerge from this two-day training with an understanding of the theory and practice skills, including:
• An understanding of transformative conflict theory, the relational worldview, and the concepts of empowerment and recognition;
• An understanding of the relationship between a third party intervener's motivations and the interventions used in practice;
• The skills to focus on and attend to the moment-by-moment interactions of the participants;
• The ability to truly facilitate and engage in non-directive interventions which respect the participants' competence and good faith;
• The capacity to take a responsive rather than directive or evaluative role in intervention;
• An opportunity to increase reflective and intentional mediation practice.

Sep. 26-28, 2007 Being Human Conference Workshops:

Kristine Paranica's Workshops:
1) Transformative Mediation. The Science behind it; the Ethical considerations it raises; and the Spiritual connections it supports. Explore the ideology behind transformative mediation and the research that supports it. Consider the ethical issues raised by this model and its practice, and explore connections to spiritual practices and growth.

2) Transforming the Workplace. Transformative mediation provides an interesting framework for understanding conflict at work. Come and explore conflict management from this perspective for transforming workplace climate and culture.

Victoria Pynchon's Workshops (with Gini Nelson):
Tit for Tat: Learning from Literature and Using Theatre Techniques in Conflict Resolution (Parts 1&2)

Vickie: We will explore strategies from literature to explore Narrative Mediation techniques. Specifically, we will improvise alternate narratives to the Mercucio/Tybalt fight scene after watching pertinent video clips from Baz Luhrman's hypnotic modern version of Romeo and Juliet with Leonardo Dicaprio and Clare Danes.

Most of us will recall "playing the X card" from our conflict resolution studies, where we learned how and why we continue to play the child's game of tit for tat not only in our personal relationships but also in our business and political affairs. What happens when one of the "tit for tat" players decides to lay down his arms and demand peace?

William Shakespeare grappled with this problem in the fight scene between Mercucio and Tybalt in his beloved play, Romeo and Juliet. Romeo's uncharacteristic bid for peace in the midst of swordplay leads directly to his friend's death and, soon thereafter, to Romeo's banishment, putting into motion the series of misunderstandings that eventually leads to the deaths of both Romeo and Juliet.

Gini: We will explore performing arts technology to improving our performance in conflict resolution. Theater taps into a deep human need to witness magical change. In the right circumstances, people long for change rather than fear it. Theater, with its emphasis on energizing, motivating and inspiring people to give "star" performances, can lead change. Theater tools and techniques such as presenting and improvising, understanding character, creativity, directing projects and sustaining change will be used.

Gini's Workshops:
1) Science, Personality and Conflict. Overview new developments in brain science and cultural biology that help us better understand conflict, and ourselves and others in conflict. Unprecedented advances of cognitive neuroscience have given us the first answers to questions about the journey a brain makes across life, shaping a thinking, feeling, and unique person. The new science of "cultural biology" seeks to understand human being and action as the co-equal action of "nature" and "nurture." Individual and group affiliation, and individual and group violence, are all part of the human condition. And, according to these brain studies findings, these noblest and darkest traits are rooted in brain stems and arise from the brain and environment interacting upon each other. The presentation will summarize some of the exciting recent developments and theories. Understanding these findings better will help us face and construct more effective responses in a high conflict practice.

2) Conflict Communication with Psychological Type in Mind. Develop insights to deal with high conflict challenges that arise in mediation using brain science and Myers-Briggs technologies. It's based on Carl Jung's principles of psychological type as measured by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®), probably the most widely used assessment instrument of its kind (millions are administered annually in the US, and more in other countries around the world). I'll overview applications in mediation and benefits to mediators and other conflict specialists in knowing and applying the principles, including assisting clients getting through misunderstandings based on type differences, identifying blind spots in the problem-solving process based on type, use of type to bridge cultural and gender differences based on type similarities, and the mediator's own use of type to identify the kind of practice she wants. I'm a qualified administrator of the MBTI®, and greatly appreciate it as a tool.

3) What Brain Science and Personality Theory Tell Us about Ethics. Secular humanism and spirituality, and where do spiritual values come from? This presentation will summarize some of the exciting recent developments and theories, such as those found in Michael Gazzaniga's The Ethical Brain (Dr. Gazzaniga is a pioneer of cognitive neuroscience); Blake Burleson's Pathways to Integrity: Ethics and Psychological Type; and David Sloan Wilson's Darwin's Cathedral: Evolution, Religion and the Nature of Society (Professor Wilson uses evolutionary theory to study the development of religions).

4) Embracing Complexity through Simplicity. "I have come to see the haiku challenge as a metaphor. The practice of haiku is this: to embrace complexity through simplicity. I believe this is a core practice of peacebuilding, both discipline and art … ." John Paul Lederach, The Moral Imagination. The technique and challenge: three lines, with 5 - 7 - 7 syllables; that give life.