Self-Determination in Mediation: The Art and Science of Mirrors and Lights

Mediators are often pulled in many directions—they want to help their clients reach a speedy agreement, ensure the agreement is fair, and avoid coercion so they can honor mediation’s primary value of party self-determination. Can we have it all?
In this groundbreaking resource, Dan Simon and Tara West illustrate how self-determination can mean much more than the absence of coercion—it can mean the opportunity for participants to increase their sense of agency as they gain clarity and confidence to make their own decisions, including those that express their highest values. Offering psychological research, philosophical principles, and real-life mediation stories, the authors examine where self-determination belongs in relation to other values, such as fairness, protection, and efficiency, as they wrestle with how to apply their principles in particularly challenging divorces, workplace conflicts, and more. Readers will be challenged to think deeply about how their values and assumptions guide their practice, and they will be inspired to more fully embrace their commitment to self-determination.