Download Tag: mediation

AFTERMATH: Healing from the Trump Presidency

Donald Trump’s behavior is encouraging the development of a generation of people inclined to hateful identity politics and bigotry, while also dismantling our country’s institutions and natural resources. Aftermath is a guide on how we can heal, with ideas on how each of us can help bridge the divide that has only grown deeper since Election Day in November 2016, due in part to the way Trump constantly shifts blame. This behavior is known in psychoanalytic circles as projective identification, a phenomenon people employ who unconsciously dislike something about themselves. Instead of taking responsibility, they blame those feelings, thoughts, or actions on others. Trump is an expert at this, and it’s hurting all of us.

To heal will take time, patience, and a willingness to take stock of our viewpoints and square them with divergent ones. It’s not so unusual anymore for families and friends who find themselves on opposite ends of the political spectrum to refrain from engaging in any sort of meaningful conversation for fear that such discussions will ruin already fractured relationships. It shouldn’t be that way. 

Though rooted in psychoanalysis, Aftermath gets at the essence of projective identification as nurtured by Trump, and how we can combat its prevalence in order to once again engage in thoughtful, meaningful debate with those on opposite ends of the political rainbow without resorting to violent rhetoric.

We must demand that our leaders engage in a process that incorporates a respectful way of communicating between and among people. Aftermath shows the way. 

Want to learn more about healing the divide in the United States?
Visit Dr. Messina’s website: aftermath-trump.com for more information and helpful ideas.

Mediation Therapy: Short-Term Decision Making for Relationships in Conflict

Reaching decisions about whether to marry, divorce, or separate, to live with someone, or to institutionalize an aging parent or a special needs child can be extremely painful. Couples and their families facing such critical choices often reach a stalemate. By the time many couples seek professional help they are often so angry and in such conflict that even the most experienced clinician or counselor can feel overwhelmed.

Blending a therapeutic approach with skills drawn from mediation, conflict resolution, and decision making theory, this practical sourcebook shows mental health professionals how to help couples and their families reach a decision about their future through sensitive, structured intervention. Mediation Therapy details proven techniques and strategies to help clients understand their own needs and to increase their abilities to see other points of view. Miller Wiseman’s approach is uniquely designed to facilitate the process through which couples and families can come to a conclusion–one that is fully explored, completely understood, and responsibly made.

This thoughtfully written, accessible guide:

  • provides questions for therapists to reflect upon which will help them discover their own values and biases that may affect their therapeutic work
  • describes the latest research on the effects of separation and divorce on children and adolescents and how to use this information in the mediation therapy process

The mediation therapy process can be adapted for use in a myriad of settings: for recovering alcoholics and their co-dependent spouses, by evaluation teams for special needs children, in prisons, in inpatient psychiatric units, in nursing homes. This valuable guide shows clinicians how to facilitate the process of decision making, how to maintain a neutral stance, and, perhaps most importantly, when it is appropriate to “let go” of the process and allow couples and families to guide themselves to appropriate resolutions.(407 pp.)