Conflict Management

Discover How to Handle and Settle Disputes

Conflict management requires a person with moral fortitude, insight, and sensitivity to the needs of many people. A strong grounding in conflict management theory is also necessary. You can become that person with the help of this training. It will help therapists, mediators, and other experts analyse conflicts and aid parties in coming to agreements.

Conflicts arise when our interests, needs, or ideals are actually or perceived to be in contradiction. That is an unbalanced situation. Disputes can occur in a variety of contexts, including inside or between groups, between people, or between a person and an organisation. Conflict can also arise as a result of power struggles, cultural differences, disagreements over beliefs or opinions, misperceptions about roles, and other factors. It can also result from frustration over unmet demands or aspirations.

Because it can lead to violence, polarise opinions, and depress morale, conflict is frequently seen as a bad thing. But, it can also be advantageous when it promotes increased participation in significant topics, clarifies points of contention, and fosters personal development or group cohesion.

In actuality, conflict occurs frequently in daily life. We wouldn’t push one another to perform better without it. The issue is frequently not the dispute itself, but rather the inability to resolve it in a way that benefits relationships.

The energy that a dispute produces is its most valued quality. The goal of conflict management is to channel this energy into productive and creative discourse rather than trying to stifle it. If conflict is viewed as inevitable but not necessarily damaging, and as a problem to be solved rather than a fight to be won, it is easier to manage.

The goal of the course is to empower people to make better decisions by teaching them how to resolve various forms of conflict.

Lesson Structure

There are 8 lessons in this course:

1. Conflict Management and Anger
   • What is Conflict?
   • Conflict Handling Techniques.
   • Conflict Handling Styles.
   • Comparing Strategies to Handle Conflict.
   • Scope and Nature of Anger.
   • Approaches to Handling Anger.
   • Anger Management Techniques.
   • Dealing with Anger in Yourself and Others.
2. Listening
   • Channels of Communication.
   • Stages of Listening.
   • Obstacles to Listening.
   • Emphatic Listening.
   • Ground Rules for Listening.
   • Listeners in Control.
   • Emotions.
   • Traps for Listeners.
3. Negotiation
   • Scope and Nature of Negotiating.
   • The Establishment Group.
   • The Community Group.
   • Bargaining in Negotiations.
   • Win-Win Bargaining or Integrative Bargaining.
   • Being a Skilled Negotiator.
   • The Joint Problem Solving Approach.
   • Writing a Brief.
   • Guidelines.
   • Negotiating Mistakes.
   • Dealing with Difficult People.
   • Finding a Solution.
4. Mediation
   • What is Mediation?
   • When is Mediation Called for?
   • The Mediators Role.
   • The Mediation Process.
   • Team Work.
   • Mediation Model.
   • Alternative Dispute Resolution.
5. Facilitation
   • Nature and Scope of Facilitation.
   • Preparing the Facilitation Meeting.
   • Attributes of a Good Facilitator.
   • Stress and the Fight or Flight Response.
   • Symptoms and Effect of Stress.
   • A Stress Management Response Program.
6. Balance of Power
   • Problems with Negotiation.
   • Problem of Re-entry.
   • Balance of Power.
   • Dealing with Power Imbalance.
   • Verbal Bullying.
   • Asking Questions.
   • Information and Experience.
   • Agenda Setting.
   • Role Playing.
   • Needs Exploration.
   • Ending a Meeting.
7. Discussion and Group Work
   • Group Conflict Management Exercises.
   • Anger Exercises.
   • Listening Exercises.
   • Negotiation and Mediation Exercises.
   • Joint Problem Solving Exercises.
   • Role Play Exercises.
   • Conducting Structured Exercises in Small Groups.
   • What to Avoid.
   • Evaluation.
8. Crisis Analysis and Responses
   • Nature and Scope of a Crisis.
   • Response to Crisis.
   • Guidelines.
   • Interventions.
   • Principles and Goals of Crisis Intervention.
   • Crisis Intervention Techniques.
   • Debriefing.

Each lesson culminates in an assignment which is submitted to the school, marked by the school’s tutors and returned to you with any relevant suggestions, comments, and if necessary, extra reading.

Aims

• Explain the nature of human conflict and methods for dealing with it.
• Discuss the value of listening in conflict situations and recognise various listening approaches.
• Define negotiation and discuss the negotiation process.
• Define mediation and discuss the mediation process.
• Define facilitation and discuss the facilitation process.
• Address issues that may occur during negotiation, particularly the balance of power and its implications.
• Describe why working in groups is important for learning how to deal with group conflicts.
• Discuss how to understand and cope with various types of crises.

How You Plan to Act

• Examine the following five dispute resolution styles.
• Investigate ways for dealing with rage. Discover how to govern listening and the traps that listeners fall into.
• Recognize empathetic listening
• Consider a negotiation between a community and a business.
• Give practical negotiation proposals.
• Determine a mediator’s roles, mediation methods, agreements, teamwork, and settling behaviours.
• Examine the factors that influence the power balance.
• Consider using role play.
• Decide how to carry out structured activities in small groups.

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Conflict can result from rage

 

A variety of factors can contribute to conflict. One of them is rage.

Rage is frequently depicted as a negative emotion, however this is not always the case. Anger is our way our body behaves when we feel threatened. If we are truly threatened, or if someone else is threatened, we may feel compelled to protect them. Our fury prepares our bodies to do so. Anger assists us in escaping from violent circumstances. It is regarded as a component of the body’s fight or flight response.

Nonetheless, some people have a trained inclination to react with rage. Alternatively, they may become enraged in response to perceived rather than actual provocations. The conventional image of this is people becoming enraged because they believe another person is looking at them incorrectly, shoved them on purpose, or is saying something about them. All of these scenarios may not be genuine, but if the individual views them as a danger, they may react violently. We all become furious at times, but how we deal with that anger varies. Anger, according to DeFoore, is like a pressure cooker; we can only hold it for so long before it erupts. Some people may be able to keep their anger under control for a much longer period of time than others.

Anger causes physical responses, such as –

• Increased blood pressure
• Increased heart rate
• Higher levels of adrenaline and noradrenaline

But it also has other physical impacts, such as –

• alterations in our facial expressions
• Humans, for example, may make louder noises, attempt to appear physically larger, glare, bare their fangs, and so on.

These modifications are intended to alert potential aggressors to stop acting violently. Thus, when a man shouts, stands up straight, bares his teeth, and stares angrily, it serves as a message to the other person to quit being aggressive. Of course, it could succeed. But, if the other party is likewise angry, it may escalate the conflict and result in violence.

Loss of “self-monitoring,” or the capacity to be unbiased and consider what one is doing, can be brought on by anger. They might not be aware that their behaviour is wrong as a result.

Thus while anger is a natural emotion that can aid in survival, unchecked anger can have a detrimental impact on one’s social and personal welfare. Yet, a lot of psychologists contend that holding our anger in can also be detrimental.

You can outperform Learning by Rote.

 

Individuals Who Would Benefit From This Course

In home, at work, and on a larger scale between nations, conflicts can arise in a variety of contexts. If they are not resolved, tension builds, and occasionally that tension spills over, causing hurt or injury. This course gives students the skills and strategies they need to resolve conflicts because there is always a demand for people who can do so. Although it can be used in various types of work, conflict management is a crucial skill for counsellors and therapists.

The following fields are the ones for which this course is intended:

• Counselling
• Psychotherapy
• Psychology
• Mediation
• Marriage guidance
• Council positions
• Police
• Security
• Correctional services