Reciprocal Sovereignty

By Tony Roffers

Reciprocal Sovereignty: Resolving Conflicts Respectfully, by Tony Roffers, PhD., presents a communication skills model that marriage counselors, attorney mediators, relationship coaches, and corporate managers can use to structure a successful conflict resolution process. The Model, called the B-E-A-R Process (Breathe, Empathize, Acknowledge, Respond), provides a step-by-step sequence useful to anyone who wishes to resolve differences collaboratively while maintaining control of upsetting emotions. The B-E-A-R Process empowers those who use it by requiring each party to communicate respectfully, to listen carefully, and to demonstrate understanding of the other’s perspective, even in disagreement. With or without professional guidance, the process minimizes emotional volatility and balances power differentials between the parties while maximizing their willingness to implement their agreements.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tony Roffers
• Release date: Feb 18, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458063212

Tony Roffers

A licensed psychologist (PSY 3704) with a private therapy practice in Oakland, California Dr. Roffers received his Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology at the University of Minnesota. He has served on the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley, San Francisco State University, and Saint Mary’s College of California where he trained hundreds of masters and doctoral level therapists for over twenty years. Originally trained in Career Counseling and Rogerian Person Centered Therapy, he later took training in Transactional Analysis, Gestalt, and Neurolinguistic Programming and has taken thousands of hours of professional development workshops to continue to improve his therapy skills. He trained extensively in Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) at the Institute of Rational Living with Albert Ellis. Later he trained in Ericksonian Hypnotherapy and then Thought Field Therapy (TFT) with Roger Callahan. His interest in the energy therapies led him to a new method called Advanced Integrative Therapy developed by Dr. Asha Clinton and is currently teaching this method to other practitioners. Dr. Roffers has consulted with a wide variety of professional organizations such as the American Association of Obstetrics and Gynecology where he assisted in developing skill based clerkship and residency programs in medical schools throughout the country. Dr. Roffers has also developed a conflict resolution model for attorneys and mediators and has given guest lectures in Law Schools throughout Northern California. He has taught communication skills and conflict resolution skills to practicing attorney mediators throughout the West Coast including the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, the Alternative Dispute Resolution Sections of the Sonoma, Contra Costa, San Luis Obispo, California and Seattle, Washington Bar Associations, and the National Institute for Trial Advocacy (NITA). Dr. Roffers was one of the first professionals to be trained in Advanced Integrative Therapy and has attended all the available Seminars since then. He is currently developing protocols for the Physical Track of Advanced Integrative Therapy with Dr. Clinton.

Book preview

Reciprocal Sovereignty

Resolving Conflict Respectfully

By Tony Roffers, PhD

Copyright 2008 Tony Roffers, PhD

Smashwords Edition

This book is also available in a print edition at most online retailers.

www.tonyroffers.com

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A group of eight attorney mediators met with me once a month for approximately six years to engage in one of the most enjoyable training experiences of my life. These attorneys intuitively sensed that once they left the adversarial way of resolving conflicts they entered a different world. The world of collaborative conflict resolution required a different perspective and new skills. The communication skills model delineated in this book evolved from our work together, and I want to acknowledge and thank each of one of these highly skilled attorneys: Dana Curtis, Laura Farrow, Nancy Foster, Susan Keel, Arlene Kostant, Katherine Page Nowell, Maude Pervere, and Martina Reaves.

I have deep gratitude to my mentors Robert R. Carkhuff, who taught me that empathic responding is a trainable skill; John Gottman, who taught me that emotionally flooded people have a difficult time using their communication skills; and Asha Clinton, who taught me that trauma, the source of flooding, responds to effective treatment.

My heartfelt thanks to Tom Jackson, Ernie Baumgarten, Susan Keel, Nancy Pearson, Martina Reaves, Nancy Foster, Stephanie Marohn, and Judi MacMurray for offering many valuable suggestions for the book.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

INTRODUCTION

How to Read This Book

PART ONE: SOVEREIGNTY OVER YOURSELF

Chapter 1: How to Help Children Develop Sovereignty

Chapter 2: Developing Sovereignty over Yourself as an Adult

PART TWO: RESPECTING OTHERS' SOVEREIGNTY

Chapter 3: Respecting Others' Right to Be How They Are

PART THREE: RECIPROCAL SOVEREIGNTY

Chapter 4: Collaborative Conflict Resolution: The B-E-A-R Process

Chapter 5: Prepare - for the dialogue

Chapter 6: Assert - your point of view respectfully

Chapter 7: Breathe - to manage your emotional temperature1

Chapter 8: Empathize - to demonstrate your understanding1

Chapter 9: Acknowledge - your part in creating the dispute1

Chapter 10: Respond - directly and specifically

Chapter 11: Resolve - any areas still in disagreement

PART FOUR: THE B-E-A-R PROCESS IN ACTION

Chapter 12: The B-E-A-R Process in a Couples Counseling Session

Chapter 13: The B-E-A-R Process in Mediation

Conclusion

Appendix A: Helping to Empower Others

Bibliography

About the Author

Preface

As a psychologist I have devoted the last forty-two years to helping my clients live more effective lives and have trained hundreds of therapists how to work more effectively with their clients. This book describes a communication skills process that gradually evolved to assist couples in resolving their conflicts more amicably and collaboratively. This process later evolved into a model for assisting mediators in working with couples that wanted to end their marriage but not go through the typically adversarial legal process. The process has also been used in organizations both to prevent and to resolve conflicts in the work environment. It has since been expanded into a model that can be used by anyone who wishes to gain clarity, if not resolution, in any kind of conflict or disagreement. The model is also useful when two or more people must make an important decision together.

I have often wondered why I have been so interested in helping others resolve their differences in a more respectful and less adversarial way. My first hunch is that I didn’t learn how to do it very well myself in my own family. My parents never fought or argued in front of me or even made joint decisions in my presence. As a result, I never observed how they made joint decisions or resolved their disagreements. I later observed my peers and their families. Nobody seemed to deal directly and effectively with conflict. I observed that people either avoided conflict and hung onto their grudges while withdrawing from each other, or argued and blamed each other.

In a way, I developed an allergy to conflict. I avoided it like the plague and spent most of my life trying to prevent it by not being fully myself. Instead, I would try to assess in advance what others wanted and then either give it to them or hide my true feelings.

When I was in training to become a therapist, I realized this pattern was not effective and learned various ways to deal more effectively with disagreements and conflicts. Working as a couples’ therapist was particularly challenging because I was often thrown into the middle of heated arguments in which I was expected to be the wise judge deciding who was right and how to get the other person to see the error of their ways. I soon learned that this was a trap and that my role was quite different from that of a judge. I realized that if I were to truly help these people I needed to redefine my role as a teacher who would instruct them on how to handle their differences on their own when they were not in my office. The conflict resolution model you are about to learn came from this transformation in my role with couples in conflict.

If you are part of a relationship or organization that is in conflict, reading this book can help you understand how to communicate in a way that maximizes your chances of reaching resolution. I can guarantee that you will gain clarity and that there will be fewer misunderstandings. Many conflicts are caused by misunderstandings and this model is particularly good at discovering them.

Conflict resolution is intrinsically an emotionally difficult process for many people. If you are one of those people this model can give you a structure that will make the process less mysterious and upsetting for you. Some will be able to implement the skills delineated in this model simply by reading the book and practicing them with the person or group with whom they are having difficulty. Others may need additional training or coaching. I periodically lead workshops to train people in these skills and coach those who need guidance as they are implementing the model. To learn about these options, you can contact me through my website (www.tonyroffers.com) or at the address given at the end of this book.

If you are a therapist, marriage counselor, mediator, relationship coach, or related professional, this book can give you a model for training your clients in resolving their differences either to improve their relationship or to end it. Organizational development consultants can use the model for training managers, supervisors, and employees to prevent or resolve conflicts. Productivity and job satisfaction can increase significantly if an entire organizational community is trained in these skills and agrees to use them when there are disagreements or conflicts.

The title of this book, Reciprocal Sovereignty, was chosen because it describes the kind of relationship that embodies the mutual respect needed between two or more people to resolve conflicts collaboratively. The model both requires and creates mutual respect between people. People can, of course, have the mutual respect that reciprocal sovereignty requires without using this model. If there is no conflict mutual respect can prevail quite naturally. Once there is conflict, however, the interpersonal ambiance of mutual respect all too often evaporates quickly. Though this is common and understandable, it does not help the conflict resolution process, which is why this model can be so useful and effective under those circumstances.

Because resolving disagreements and conflicts can be difficult and emotionally upsetting for many, this model provides a process you can follow that will make resolution more likely and easier to achieve. At a minimum, this model will help you gain clarity on the issues involved in your conflicts so you can make better decisions if resolution is not possible. It also has the added benefit of maintaining and possibly enhancing the rapport you have with the other person or group.

I have spent my entire adult life learning the attitudes, values, and skills espoused in this book. It has proven much easier to write about these skills and attitudes than to live them. Having the structure of this model to follow, however, has gradually healed my allergy to conflict, and although I still don’t enjoy conflict, I find it much less intimidating and stressful.

INTRODUCTION

Traditionally, a sovereign person reigned superior over others, supreme in power, rank, or authority such as a ruler, chief, king, queen, or boss. Individuals, groups, and countries have fought for domination over each other from the beginning of human culture.

Relationships based on one person wielding power over another person, or one group over another, provides a major source of conflict. Because it takes a great deal of work and skill to conduct relationships any other way, and because the people who have power over others usually resist voluntarily giving it up, power relationships remain ubiquitous. While it takes considerable skill and patience to conduct egalitarian relationships in which people resolve differences collaboratively, such relationships yield enormous benefits of reduced interpersonal conflict, tension, and resentment. They also create more opportunities for individuals to grow and develop in ways unique to them, unfettered by the demands and expectations of others.

Power relationships emerge when one person or group has sovereignty over the other. This arrangement has short-term advantages of efficiency, control, and wealth for the person or group in power as well as less obvious short-term advantages, such as less responsibility and accountability, for those who yield power. However, in the long-term, power-oriented relationships usually spawn anger, resentment, and rebellion by those with less power, ultimately leading to conflict. While power relationships can last a lifetime for individuals and for generations among groups of peoples, they usually end in disaster and cause great turmoil and lost potential for many people along the way. If we seek to increase the quality of our personal relationships and the quality of our individual lives, we must find ways to relate to one another that free us to become more fully who we are, and to achieve our full potential while respecting the rights of others to do the same. I believe that if marriage partners, ethnic and religious groups, political parties, business and government institutions, as well as nations could learn to engage in egalitarian relationships, rather than power oriented hierarchical relationships, they would experience the long term advantages of reduced interpersonal and inter-group conflict, increased individual creativity and productivity, feelings of safety, enjoyment, personal growth, as well as reduced stress.

The opposite of power relationships are egalitarian relationships. This book focuses on how conflicts can be resolved within the context of two or more parties who respect each other as equals. Three component are involved:

Having sovereignty over one’s self

Respecting others' sovereignty

Reciprocal sovereignty

Having Sovereignty Over Yourself

Having sovereignty over myself means exercising my independent will based on my own values – even when my choices and actions do not meet with others’ approval. I have the freedom to choose for myself whether or not others like or approve of my choices. If my choice gives my life meaning or happiness without intentionally harming you or directly depriving you, I am exercising my sovereign power of choice. If I fail to exercise this priceless asset, I cannot advocate for myself in a disagreement, nor will I likely muster the courage to leave an unacceptable relationship.

Part One of this book explores ways of developing full sovereignty over one's self. If you never gain sovereignty over yourself, you will endlessly play slave or pawn in someone else's drama.

Respecting Others’ Sovereignty

Respecting your sovereignty means that I don't try to control your life through physical force, psychological manipulation or intimidation, and that I respect your right to make your own choices based on your own desires and value system, and I also respect your right to act on those choices even if I dislike or disagree with them.

Part Two of this book explores the attitudes and skills helpful in respecting others' sovereignty. Ironically, when one claims their own sovereignty, respecting others’ sovereignty becomes easier. Part Two challenges the belief that we have the right to control how other people live.

Reciprocal Sovereignty

Resolving conflicts with reciprocal sovereignty means working together as equals to resolve differences through mutually acceptable solutions. This way of relating has its roots in a definition of the word sovereignty which describes one nation having independence from another nation, as when the United States declared independence from England.

Part Three of this book extends this definition to all levels of relationships, focusing on interpersonal relationships first and how honoring each others’ sovereignty is a prerequisite for resolving conflict collaboratively.

If I honor my sovereignty as well as yours, and you honor your sovereignty as well as mine, we can relate with reciprocal sovereignty. Reciprocal sovereignty exists when I make decisions and act for my own welfare in a way that does not impinge on your right to decide and act for your welfare, and when you make decisions and act for your welfare in a way that does not impinge on my right to decide and act for my welfare.

When I make decisions and act for my own benefit without any intention of harming you, I behave selftruistically (being true to myself). Selftruistic behavior differs from selfishness. When I act selfishly, I make decisions and act for myself at your expense, or in a way that takes away your freedom to make choices and to act for yourself. It is not selfish to live my life as I see fit, as long as I do not intentionally intrude upon or harm you; it is selfish to insist that you live your life as I see fit. Conversely, it is not selfish for you to live your life as you see fit, as long as you do not intentionally intrude upon or harm me; it is selfish for you to insist that I live my life the way you want me to.

If I act selfishly, I impinge on your sovereignty while doing something for myself. If I act selftruistically, I honor your sovereignty while doing something for myself.

For example, Jack and Jane seek to divorce amicably and remain friends in the process. Jack moved out about two months ago. Jane really doesn’t want the divorce but is going along with it. She calls Jack and after they greet each other she says:

Jane: You never call me anymore. I thought you said we could still be friends. Friends call each other once in a while you know.

Jack: I do call you once in a while. I’ve been incredibly busy with this report that's due next week.

Jane: You’re always busy. That’s no excuse! If it weren’t a report it would be something else. How about meeting this afternoon and taking a hike like we used to? You need to take a break anyway.

Jack: I really can’t. I’d like to, but I need to keep working if I’m going to make the deadline.

Jane: You really don’t want to spend any time with me do you? You just told me you want to be friends to make the divorce easier to do. (She starts crying.) I can’t believe a thing you say anymore!

Jack: Oh shit! (He hangs up)

This conversation demonstrates how not honoring someone’s sovereignty can alienate. Jane wants Jack to spend more time with her, but she does it in a way that fails to respect Jack’s sovereignty (i.e., his right to make decisions and act on them even if they do not please her).

With reciprocal sovereignty this conversation could have gone differently:

Jane: Jack I really miss you these days. Even though we are getting divorced I still would like to spend time with you.

Jack: Yeah I know. I’ve been really anxious about this report that’s due next week.

Jane: I know you feel pressured by that. Is there any way that you would be willing to take a break from it sometime when you’re blitzed by it and maybe go for a hike.

Jack: Yeah I could do that but I never know in advance when I’ll feel like it. If you could just hang loose with it, I’d be willing to call you and let you know when I could use a break, and if you could do it we’d just go then.

Jane: Sure, that would be fine as long as I’m not doing something that I need to do.

Jack: No problem, that's only fair.

In this case Jack makes choices and acts for his own welfare while honoring Jane’s sovereignty; Jane makes choices and acts on her welfare while honoring Jack’s sovereignty.

Four Stages Of Development

Understanding the following four stages of personal development can assist the reader in learning how to develop not only their own sense of sovereignty over themselves but how to engage in the kind of reciprocal sovereignty that is necessary for resolving conflicts collaboratively. While these stages are not strictly linear, people usually develop from one stage to the next in the following order:

Self-unawareness

Submission/Aggression

Sovereignty

Service

Self-unawareness. The first stage of development, characterized by our inability to observe our thoughts, feelings, and sensations, occurs not because we don't experience them but because we lack awareness of ourselves experiencing them. Young children live in this state naturally, and adults stay in this state because their parents and teachers have not empathized with them as children. When not acknowledged as a separate being with independent thoughts and feelings, children cannot develop a truly autonomous sense of self or identity. When we do not learn to develop awareness of ourselves or to observe our thoughts, feelings, sensations, and actions, we lack the capacity to make true choices. We may feel that we choose, but these largely illusory choices turn out to be responses conditioned by cultural expectations and the expectations of authority figures, friends, and advertisers.

Submission/Aggression. Submissiveness and aggressiveness, two sides of the same coin, elicit each other. Submissiveness, that stage of our development when we defer to others, is largely appropriate for children and adolescents who must depend on adults for their survival and education. Children appropriately defer to more knowing and more skilled adults in regard to many important life tasks. Healthy adults in this stage can experience increasingly self-aware states and yet know when they need the help of others.

Less healthy adults who fixate at this stage of submissiveness stay dependent on others’ assistance and approval beyond the time optimal for their growth and development. Typically, submissive people have low self esteem and remain overly compliant and dependent. They essentially do not know how to honor their own sovereignty and therefore often betray themselves unknowingly. Their boundaries remain weak or confused and they mistake love with needing or being needed by someone. Excessive concern with the approval of others becomes a prison.

The other side of submissiveness is aggressiveness. Aggressive people demand or force others to act the way they think others should and do not honor their right to choose and act independently. Aggressive people attempt to have sovereignty over others and feel entitled to control or dominate others in terms of how they live and what they do. Aggressive people usually have grown up in a power-oriented family structure where reciprocal sovereignty did not exist. Instead, they experienced an environment characterized by a pecking order of power and dominance among family members with someone at the top ruling the others. Forced into submissiveness, some children grow up to become aggressive once they escape the parent in power.

People who become aggressive tend to make decisions for others and dominate or manipulate them. Aggression can take overt and belligerent forms, as in a physical fight, or it can operate more covertly through psychological or verbal domination and manipulation.

For example, George, a landscape architect in his early forties, and Ruth, an elementary school teacher in her late thirties, have been married for five years and live in a middle class neighborhood in the Midwest. Ruth currently drives an eleven-year-old Toyota station wagon with four-wheel drive. It is losing power, and it blows dark colored exhaust when she starts it up in the morning. She opens a conversation with George by saying:

Ruth: I’m beginning to get worried about the Toyota, George. It just crawls up the hill in the morning. It seems to take longer to wake up than you do."

George: I’ve told you a hundred times to get rid of it and get a Camry. Consumer Reports rates them as high as anything except a Lexus, which has almost the same engine. You’re stupid to keep driving that old clunker.

Ruth: Well it’s been a good car until now and I don't want to give it up, but maybe you’re right. I’ve been thinking of getting a Volvo. I had one years ago and I loved…

George: You don’t want a dinosaur like that!! They drive like tanks and they don’t look much better. Get a clue Rootie.

Ruth: But I like how it looks, and it’s…

George: Looks! It’s like an upside down bathtub! No, worse! It’s more like a dilapidated milk carton on its side. God, I swear I can’t understand how that pea brain of yours works.

Ruth: But all those new cars look the same. I can’t tell one from the other. They’re too curvy for me and besides…

George: They have curves because they have been tested in wind tunnels for wind resistance. They make them aerodynamically now like an airplane so you’ll get better gas mileage. Volvos get about ten miles to the gallon if they’re going down hill. Camry’s get decent mileage and they have very sophisticated engines, brakes, the whole works. They’re light years ahead of Volvos!

Ruth: But Volvos are safe! You gotta admit that!

George: Yeah they’re safe like a Sherman tank is safe and they have so much heavy Swedish steel that it takes a gallon of gas just to get it started up from a stop light. You don’t know shit about cars, Ruth, admit it.

Ruth: (tears in her eyes) Maybe not. I just want a safe car that…

George: Okay, so we’ll go down to that Toyota dealership on Lake Street Saturday and I’ll show you what you should get.

The above dialogue illustrates how Ruth’s submissiveness colludes with George’s aggressiveness. George dishonors Ruth’s sovereignty by failing to respect Ruth’s right to have her own preferences about cars, let alone her right to choose a car she wants. George repeatedly interrupts her and ultimately assumes she’ll capitulate when he makes a unilateral decision to take her to the Toyota dealership.

Ruth’s submissiveness illustrates how she does not honor her sovereignty. She fails to exercise her right to make her own decision and thereby reinforces George’s behavior by allowing him to interrupt her and verbally coerce her into going to the Toyota dealership.

This power relationship may work for a while longer if Ruth continues to defer and remains ignorant of her sovereignty. However, Ruth ultimately will feel increasing resentment toward George whether she understands the reasons or not. That resentment will usually become expressed indirectly or passively through withheld affection, sexual problems, or complaints.

The submissiveness and aggressiveness syndrome leads to a combination of compliance and defiance that we will discuss later. It does not lead to an egalitarian intimacy between Ruth and George. Sadly, as long as neither of them understands the possibilities of reciprocal sovereignty, their disintegrating relationship will continue to puzzle and frustrate both of them.

Sovereignty. Using Ruth as an example reveals the process of developing sovereignty over herself. As she grows more aware of herself and her right to have her own opinions and feelings and then