Divorce: What’s Love Got to Do With It?

The Journal of the International
Academy of Collaborative Professionals
The
Collaborative
Review
winter 2014 / Volume 15, Issue 1
DIVORCE: wHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO
WITH IT? EXPANDING OUR THINKING
ABOUT LOVE, FORGIVENESSAND
COMPASSION IN OUR WORK
By Ron Ousky, JD
PEACE IN PLACE PROJECT: BUILDING
HEALING SPACES
By Deanna VanBuren, Assoc. AIA, LEED
AP, NOMA; Yuval Berger, MSW, RSW
and Kimberly Fauss, JD
NEW ROOTS FOR SOCIALAND
INSTITUTIONALCHANGE: FOSTERING
mORErAPID gROWTHOFfORGIVENESS,
GRATITUDE,AND COMPASSION
By Sharon Strand Ellison
I
II
III
Special Edition
Divorce: What’s Love Got to Do With It?
Love, Forgiveness and Compassion in Family Law
PUTTING A HEART INTO THE
BODY OF LAW
By Sue Cochrane, JD
Circles supporting
FamilyCourt
By Elizabeth Vastine, JD
TALKINGABOUT LOVE
WITH LAWYERS
By Pauline Tesler, JD
what does love mean in family
law practice
By Linda Wray, JD; Talia Katz, JD; Jennifer
Tull, JD and Kimberly Stamatelos, JD
IV
V
VI
VII

IACP Board of Directors
President
Linda Wray, JD, Minnesota
President–Elect
Shireen Meistrich, LCSW, New Jersey
Past President
Ross Evans, JD, Ohio
Treasurer
J. Mark Weiss, JD, Washington
secretary
Barbara Kelly, PhD, Florida
Directors
Suzan Barrie Aiken, JD, California
Yuval Berger, MSW, Canada
Kay K.W. Chan, LLB, Hong Kong
Cathy Daigle, CFP, California
Michael Fancher, JD, Washington
Christopher Farish, JD, Texas
Kimberly Fauss, JD, Virginia
Catherine Gale, LLB, Australia
Karen Levitt, JD, Massachusetts
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
Talia L. Katz, JD
IACP Staff
Associate Director
Colleen Zubrycki
Communications &
Design Specialist
Jessica Gutierrez
Operations Administrator
Cassaundra Allison
Conference & Meeting
Coordinator
Monica McQueen
Administrative Assistant
Lora Schmidt
Correspondence should be
addressed to:
IACP
4201 N. 24th Street, suite 240
Phoenix, AZ 85016
[P] 480.696.6075 [F] 480.240.9068
info@collaborativepractice.com
Publication Statement
The Collaborative Review isapublication of the InternationalAcademy
of Collaborative Professionals (IACP).
The views expressed in the Collaborative Revieware those of theauthors
and may not reflect the official policy of the IACP.
No endorsement of those views should be inferred unless specifically
identifiedas the official policy of the IACP.
The IACP is not engaged in rendering legal,accounting, psychological or
other professionaladvice.
If legaladvice or other expertassistance is required, the services ofa
competent professional person should be sought.
Table of Contents
letter from the President ..................................................................... 3
By Linda Wray, JD
A Message from the Fetzer Institute .............................................. 4
By Linda Bell Grdina
I Divorce: what's love got to do with it? .................................. 5
expanding our thinking about love, forgiveness and
compassion in our work
By Ron Ousky, JD
II peace in place project: ................................................................... 11
Building healing spaces
By Deanna VanBuren, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP, NOMA; Yuval Berger, MSW,
RSW and Kimberly Fauss, JD
III New roots for socialand institutional .............................. 18
change: Fostering more rapid growth of forgiveness,
gratitude, and compassion
IV putting a heart into .......................................................................... 24
the body of law
By Sue Cochrane, JD
V circle supporting ............................................................................... 28
family court
By Elizabeth Vastine, JD
VI talking about love ........................................................................... 31
with lawyers
By Pauline Tesler, JD
VII what does love mean ....................................................................... 34
in family lAW practice
By Linda Wray, JD; Talia Katz, JD; Jennifer Tull, JD and
Kimberly Stamatelos, JD

3
Letter from the President
By Linda Wray, JD
T
his special edition of the Collaborative Review concerning the powerful concepts of love, forgiveness and
compassion is an exploration not commonly conducted by professional organizations. Love in particular, is a
word we rarely, if ever, encounter or embrace, at least explicitly, in the provision of professional services.
The Fetzer Institute, founded in 1962 by John Fetzer, seeks to break through barriers to expressing and
incorporating these concepts in the public sphere. John Fetzer, born in 1901, was a pioneer in the broadcast industry, eventually
amassing a broadcast empire, and a baseball enthusiast and one-time owner of the Detroit Tigers. He also was a keen intellect with
interests that extended beyond the bounds of science, business and sports. Throughout his life, he studied philosophy, practiced
various forms of meditation and prayer, and explored healing through a variety of mechanisms, including biofeedback, traditional
Chinese medicine, and techniques used by Tibetan and Buddhist monks. He was interested in how the sacred and secular could
be better integrated, and was convinced that to deal with the world’s greatest issues we must understand their psychological and
spiritual roots, as well as their political, social and economic underpinnings. The Fetzer Institute, funded by the wealth Mr. Fetzer
amassed from business, was established to explore his conviction and to create a better world. The mission of the Fetzer Institute
as stated on its website is to “foster awareness of the power of love and forgiveness in the emerging global community.”
When IACP became aware of the plans of the Collaborative Law Institute of Minnesota to hold a symposium on the topic
“Divorce: What’s Love Got to do With It?,” and the work of the Fetzer Institute, it welcomed the opportunity to support the
symposium and explore these weighty concepts through participation in the three-day symposium which took place in May,
2014, and through this edition of the Collaborative Review.
I suspect most would agree with John Fetzer, that love, forgiveness and compassion are important, indeed vitally important,
in our personal lives. And, I imagine there is some degree of comfort using these words, or at least drawing on the feelings
they invoke, in instances of tragedy affecting the public sphere. The remarkable story of the surviving senior partner at
Sandler O’Neill & Partners, a Wall Street financial firm that lost 66 of its employees on September 11, 2001, is such an
instance. Jimmy Dunne was the survivor. Dr. John Woodall, a psychiatrist previously on the faculty of Harvard Medical
School, met with him and described his emotional response as follows: “He grieved openly for the loss of dear friends and
colleagues. … It was a proof of his love and care for those he lost. For him, this was the only manly and honest thing to do, weep
for their loss.” Mr. Dunne chose to rise above his grief and anger, and chose not to hate and fear. In the face of the enormous loss
of life and devastation to his business, Sandler O’Neill made a decision to pay salaries of its deceased employees to their families,
and to establish a foundation to provide family health insurance coverage and pay for the education of children. Such a course
on Wall Street was clearly counter to the conventional wisdom of experts, who claimed that caring for families would undermine
businesses. Yet, propelled by strong emotions that perhaps could be called compassion or even love, Jimmy Dunne and Sandler
O’Neil stepped out on Wall Street as a different kind of role model. See, http://www.johnwoodall.net/2011/#axzz3IgdhIcyj; http://
fortune.com/2011/09/01/sandler-oneills-journey-from-ground-zero.
Many of us as Collaborative professionals have observed acts of forgiveness and compassion in our clients, and seen the
powerful concept of love play out as parents consider the future for their children.
As you read through the thought provoking articles in this edition, I invite you to consider whether you believe it is
appropriate to also apply these concepts to our work as professionals. Several articles in this edition look analytically at
components of love, forgiveness and compassion and how these values can come alive in our work. Some of us, including
me, took the plunge and agreed to share very personal stories about the place of love in our professional lives. Some at the
Fetzer Institute concluded that use of the word love, to express feelings and values that perhaps are captured by terms such as
empathy, compassion, support and caring, does not serve us well. Talia shares her personal story and concern about use of the
word love in the context of our professional lives.

4
A Message from the Fetzer Institute
By Linda Bell Grdina, Program Officer at Fetzer Institute
was a May 2014 symposium aimed at gaining a better
understanding of how Collaborative professionals could
use love and forgiveness as tools to resolve conflict in less
damaging – and more lasting – ways.
As you will see in the articles that follow, the symposium
participants achieved this objective, but they also broke
ground in unexpected areas, including:
• drawing lessons from hospice about how to help divorcing
couples deal with grief and loss;
• tending to the effect that the physical environment of
the law office and court room can have on clients’ mental
perspectives and feelings of emotional safety;
• examining the long-term impact of a worldview that
emphasizes competition over relationship and reciprocity; and,
• acknowledging the importance of authenticity, self-care, and
self-compassion in maintaining a healthy professional practice.
As the funder of the symposium, the Fetzer Institute
is inspired by the participants’ insight, passion, and
“Divorce: What’s Love Got to Do With It?”
We as a community have dealt to some degree with the concepts of forgiveness and compassion. They were an important part
of the dialogue at the Vancouver Forum. Does the concept of love, as well as forgiveness and compassion, resonate for you as
underlying our work? Are all three of these concepts deserving of more explicit discussion and exploration of their meaning
in our professional lives? Do they have a place in how we relate to our clients or develop space for their relationships? Or,
should one or more of these concepts be left for areas of our life outside of work?
A space on the Be-fulfilled website will be set up to dialogue about these questions. I hope you will consider sharing your
reflections, stories and ideas as to how the concepts of love, forgiveness and compassion show up, or not, in your work as
professionals and more generally in Collaborative Practice.

Sincerely,
Linda K. Wray, JD
Letter from the President (continued)
commitment to their profession. Collaborative professionals
are at the forefront of a small but growing movement within
the legal profession that seeks to relieve suffering and
promote healing as they resolve conflict. In a profession
often rife with contention, they have created an approach that
values love, compassion, and forgiveness.
Collaborative professionals are pioneers, yet they are not
alone. As a foundation that works to investigate, activate,
and celebrate the power of love and forgiveness as a practical
force for good in today’s world, the Fetzer Institute is seeing
similar changes arising in business, education, design, and
the health professions. All of these endeavors are focused
on respecting one another’s humanity, listening, and making
human connections: love, in so many words.
We are grateful to the symposium organizers, Sue Cochrane
and Ron Ousky, who were most ably assisted by Megan
Yates. We applaud the transformative work of Collaborative
professionals everywhere, affirming they will continue to
share their wisdom with each other and the world.

5
Expanding our Thinking about Love,
Forgiveness and Compassion in Our Work
By Ron Ousky, JD
I
For three days in May, 2014, the Collaborative Law Institute
of Minnesota, with funding from the Fetzer Institute and
assistance from the IACP, hosted a three-day international
symposium, entitled “Divorce: What’s Love Got to do With
It?” It is my hope and belief that this event will be a catalyst to
many insights for Collaborative practitioners and others. Before
I describe the potential impact of this symposium, please allow
me to step back to explain how this all came to be.
On January 20, 2012, Stu Webb, the founder of Collaborative
Law, forwarded an email to me from Sara Tollefson, a
member of the Law Professions Advisory Council of the
Fetzer Institute. I did not know Sara, but the Fetzer name
drew my immediate attention.
The Fetzer Institute is a nonprofit organization located in
Kalamazoo, Michigan, whose mission is to “foster awareness
of the power of love and forgiveness in the emerging global
community.” During the past forty years the Fetzer Institute has
funded numerous projects worldwide, ranging from smaller
initiatives, to the groundbreaking EmmyAward winning
Healing and the Mind with Bill Moyers on PBS. I have known
about the Fetzer Institute for many years and I had hoped that
the time would come when the people at Fetzer might take an
interest in Collaborative Practice. As it turns out, that day had
arrived. Sara’s email stated that she had been learning about
Collaborative Practice and that she thought that the Fetzer
Institute might have some interest in funding a project relating
to our work. Specifically, she said, the Fetzer Institute might
provide funding if we could come up with a project that would
“impart lessons about the practice of love, forgiveness, and/or
compassion in the field of law.”
I let that statement roll around in my mind for a short while.
I have always believed that much of our Collaborative work
centers around love, forgiveness and compassion, even if we
don’t often use those actual words. My definition of love is
quite broad. For me, the greatest part of being a Collaborative
practitioner is watching the transformation that can occur in
people when you are able to help them see past the pain of
their current circumstances and onto the prospect of a brighter
world. Understanding love and forgiveness has always been, in
my opinion, at the very heart of that transformation. In my view,
when truly meaningful change is happening for people, some
kind of love is in the room, even when we give it another name.
So, could we develop a project that would “impart lessons about
the practice of love, forgiveness, and/or compassion in the field
of law”? I believed we could. I had no specific idea about how
this “project” would look but I was interested in exploring it.
Sara suggested that we might consider hosting some type of
symposium in which people would gather to explore these
ideas. I liked the idea and during the next few weeks, cobbled
together a proposal for a three-day symposium entitled
“Divorce: What’s Love Got to Do With It?”
With Sara’s help, I submitted the idea, and, in the months that
followed, Linda Grdina, a program officer at Fetzer, helped
me refine the proposal. About a year later, Fetzer approved
funding for the symposium.
It was clear from the objectives outlined by the Fetzer Institute
that while the symposium would be centered on Collaborative
Practice, it should include professionals from outside the
Collaborative world as well, so that we could impact as many
people as possible. In order to help the symposium include
these broader objectives, I reached out to Susan Cochrane, a
recently retired Judicial Officer of our local Hennepin County
Family Court, who has been an amazing pioneer in bringing
new ideas to family law for nearly two decades. Sue agreed
to co-chair the symposium and help me form a small group of
Minnesotans to plan this exciting event.
ADifferent Kind of Gathering
While I had been involved in helping host conferences in the
past, this planning experience was quite different than anything
I had ever encountered. Most of those other conferences have
primarily had an educational purpose, in which the participants
attend plenary talks and workshops for the purpose of learning

6
Divorce: What's Love Got To Do With It? (continued)
new things. With this symposium, the participants were to
be invited to a working group gathered for the purpose of
generating ideas that might lead to differences in the future.
During the twelve months that followed, our group recruited
and identified fifty participants, recruited two keynote
speakers, located space for the conference, identified a
method of running the conference, engaged two facilitators
and hired an evaluator. It was an exhilarating (and sometimes
exhausting) experience leading up to a symposium that has
left a permanent impression on me and, I hope, will lead to
changes around the world.
Tuesday, May 13th, 2014: The Participants Gather at
Oak Ridge. On the afternoon of Tuesday, May 13, 2014, we
sat in the lobby of Oak Ridge Conference Center, anxiously
waiting for the arrival of participants to attend a conference that
was more unusual (and maybe more risky) than anything I had
ever done. We had been able to attract a talented and diverse
group from five different countries, including attorneys, judges,
psychologists, mediators, authors, law professors, and an
architect for three completely unpredictable days.
Oak Ridge Conference Center is a comfortable, resort-style
center in a wooded area of Chaska, Minnesota, approximately 35
miles from the airport. In order to make our out of town guests
feel as welcome as possible, and to start building a retreat-
like atmosphere, we had members of the Collaborative Law
Institute greet each person at the airport and drive them to Oak
Ridge, where they were welcomed with a “goodie bag” filled
with, among other items, locally made chocolates and hand-
painted cards. By around 5:30 pm, most of the attendees were
gathered at tables in the beautiful Oak Ridge dining area getting
acquainted (or reacquainted) before our opening gathering.
At 7:00 pm, we all gathered in our large meeting room where
we would spend much of the next three days. Fifty chairs
were set up in a circle with a large “shrine” of flowers, candles
and other warm symbols at the center. During that gathering,
the participants were introduced to each other and to our
facilitators, Barbara McAfee and Patrick O’Brien. From the
very first moment of that simple introductory gathering, it was
becoming increasingly clear that this was not going to be quite
like any other conference we had ever attended.
In addition to being a world class conference facilitator,
Barbara is a gifted singer and songwriter who has written
an amazing number of songs that seemed to be perfect for
occasions like this. Throughout the week, Barbara would start
our sessions by playing her keyboard and singing an original
song that seemed to capture, with humor and insight, the very
essence of our thinking. From the very first meeting on that
Tuesday evening, Barbara took us out of our comfort zones
and put us on the edges of our seats, only to bring us around to
moments of comfort and warmth that reminded us that we were
among the rarest of friends.
Barbara’s style was perfectly complemented by our other
facilitator, Patrick O’Brien, who was quieter, slightly older, and
punctuated Barbara’s musical energy with the calming words of
an old sage. His calm, steady manner, coupled with Barbara’s
boundless energy, set an engaging tone for the conference from
the time of our first “get to know each other” gathering on
Tuesday evening.
Wednesday, May 14: The Symposium Officially Begins
At 9:00 a.m. the next morning, after breakfast (and group
meditation for some), we gathered in that same large room,
shared some songs and a few more words of welcome and were
introduced to a new concept called Open Space Technology.
Modified Open Space Technology
One of the great challenges faced by our planning committee
was determining the best method of hosting that would help us
achieve our goals. We knew that we could not use the typical
methods of having lectures and workshops but needed to find a
suitable hosting alternative. After looking at many fascinating
models, we decided on using a process called Open Space
Technology. I hope that one of the things that will come out of
the symposium is an awareness of Open Space Technology (or
at least a modified version) and application of it in our work.
In Open Space Technology, the participants make and manage
their own agenda. People gather for the purpose of solving a
particular problem or to develop an idea, and the participants
decide how they want to go about working on the problem or
idea. We used a modified version of Open Space Technology
that inspired innovative thinking throughout the three days.
Defining the Problem
We started by spending some time as a group going over the
overall purpose of our gathering, the focus of the funding
from the Fetzer Institute and some defining questions, which
were developed in our work with the Fetzer Institute, to help
focus our thinking.
The defined objective of the symposium was to create a
“broader and deeper understanding of the current state of

7
fostering love and forgiveness as part of family law practice.”
After the method and some of the principle questions were
discussed, the actual open space “market place” began. During
that phase, we were each invited to step forward, introduce
an idea, and assign that idea a meeting room. During our
first Open Space Session, groups were formed to discuss the
following four topics:
1. Designing Space for Love and Forgiveness
2. Systems Changes
3. What Does Love Look Like in Family Law?
4. What Can Judges Do to Incorporate Reconciliation and
Forgiveness into Family Court?
Each of these ideas was assigned a room and posted on a large
board, along with any other ideas that popped up around the
room. Once all of the topics were identified and assigned a
room, the real fun began. We were given the complete freedom
to go into any room we wanted and to become a part of that
conversation. We were encouraged to stay in the room as long
as we were interested and contributing.As soon as we found
we were no longer interested in the topic, or if we felt we had
contributed as much as we could, we were free to go to any other
room. In fact, we could go in and out of rooms as often as we
wanted and we could even go out in the hall and pull aside two
or three others and have a separate conversation of our own.
Having that freedom to let our imaginations and energy run wild
was one of the most exhilarating experiences of my professional
lifetime. Here I was, in a building with 50 of the most fascinating
people I had ever known, invited to talk about some of the most
interesting topics that I had ever learned about, in whatever
manner I wanted. I was like a kid in a candy store. I wanted to sit
in on every session, and sometimes I did exactly that.
When I first heard about the Open Space idea, I thought it
would be mass chaos, with people wandering aimlessly without
focus. In fact, it was the opposite. The participants, able to
align their time and energy with their strongest interests, were
very focused and all of the rooms were full of energy. It was
quite fascinating. I remember wishing that every committee
meeting I had ever attended had operated under these rules.
We had five Open Space sessions throughout the symposium.
At the end of each, one of the members of the group would
summarize the key points and give them to our evaluator,
who would then condense these main points into a summary
document that was circulated to all of the participants. In
addition to the five topics above, we had discussions on
a wide range of ideas including: child safety, conditions
that enable forgiveness, defusing defensiveness, marriage
hospice, movement building, taking back the legal
profession, and diversity.
Our Speakers
The pure Open Space model does not have speakers. However,
we decided on a modified version of Open Space which
featured two special guests/speakers to help inspire our work;
Cheri Maples and Tara Brach.
Cheri Maples is an attorney and a former police officer
from Madison, Wisconsin, and founder of the Center for
Mindfulness and Justice. Cheri gave us an overview of her
work and took us through some fascinating exercises that left a
deep impact on all of us. She also provided specific ideas and
insights about love, forgiveness and compassion in our work
that inspired many of our discussions during the Open Space
portions of the symposium. Cheri also stayed around for most
of the symposium and contributed ideas and insights during our
Open Space discussions.
Our second speaker, Tara Brach, psychologist and best-
selling author of Radical Acceptance and True Refuge
helped us maintain a tone for the symposium through
several meditation exercises. Tara’s teachings on acceptance,
mindfulness and forgiveness, and her “RAIN” technique of
meditation (an acronym describing its four simple steps) also
provided us with many specific methods that can be used in
our professional practices. Tara also participated in some of
the Open Space sessions.
The Harvest
Friday, the final day, was spent primarily “harvesting” ideas and
outlining future action. We had one last Open Space session in
which the focus was on taking the ideas that had emerged from
the symposium and determining actions going forward.Again, as
with the other Open Space sessions, the “market” was open and
each member was allowed to identify something that he or she
wanted to work on and that project was assigned a room. Once
the ideas were identified and assigned to rooms, each person
could go to a room and work on the action plan that suited them.
As we approached this last session, I could feel the energy in
the room shift a bit, from a warm confidence that we were all
moving to a greater purpose, to a sense of fear that we may
not have time to develop the specific plans necessary to help
us create the great reforms that had been discussed throughout
the symposium. This is, perhaps, where the idea of a true Open
Space may have challenged us a bit. In a true Open Space
conference, nothing needs to evolve. Whatever happens as a

8
result of the meeting is exactly what is supposed to happen
and each of the participants must take their own responsibility
for taking the ideas forward in whatever manner they see fit.
However, this was a modified Open Space, and there were
some expectations, at least by the Fetzer Institute, if not by all
of us as individuals.
WritingArticles: Widening the Circle
Of course, the most likely stepping stone between the ideas
generated at the symposium and the actions that will make a
difference in the world is in writing. Part of our focus, following
the symposium, has been to encourage people to follow up
on the ideas that meant the most to them and to begin writing
about those ideas, either individually or in groups, so that these
ideas might grow and continue to spread. This edition of the
Collaborative Review, which has focused on collecting and
disseminating these ideas, is the first major step in expanding on
some of the wisdom that emerged from the symposium and on
spreading the enthusiasm for this great work to a wider body.
Members of the IACP, the first people to read and consider
these ideas through this edition of the Review, are in my
view, the perfect bridge between the abstract wonder of
the symposium and the more concrete work of making our
world a better place.Among other things, there has been talk
about hosting another similar symposium, or even annual
symposiums, to help continue finding ways that our work
can be enhanced by new ideas about love, forgiveness and
compassion. Many times during the conference, I thought that
many of my colleagues in IACP would have great ideas to
contribute and I thought how great it would be to widen our
circle from the 50 people gathered in Minnesota last May to the
more than 5,000 members of IACP and beyond.
Many of the powerful discussions at this year’s Forum
in Vancouver served as a strong affirmation that ideas of
forgiveness, restorative justice and compassion are emerging as
central themes in our work.
The articles in this edition were written for the purpose of
widening the circle to include all members of our community.
It is our hope that you will find all of the articles to be
interesting and that some of you will find at least one article to
be inspiring enough to invite you into the Open Space to help
us carry these ideas forward.
The focus of the symposium was quite broad and included
ideas that go beyond the specific elements of Collaborative
Practice. Yet, with each of the articles and ideas there is a
common thread that I believe relates very directly to our work
as Collaborative professionals, as well as to our overall vision
of creating a better world for the families that we seek to help.
We are hoping that this issue will plant many seeds and will
inspire thinking by our members, and many others, about how
we can be examples of love, forgiveness, and compassion in
our work.
The articles in this edition do not represent all of the things
discussed at the symposium, or even all of the ideas or articles
that may evolve from discussions during the symposium.
However, they represent some of the very best ideas that
emerged from many of the talented and creative people who
participated, and we hope the publication of these ideas will be
a catalyst for much more good work.
Opening Comments from the Fetzer Institute
Linda Bell Grdina, Program Officer for the Fetzer Institute,
provides an introduction to our issue and describes a
wonderful connection between the work being done by
Collaborative professionals and the growing movement
of professionals seeking to relieve suffering and promote
healing in conflict resolution.
Peace In Place Project: Building Healing Spaces
One of the exciting ideas that was generated during the Open
Space sessions was a discussion about how our physical space
relates to our work in love, forgiveness and compassion.
Bringing people together from different backgrounds led to a
rich and diverse discussion of how we can create space that
creates a “safe haven” to help clients and professionals do their
work as peacemakers. Deanna VanBuren, an architect, Yuval
Berger, a mental health professional and Kimberly Fauss, an
attorney, have combined to write an article that explores the
great possibilities of creating space in which love, forgiveness
and compassion can thrive in our work. The issue of improving
our peacemaking space is often discussed in our Collaborative
community. This article on space is the first article I have ever
read that really looks at the research and ideas that support our
thinking about creating a healing space. I hope that we will
look back many years from now and know that many healing
spaces have been created or enhanced by the ideas generated in
this article.
New Roots for Social and Institutional Change: Fostering
More Rapid Growth of Forgiveness, Gratitude and
Compassion Sharon Strand Ellison, author of the powerful
book Taking the War Out of Our Words, Executive Director of

9
the Institute for Powerful Non-Defensive Communication,
and an engaged participant at the symposium has contributed
an amazing article entitled: New Roots for Social and
Institutional Change: Fostering More Rapid Growth of
Forgiveness, Graitude and Compassion. In her article, Sharon
outlines how we foster a growth in human consciousness
and create a social epidemic of compassion, forgiveness and
healing. Sharon provides inspiration and clear ideas about
how we can extricate ourselves from old ideas and “nurture
new, healthier roots for change.” She describes ways that we can
defuse defensiveness and “create experiences that give future
generations the ability to live more meaningful lives.”
The closing remarks of Sharon’s article summarize it best and
nearly give me a chill: “We can stop giving the greatest power
to the most negative person at the table. We can be part of a
process that can move us at exponential speed toward a world
that understands and embraces the realistic and practical power
of positive forces such as forgiveness, gratitude and compassion.
The potential is there. One conversation at a time. Every time.”
Putting a Heart in the Body of Law
Sue Cochrane, a retired family court Judicial Officer in
Minnesota and Co-Chair of the symposium, writes about five
principles that could create a model court system which would
bring love, forgiveness and compassion to families.
Sue’s article has a very personal impact on me. I have
known Sue since the time we both graduated from law
school more than three decades ago. We both entered as
visionaries, and through different paths, have tried to change
the world of family law. I have worked primarily in the area of
Collaborative Practice and Sue has worked, most recently, in
reforming our court systems. Sometimes we had opportunities
to work together in our reforms and, more often, we had the
opportunity to notice how, in and out of the courts, we are
working to achieve the same purpose. When Sue was a Judicial
Officer of family court, she enlisted the help of mediators and
Collaborative professionals to create an entirely different type
of court system that lies at the very heart of our work.
The magic of Collaborative Practice for me, is that, by taking
divorcing families outside of the “shadow of the court” and
away from the notion that some outside person will make the
decision for us, we open the door for families to find their
better solutions. During her time on the family law bench,
Sue achieved much of the same reality. She has shown that,
in the right environment, even a judge or Judicial Officer can
take people outside that “shadow” by getting them to forget
that there is a powerful decision maker who is going make
decisions for them, and to look to the resources of the court
system to help them find the power within themselves.
One of the reasons I was so eager to expand this symposium
to all areas, inside and outside of court, is that, in the truly
ideal state of conflict resolution, these ideas can connect. Even
within a court system, one with heart, there is an opportunity
for families to pause and to seek the aid of professionals
both within and outside the system, who will help them find
solutions without the threat of adversarial litigation.
Circles Supporting Family Court
Discussion of love, forgiveness and compassion often lead
to the amazing work that has been done around the world in
relation to Restorative Justice Circles. While many of us are
aware of the power of Restorative Justice outside family law,
we were fortunate to have a participant at the symposium
who had brought this amazing work into the world of family
law. Elizabeth Vastine, a Chicago attorney, writes about the
success of a pilot project in Chicago in working with families
using Restorative Justice Circles. The concept of working
with families in conflict through Restorative Justice Circles
represents another cutting edge way in which we might
integrate love, compassion and forgiveness in our work.
TalkingAbout Love With Lawyers
Pauline Tesler has added a wonderful reflection about what
it means to talk about love with lawyers. She writes about
the difficulties that lawyers have in talking about love and in
expressing emotions and about the impact that the suppression
of these emotions has on our profession as well as our health.
Law schools do not train lawyers to have these types of
conversations and, indeed, may continue to suppress some
of the traits that make us better people and better attorneys.
Thankfully, as Pauline writes, new ideas and new trainings
are emerging to help us counter this traditional approach in
ways that we hope will eventually allow even lawyers to speak
openly about love and forgiveness.
What does Love Mean in Family Law Practice?
One of the remarkable things about the Fetzer Institute is that,
in furtherance of their mission, they insert the word “love”
into our dialogue and ask all parts of our society to talk about
what it means. I believe their funding of projects like this one is
designed, in part, to get the legal community talking about how
love fits into their work. Even in the Collaborative community, I
find that this is a greater challenge than we might expect; whether
we are talking about the concept of love, or the very word itself.

10
I chose the name for the symposium, “Divorce: What’s Love
Got to do With It?” with the idea that it would take us out of
our comfort zone and, at minimum, force us to discuss the
impact of that word, and that concept. Of course, the focus
of the Fetzer Institute funding, and the symposium itself was
designed to go beyond a discussion of what we mean by
“love.” There was a mandate, throughout the symposium, to
also look at the role that forgiveness and compassion have
in our work. Using words like forgiveness and compassion,
while still challenging, take us down more familiar paths.
Injecting the word “love” into the conversation adds another
dimension altogether.
One of the topics discussed at our very first Open Space
session was the very seminal question of what we mean by
“love” in family law. It is clear that love is a word that is
used with great caution in professional circles, if it is used
at all. If we are going to be bold enough to use that word in
our dialogue, as the people of Fetzer seem to be daring us
to do, then we ought to spend some time talking about what
we really mean. Coming from a tradition in which love was
used very expansively (and therefore could fit into almost
any container), I was surprised to learn that this was not the
same for many of my colleagues. Many of my good friends
at the symposium and elsewhere, have had very different
notions about what we might mean by “love” in this context
and, accordingly, about whether the ideas embedded in that
word should be a part of our professional practice. In this
issue, we have compiled some reflections about what love
means in family law by some of the participants, including
IACP's CEO and its President, to help us all think about the
many dimensions of the word and the concepts. I appreciate
the willingness of each of our contributors to share their very
personal thoughts on this bold and delicate topic.
Summary
For me personally, this symposium was an opportunity
of a lifetime to participate in what I hope will be a truly
transformative discussion. The true beauty of Collaborative
Practice is that it opens the door to a whole world of
possibilities. By taking families in conflict outside of the
shadow of the court, we are hoping to make room for a truly
transformational shift. We are moving away from a world in
which these families fight for survival and rely on their most
base instincts to a world in which individuals and families
in conflict are given the opportunity to connect with the best
parts of themselves. When this happens, it is pure magic
and it gives us, as Collaborative professionals, the most
compelling of reasons for doing the hard work we do.
While we don’t always use terms like love, forgiveness and
compassion in our work, most of us are well aware that
those concepts lie at the heart of what we currently do and,
perhaps more importantly, form the clearest signposts pointing
to where we want to go in helping these families build a
ladder to a better future. Many of us have already spoken,
on many occasions (at least among our colleagues), about
how forgiveness and compassion can play a role in helping
our clients find deeper resolution. We have, for the most
part, been less comfortable using the word “love.” It is an
understandable discomfort, even for a community as brave
as ours. It is a word saturated with meaning and we may all
have different understandings of what we mean by “love,”
based on cultural or religious beliefs or even simply based
on our individual experiences of how we have seen that
powerful word used in our lives.
The people of Fetzer have challenged us, much in the way
they have challenged so many elements of our society, to
come to grips with “love” and to come face to face with how
this word fits into our lives and into our work. We may not
be able to have a consensus about what love means to each
of us; indeed, that is not truly necessary. But we must have
the courage to at least have the conversation; for it is a word
that, while often misconstrued, is deeply embedded in our
culture and the meanings so many of us attach to the word is
too powerful to be ignored. It is a word that ignites passion
and feeling and, in our case, helped lead us to a powerful
weekend of rich conversation.
The people at Fetzer sought out the Collaborative community
because they believed that, among legal circles, this may
be a group most likely to have the courage to talk about
love, compassion and forgiveness in a way that truly leads
to change in our world. I think that they were absolutely
correct in their assessment of our community; not because
we were able to host a three day symposium; that was only
intended to be the beginning; but because we have the
commitment and creativity to carry these ideas forward.
The proof will lie in the years ahead. The symposium
involved just a handful of people, some of whom were IACP
members. The purpose of this issue of the Collaborative
Review is to be the spark that ignites a larger flame so that
these ideas may build and grow as we constantly look for
better ways to help the families that we serve.

11
II
Peace in Place Project:
Building Healing Spaces
By Deanna VanBuren, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP, NOMA; Yuval
Berger, MSW, RSW and Kimberly Fauss, JD
The Collaborative movement thrives on interdisciplinary
connections and innovations. The Fetzer Symposium 2014
encouraged new and unexpected relationships embracing
peacemaking between Collaborative Practice and health,
contemplative thought and architecture. One exciting group
conversation centered on the attributes of the physical space
where we do our work. Many of the themes throughout the
symposium invited us to embody our work – not just explain,
educate and theorize about resolving disputes respectfully,
but also to recognize, investigate and allow the physical
expressions of conflict to be expressed, calmed and released.
Physical experience impacts both clients who struggle in their
transition as well as professionals who are located in and
identified with the space.
An architect, mental health professional and lawyer have
continued the conversation beyond the symposium to explore
how Collaborative professionals can construct or renovate
spaces in their communities that heal and nurture rather than
separate and judge. Both research and experience demonstrate
that the physical configuration of courtrooms, offices,
mediation and restorative justice centers directly affect the
people entering and using the space. The fortress model of
traditional courtrooms creates distances and hierarchy while
the haven model of contemporary offices offers sanctuary.
The new edge of change for Collaborative professionals
is how to intentionally design and incorporate hospitality
into their practice so that love and forgiveness can emerge
naturally to move clients beyond settlement to resolution.
Project Description
Collaborative Practice empowers clients to resolve legal
disputes without traditional adversarial legal structures such
as courts. In family matters specially trained Collaborative
professionals from different disciplines guide clients in
reaching balanced and lasting agreements. Collaborative
Practice does this by managing conflict and directly engaging
the team of clients and professionals together to generate
acceptable options for clients and their families in their
future lives. The Collaborative process is about creating a
new experience of safety for the clients in a time of great
physical stress. Trust in the process and all professionals,
respect for the personhood of all participants, integrity of
action to provide information and contribute solutions are the
foundational tools of Collaboration. The process provides
emotional safety for clients to explore custom-designed plans.
Each client is represented by a lawyer who is fully committed
to a negotiated conclusion since representation will terminate
upon any contested court proceedings. This commitment to
safety encourages the client to attempt new behavior. Just as the
professional team strives to be a metaphorical safe container
for the dispute, the physical environment of Collaborative
negotiations can be an actual safe container enhancing
respectful attitudes for both clients and professionals.
The primary area of practice for many Collaborative
professionals remains family law in which the central values
of love and forgiveness may seem to have been forsaken. In
the breakdown of a marriage, anger, betrayal and hurt are
familiar and often barriers to open dialogue and proactive
future financial planning. Often the feelings of anger,
betrayal and hurt are fueled or even encouraged in a zero
sum contest to win the most. Forgiveness is a conscious,
willful choice to turn away from the pain and discover a
larger context for change, restoration and hope. Forgiveness
is not an outcome, but a process of compartmentalizing,
leaving behind and co-creating a future relationship. To
achieve this state, the professional actively facilitates
clients by quieting anger, acknowledging the transgression,
moderating civility, modeling empathy and inviting a new
beginning. This context for forgiveness can be reflected and
enhanced by the physical surroundings - from the shape of
the table to the seating arrangement, lighting and wall colors.
Likewise professionals are influenced by physical space. To
move beyond settlement of financial issues to the broader
goal of resolution, they too must have a shift in attitude. The
space and organization of the office, conference room and
courtroom should remind the professional of his deepest
values – justice, healing, trust - the reasons he went to

12
Peace in Place Project... (continued)
professional school. The broader conversation about love
includes the professional’s compassionate response to his
clients, support staff and colleagues. Compassion calls us
to suffer together with another and be moved to relieve that
suffering. The peacemaking foundations of Collaborative
Practice arise from a desire to relieve the suffering of
families in the divorce transition by normalizing the stages
of grief and restructuring families so they can thrive. The
professional practicing compassion holds hope for his client
until that client regains emotional balance, confidence and
trust. Conflict conducted in healing spaces can support
professionals in their work of relieving suffering, healing past
memories, learning broader perspective so that their clients
can rekindle love in future relationships.
Impact of Design
The professional practices of architecture, urban design and
planning create spaces that reflect the values of society. This
built environment forms the containers for nearly all the
activities of our lives, and through evidence-based design
research we are learning that these containers have a profound
impact on how we feel and behave. For those new to the
concept, evidence-based design is the process of basing
design decisions about the built environment on rigorous
research to achieve the best possible outcomes. It is also used
to quantify the effects our current environments have on our
health and well-being. In analyzing this research it is clear
that the values inherent in our social systems, including those
for justice, are the genesis for the physical environment. If
we value winning, our spaces will create a field of conflict. If
we value forgiveness, our spaces will be focused on healing.
Within the context of the dispute resolution continuum we are
seeing a dramatic shift in values taking us from the punitive to
the transformative. New practices for dispute resolution, that
include restorative justice and Collaborative Practice, have
the potential to foster love, forgiveness and compassion for
those in conflict rather than fear and alienation. However, in
order to support this change we need to break from patriarchal
and hierarchical spaces for conflict resolution and create
environments that support different desired outcomes.
To frame the discussion and help non-designers to understand
how this happens, it can be helpful to begin with the model
we are most familiar - the courthouse. The American
Correctional Association video series Understanding the
Criminal Justice System uses the metaphor of a boxing ring
to describe the adversarial process of conflict resolution to
understand how this works spatially. In the boxing ring there is
a centralized infrastructure, unfamiliar to many and physically
separated from the community. The entrance to the match has
clear fortress-like barriers to entry and opaque walls to hide the
various routes separating the participants (judges, the accused
and the public). Inside the judge as referee sits on an elevated
dais while the players themselves hit back and forth verbally
within the carefully defined footwork of the courtroom.
These are distinct formal strategies that reinforce the power
relationships and adversarial nature of the proceedings. Once
the round is over, both the winner and loser return to their
corners physically, mentally and emotionally hurt and in pain.
While this is the experience of many families, communities
and individuals entering our courts, the user experience of
the physical design of courthouses is anecdotal. There has
been little evidence-based design research done on courtroom
settings. However we can extrapolate data from research
done in other building types with similar values, such as
prisons and jails. For example, current research and literature
in the design of these institutions, which includes work
being done by architects in collaboration with social workers
and incarcerated students, suggests that to some extent the
violence and anger prevalent in correctional facilities are
attributable to the architecture and design of the physical
spaces that induce incredible amounts of stress. Some of these
features include loss of privacy, poor acoustics exacerbated
by hard surfaces, lack of control and isolation from nature
- especially sunlight (Wener, 2012). It is interesting to see
that many of these same features are found in the design of
the courthouse. Lawyer and architect, Paul Spencer Byard,
makes reference to how the amount and types of spaces might
replicate these conditions:
The bind comes from a dominant postmodern political
emphasis on criminalization, prohibition and retribution
as proper responses to socially undesirable behavior. This
emphasis produces for the architect an almost insuperable
programmatic overload in the quantities of space for
courtrooms and related functions - duplicated and even trebled
by requirements for segregation and security - to accommodate
all the required adjudication and punishment (Celebrating the
Courthouse, p. 143).
Byard means by “bind” that neither the anecdotal, qualitative or
quantitative research in the destructive nature of these settings
has led to a shift in the design of spaces for traditional dispute
resolution nor retribution since there has been no change in
underlying values. It is this bind that led to the development
of alternatives such as Collaborative law.As a practice further

13
along the continuum of dispute resolution, Collaborative law
had to physically divorce itself from the courthouse in order
to foster its values of trust, respect and integrity. These values
can now also manifest physically to support the families,
professionals and the unique spatial needs of this process.
Collaborative professionals are actually well-positioned to
participate in creation of spaces that relieve suffering, reduce
physical and mental stress and provide emotional safety.
How do you as a Collaborative professional take ownership
of space to transform yourself? How do you create a space
that fosters hospitality and emotional safety? These were
questions asked of the Fetzer Symposium group looking at
Designing Space for Love and Forgiveness. Sadly, we have
few models of what this haven looks like within the context
of the legal profession. The good news is that we can adapt
solutions from evidence-based design research done in other
building types expressing similar values, such as case health
care, residential and work environments. These spaces share
values rooted in creating places that support the emotional and
physical well-being of those who use them. This shift in values
has allowed architects and their clients to implement spatial
strategies based on research to achieve better outcomes. In
addition, the learning conversations between architect, mental
health professionals and lawyers during the working group at
the symposium raised early criteria on how to create spaces
for collaboration that are designed to heal and nurture. Based
on analysis of current evidence-based design research and real
world projects for peacemaking and restorative justice, already
designed and built, some of the most universal and relevant
criteria we have identified for these environments include:
personalization of space to elicit feelings of haven, home and
hospitality, integration with nature and providing a sense of
scale and control.
Not unlike your home, your office is a place where you
have some form of control over the surroundings. When you
contextualize the places where you work as a significant place
in your life, then it can contain symbolic content that reflects
your values, your personality and supports your emotional
state of mind (Bailer, 2002). Creating a comfortable warm
and welcoming space through personalization can also
begin to establish the basic level of intimacy required for
trust in facilitated dispute resolution processes. In an early
study on the Effects of Interior Design on Communication,
researchers Chaikin, Delega and Miller discovered that
self-disclosure was greater in a warm, intimate counseling
setting (Page K Pressly, Spring 2001, p. 152). In residential
facilities where there is prolonged exposure to an
environment, personalization of space has been shown
to mitigate aggression and anxiety (Wener, 2012, p.125).
Plants and artwork with certain themes are simple elements
to implement that can be part of the strategy. For example,
art that represents nature, as opposed to abstracts or urban
settings, has positive physiological and emotional effects in
offices, hospitals and institutional settings (Roger S. Ulrich,
2008) (Wener, 2012, p. 222). This personalization can also
manifest in textures, colors, furnishings, objects, imagery
and lighting that reflects character and personality rather
than corporate or institutional identity. Your physical space is
essentially a reflection of you and your values.
Another related aspect of personalization is the creation of
positive entry experience that reflects one of welcome and
hospitality. At the symposium workshop, Collaborative
practitioners explored both needs and solutions to this aspect
of their spaces. What is the first thing that people see? Who
is greeting them? Many decided to remove diplomas, others
who were unable to staff a front desk had their dog greet
visitors as they came. Other practitioners made sure there was
a place for food and coffee. In our work in designing centers
for native peacemaking, clients have asked for a greeter
instead of a waiting room or to have a lobby space filled with
visual interest and activities that helps take some of the focus
off the difficult dialogue about to take place. Another aspect
of this experience is a desire for depth of view through low
walls, shelves or glass to reduce anxiety that comes when
entering an unfamiliar space or relieve overcrowding in a
small or cramped area. As a start, being mindful of these
basic aspects of the environment can provide a way for
practitioners to care for themselves and create an experience
that can be a calm space in the midst of chaos.
The American Institute of Stress shows that second only to
the death of a spouse, divorce and separation from a mate
are the most stressful life events, with illness a close third.
In evidence-based design of health care facilities, one of the
primary goals has been to explore how the environment can
be used to reduce this stress and can be directly applied to
spaces for dispute resolution. One well-researched aspect
is the impact of integrating man-made environment with
nature. This includes windows that allow daylight, fresh air
and views to nature, natural elements within the space and
access to gardens or outdoor spaces for reflection and social
interaction. For example it has been proven in multiple
building types that environments with views to nature and
plants reduce anxiety and stress that lead to fear, anger and
violence (Francis E Kuo, July 2001 ) (Roger S. Ulrich, 2008, p.

14
36) (Wener, 2012, p. 222). More importantly for those visiting
a space for shorter amounts of time, the physiological reactions
that illicit stress can abate within five minutes with views
to real or representative images of nature (Roger S. Ulrich,
2008, p. 35). Windows that allow in daylight and provide
visual interest also reduce mental fatigue, promote emotional
recovery, improve mental function and provide relief from
depression (Roger S. Ulrich, 2008, p. 42) (Heschong Mahone
Group, October 2003, p.120). While fuller spectrum artificial
light can help, well-controlled daylighting and a link to the
outdoors is one of the most powerful design features one can
draw on to create an environment that is emotionally and
physically supportive.
Most of these elements form a proxy for home where we have
complete control over our space. This includes not just the
object and aspects of nature that surround us, but also lighting
levels, thermal conditions, interpersonal space (body buffer
zones) and levels of social engagement. Studies of student
perceptions of faculty office environments showed that they
felt more welcome and at ease in offices in which they felt
more control over their surroundings. (Page K Pressly, Spring
2001, p. 152). It has also been shown in hospital, workplace
and residential settings that when people feel they have control
over what happens to them in the physical space, they are
less stressed and frustrated (Wener, 2012, pp. 117-122, 199),
(Augustin, 2009) (Ann Sloan Develin, 2003, p.672). This might
be the ability to open a window to stay cool, close a window to
control sound, move one’s chair to alter interpersonal space, dim
the lights or leave the room to process and reflect.
The combination of these elements is a preliminary
framework for understanding how the Collaborative
practitioner can harness the power of design to represent the
values of the process. Returning to the vision of the boxing
ring, we can see the radical difference between the spaces of
the courthouse and the kinds of spaces we are talking about
for collaborative offices. Knowing the profound impact the
design of physical infrastructure has on our social systems,
there are many architects across the country attempting to
re-vision the courthouse and its associative architecture.
However, in the face of a continuing commitment to the
adversarial values of our traditional system, this change
is difficult. It is not surprising that in an effort to create
a new paradigm for one of the more stressful events in
people’s lives, the closing of the courthouse doors has
been essential. In doing so Collaborative practitioners can
generate environments that reflect and support different
outcomes and should be empowered with the tools to do so.
By understanding the research in other places that promote
calm and healing and by engendering mindfulness around
the impact environment has on our health and well-being, the
intention of this project is to develop thought leadership to
inspire Collaborative professionals to create spaces of dispute
resolution that embody love and forgiveness.
Entering through the Back Door:
How Physical Space Can Surprise the Unconscious
The human brain has evolved over many millions of years
to protect us from danger, real or perceived, physical or
psychological. In the psychological realm, threats can range
from failures, rejection, inconsistencies of awareness of our
mortality, small frustrations or hassles of everyday life. The
brain is equipped with billions of neurons organized in separate
regions, yet all connected. These neurons can identify, analyze
and respond to real or perceived danger swiftly and effectively.
This system has protected us over many millions of years with
one goal - our survival as a species! The defended self reacts
arising from unconscious sensory motor strategies anchored in
the spine and nervous system.
The brain’s ability to defend the self is largely dependent on
an unconscious, rapid cascade of internal processes which
result in automatic behaviour. The way we react to the
perceived danger lacks conscious psychological process, such
as cognition, choice, linear sequence thinking, etc. Our brain
response to the challenge of threats is significantly quicker
than when the brain is challenged, for example, to collaborate
with another human being. When competing needs arise, the
need to defend the self would ‘veto’all other human needs.
Some evolutionary psychologists would argue that our brain
better serves as a war apparatus than as a relational one.
Divorce or separation from an emotionally-committed
relationship is a traumatic and extremely stressful event.
The trauma of the divorce is compounded by the fact that
during the time that individuals work through their own
bereavement, they are challenged by the need to make
many important decisions regarding their children, their
accommodation, as well as financial matters.
In many divorces, conflicts arise as the two clients negotiate
the next step. Some conflicts have their origins in the
psychological responses to feelings of being hurt, humiliated
or shamed by divorce. It seems that initiators and non-
initiators share similar emotional responses to divorce, but

15
the timing of the responses is different: initiators experience
more change, stress, and personal growth at the beginning of
the divorce process, whereas non-initiators report the same
feelings later on in the process.
Unlike dealing with the death of a spouse, divorce is a
voluntary process. Although there are similarities between
divorce and the loss of the spouse through death, nonetheless,
given the nature of the loss, adjustment to divorce seems
more difficult than adjustment to widowhood. Death is a
matter of fact, which often permits an idealized view of the
deceased one, whereas divorce often shows the ambivalence
of the feelings present in some relationships.
Considering the complex psychological nature of the divorce
and the conflict in which it is embedded, it is normal and
expected for individuals dealing with divorce to feel angry,
self-protective, self-justifying and victimized by the divorce.
These responses are not a matter of choice or a voluntary state
of mind, but rather a biological response of the self to protect
and defend the self when feeling threatened and in danger.
Evolution equipped us with this mechanism to preserve and
protect as a species.
There are many definitions of forgiveness. However,
psychological academics and researchers conclude that
forgiveness is a conscious process in which the person who
forgives intentionally chose to do so. According to Enright &
Fitzgibbons (2000), people, upon rationally determining that
they have been unfairly treated, forgive when they willfully
abandon resentment and related responses (to which they
have a right), and endeavor to respond to the wrongdoer
based on a moral principle of beneficence, which may include
compassion, unconditional worth, generosity, and moral love
(to which the wrongdoer, by nature of the hurtful act or acts,
has no right). When a person forgives, changes occur in the
affective, cognitive, and behavioral systems. For example,
negative emotions, such as anger, hatred, resentment, and
sadness, are given up and are replaced with more neutral
emotions and, eventually, positive affect. With forgiveness,
one recognizes that a hurt has occurred, yet one consciously
chooses to release resentment and anger.
The psychological challenge for the divorcing couple while
engaging in the separation process, regardless of who is the
initiator or the non-initiator of the divorce, is how to pursue a
rational, conscious process which employs logical, objective,
and systematic methods of thinking, including the choice to
cultivate forgiveness, while the unconscious brain is caught
up in a self-defended, self-righteous state of mind.
Our unconscious brain is highly sensitive to the environment
in which we live. Physical spaces are designed to ‘surprise
the unconscious brain’through leveraging memory, evoking
experiences and inducing behaviours. The space in which
the Collaborative process unfolds may assist the person
in cultivating a peaceful, calm and rational state of mind
which would allow for rational conscious thinking process
to overcome the reactivity of the unconscious brain. The
potentiality of the physical space as a stimulus for activating
moods, attitudes, decision-making, leveraging values,
including forgiveness, for the individual who has been dealing
with the traumatic experience of separation, has not yet been
fully explored as a resource by Collaborative professionals,
even though its impact on the self has been documented in
research studies. This is a new frontier, and a very exciting
one for the Collaborative movement.
The Collaborative process is about creating a new experience
of safety for the clients. This kind of safety provides an
atmosphere for inspired guidance by the professionals; and for
the client, it provides the courage to attempt new behaviour.
By soothing the negative feelings associated with separation
and activating calm and safe experience, the individual can
reorganize mindset toward the conflict.Achange in the mindset
may impact the ability to appraise the challenges they are
facing with a less ‘catastrophic’stance so that the individual
may consider ‘outside-the-box’options, increase empathy to
the spouse’s pain and possibly choose forgiveness.
Change and Other Challenges to Professional Identity
Although the evidence-based research demonstrates that
design follows values and that clients have physiological
responses to the perceived safety of environment, the final
hurdle to a collaborative reorientation to physical space
is the professionals themselves. In our struggle to remove
traditional barriers to consensual family restructuring, the
professional community is still coming to terms with the
restructuring of our own assumptions and responses. As a
movement, Collaboration has embraced a self-reflective
orientation to evaluate the impact of our aptitudes and
attitudes on client functionality. Likewise, clients in
continuing conflict have the ability to hijack even the best
intentions of the professionals through positional thinking,
advocacy, alignment, transference, counter-transference
and other invisible pulls toward long-standing habits of

16
adversarial work. Professionals need visible reminders of
their higher values in the workplace to strengthen their
commitment to respectful practice.
Traditional fortress environments developed alongside
the hierarchical evolution of law and social institutions
administering justice. From a power-based system of the
DarkAges where might made right, the legal system of the
11th
Century moved into rights-based justice arising from
ecclesiastical courts, imbued with the authority of God and
King (Fauss, 2010). The divine rightness of the law was
defended by professionals who professed their faith and
duty. The legacy of the rightness of this system lingers today
among professionals and clients alike forming an implicit
identity for judges and lawyers. Moving family matters from
the courtroom to negotiation settings became acceptable
only as no-fault divorce statutes became ubiquitous in the
1970’s. It took a single boy to point at the Emperor with no
clothes and ask “why do we continue to subject families to the
same assumptions and values embedded in property-based,
distributive legal processes?” That boy was Stu Webb in the
1990’s who chose a different set of values within himself. His
courage has allowed family law professionals to follow the
exodus from hierarchy and power.
Yet 25 years in the making, Collaboration is still considered
an alternative. Professionals trained and successful in the
adversarial model have an ingrained preference for the
environments that perpetuate this identity. Clients in the stress
of fight or flight unwittingly reinforce the hierarchy by turning
over decision-making to someone with exclusive knowledge
and experience in this unknown landscape. Without mentoring,
community and life changes, Collaborative professionals risk
relapsing into habits which have been successful in court, in
adversarial negotiation and in society’s acknowledgment of
professional power. Many professionals are called to take
an introductory Collaborative training by personal values of
peacemaking, love and forgiveness, but struggle to align their
professional practice in ways which will support continued
growth and maturity as a facilitator of disputes.
When the professional resonates with these deeply held
values, the clients notice. Neuroscience suggests that
there is an entrainment that happens between people in
conversation arising from empathetic networks of mirror
neurons. Curiosity and open questions will elicit a different
response from clients than fact-oriented discovery that
compartmentalizes the client’s lived experience. The attitude
of the professional has an impact on how the client shares
his story. The information the professional gives, whether
process-oriented (how we will move forward) or substantive
(what you can expect) will either calm the client or anchor
the client to protective reactions. The professional is in the
best position to focus attention on one goal or the other.
And the professional will be influenced by the setting of the
interaction. Does hospitality shift the client’s fear or does
the planning of hospitality by the professional, including the
room, the food on the table and the comfort of the chairs, shift
the professional’s perspective?
This is the core of the paradigm shift Collaborative
professionals experience: moving the clients from fear to
calm, from emotional dependence to generativity and from
settlement to resolution. There are emotional, mental and
physical transformations in the professional first, so that
the clients can be guided, refocused and allowed to express
their highest values as well. So the natural progression
of the shift is for Collaborative professionals to surround
themselves with indicia of these values. Creativity in clients
and professionals can be tapped in the calm alertness instilled
by the haven environment, allowing the clients to access his
full range of memory, knowledge and experience to craft an
acceptable and durable outcome.
The haven is our metaphor for environments which allow
access to creativity and conversation, with its welcome and
access to nature, beauty and calm. The different disciplines
of Collaborative professionals may well have different access
to office space or conference rooms that elicit the feeling of
calm alertness. Many professionals are in group practices with
significant overhead and colleagues who are not engaged in
Collaborative Practice. Often staffs, receptionists and assistants,
are not trained in the hospitality of the Collaborative table. So
recommending structural changes to the practice environment
may be costly and not practical. The Peace in Place Project will
examine not only building new structures, but also redesigning
existing spaces. Changing colors, lighting and implements of
authority may be enough to shift the comfort of professional and
client alike.
The value of compassion can then be expressed through the
intentions of the Collaborative team: the desire to alleviate the
suffering of our clients by offering an alternative. Even though
the divorce transition for our clients is stressful and possibly
even traumatic, Collaboration embodied in the physical can
create the circumstances for forgiveness to be approached.
The shift in power expressed in intentional space and human
spirit can invite love and forgiveness into the future we create

17
together. The Collaborative team can hold this hope for the
clients as they rediscover their values and potential for the future.
Moving Forward
Based on research in the diverse fields of architecture,
psychology and neuroscience there is a connection between
the design of place and outcome in the Collaborative process.
Although coming from three different disciplines, the authors
conclude that design of physical space has a substantive and
transformative influence, positively or negatively, on the
clients’emotional experience of conflict as well as on the
emotional experience of the Collaborative professionals as they
engage in the process. Place has the potential of transforming
the clients from feeling defended, angry, guilty, afraid, lonely
and powerlessness into calm, engaged and reflective. This
shift from stress and dependency creates the possibility for the
client to cultivate forgiveness. For the professionals, this shift
from hierarchical vestiges of adversarial settings allows them
to reclaim personal values of compassion for the suffering of
families in conflict.
In addition to the structural design of place, there are a myriad
of other variables that can impact the process that can be
investigated. Colors chosen for the walls, textures of flooring,
design considerations of window treatments, textiles and
décor of a room may have subtle influence on mood. Research
on the physiology of the eye has demonstrated that men and
women see color differently, with men responding to bold
colors and women to pastels. Lighting, especially fluorescent
bulbs, has reflective qualities on faces which may subtly affect
perception of emotions. Research on unconscious interpretation
of facial cues may provide new insight into the significance
of the visual reading of others in conflict. Egress and ingress
to a space and flow between spaces may create barriers or
invitation to sanctuary. Clutter, at the one end of the spectrum,
or displays of accoutrements of success at the other, may
convey messages of chaos or rigidity. While clients may need
reassurance of professional qualifications, in Collaboration
we are encouraging clients to use professionals as resources
so they can rely more on their own internal expertise.All of
these physical considerations become part of the Collaborative
professional’s canvas, and all can be managed with relatively
low cost. Just as we are learning that there is an optimal point
between fight or flight responses and lethargy, our goal is
to create a space where the clients can optimize calmness
and alertness. Our space should convey well-ordered
establishments, yet accessibility and welcome to those who
choose to participate actively in resolution.
The metaphor of the safe haven describes an emotion
and a place. In this place the clients can find comfort and
soothing at times when they feel threatened, frightened
and in danger. They may step away from victim mentality,
looping memories and isolation to discover a new view of
self, expanded social networks and new ways of partnering.
In addition to the feeling of calm engendered by safety, this
haven can encourage the client to search for more expansive
solutions to their situation by accessing creativity, explorative
behaviors and empathy. The heart may be broken open here
to forgive not only the other, but one’s self. If Collaborative
professionals can actively participate in the architecture of
forgiveness, they may also reconstruct professional purpose
into personal commitment to a compassionate life.
Ann Sloan Develin, A. B. (2003). Health Care Environments &
Patient Outcomes A Review of the Literature. ENVIRONMENT
AND BEHAVIOR, Vol. 35 No. 5 Sage Publication.
Augustin, S. (2009). Place Advantage: Applied Psychology for
Interior Architecture. John Wiley & Sons.
Bailer, K. A. (2002). The Role of the Physical Environment for
Children in Residential Care. Residential Treatment for Children
and Youth Vol 20 Haworth Press Inc., 15-27.
Francis E Kuo, W. C. (July 2001 ). Aggression and Violence in
the Inner City. ENVIRONMENT AND BEHAVIOR, Vol. 33 No. 4,
543-571.
Heschong Mahone Group, I. (October 2003). Windows and
Offices: A Study of Worker Performance and Indoor Environment.
California Energy Commission.
Keith A. Bailey, M. D. (2002). The Role of the Physical
Environment for Children in Residential Care. Residential
Treatment for Children and Youth Vol 20 , 15-27.
Page K. Pressly, M. H. (Spring 2001). The Physical Environment
and Counseling: A review of Theory and Research. Journal of
Counseling and Development Volume 79, 148-160.
Roger S. Ulrich, P. C. (2008). A Review of the Research
Literature on Evidence-Based Healthcare Design( Part I). Health
Environments Research & Design, 1(3).
Wener, R. (2012). The Environmental Psychology of Prisons and
Jails. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Robert Enright & Richard Fitzgibbons (2000) Helping Clients
Forgive: An Empirical Guide for Resolving Anger and Restoring
Hope, APA Books.
Sagrario Yárnoz Yaben (2009) Forgiveness, Attachment, and
Divorce, Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, 50:4, 282-294.
Kimberly Fauss, From Barristers and Solicitors to the New
Collaborative Lawyer, VBA News Journal, Spring 2010.

18
III
New Roots for Social and Institutional
Change: Fostering More Rapid Growth of
Forgiveness, Gratitude, and Compassion
I have always been horrified by the capacity we humans have
to do harm to others – all the while feeling justified and even
in denial about our motives.
I am, simultaneously, in absolute awe of the human spirit —
of our capacity to survive even the unthinkable, turn tragedy
into healing, transform pain into gifts of forgiveness and love.
Our symposium, Divorce: What’s Love Got to Do with It?,
was focused on this dichotomy. The Fetzer Institute, our co-
sponsor, defines key aspects of the issue:
“People across the globe, from all cultures and traditions,
embrace love and forgiveness. These values are universally
viewed as central to the fabric of humanity. Yet the emerging
global community has few institutions dedicated to fostering
deeper awareness and understanding of these values.
The Fetzer Institute pursues a unique role—working to
investigate, activate, and celebrate the power of love and
forgiveness as a practical force for good in today’s world.”
Countless stories demonstrate how compassion, generosity,
forgiveness, and other positive forms of energy have the
power to bring us healing, connection, and joy, building self-
esteem and strong relationships. Why, then, is “survival of the
fittest” still such a pervasive global philosophy? Through this
lens, believing that compassion and forgiveness have practical
power is seen as naïve, as making us vulnerable to harm.
This philosophy impacts even those of us who are dedicated
to peaceful conflict resolution. I often ask audiences,
including therapists, mediators, and Collaborative family
law professionals, “If you were at a table with ten people,
and nine were very cooperative and one person was negative
and uncooperative, who would have the most power?” The
prevailing answer is, without exception, the “negative” person.
Why, after counting down more than 20 centuries of human
history, are we so locked into the belief that cruel, “heartless”
people will always gain power over those who are kind and
loving? I believe this is an essential question we must answer if we
are to work toward a more rapid change in human consciousness.
The Power Struggle Cosmology
My premise is that, just as our physical world is governed by
certain laws, such as gravity, all human interaction functions
within the context of a cohesive system as well. I see the
“survival of the fittest” mentality as part of what I call the
Power Struggle Cosmology — or worldview — which
has created an intricate, encompassing virtual reality that
surrounds us, as if someone blew a giant soap bubble and we
are all living in it.
This Power Struggle Cosmology has been reinforced by what
I see as four rationales. It has also been a primary influence
on two integrated sub-systems that are essential to human
life: (1) the process by which we communicate, and (2) an
underlying system of core beliefs about common human
experiences.
The “Harsh World” Rationale
The following rationales support the contention that we are by
nature driven primarily by competition, making us prone to
selfishness, jealousy, greed and violence:
(1) It’sAlways Been That Way: The endless history of violence
among nations, races, religions, and even in families can
reinforce the idea that “It’s just human nature to be violent.”
(2) Darwin’s Theory: Traditional interpretations focus on
evolutionary process as being driven almost exclusively by
the principle of “survival of the fittest.”
(3) Genetics: We’ve learned that due to genetic hardwiring, nature
trumps nurture.Also, the prevalence of defensiveness suggests we
are inherently given to a reactivity that fuels power struggle.
(4) Society Must Change Slowly:Any change in human
relationships must happen at a pace that barely creeps across the

19
New Roots for Social and Institutional Change... (continued)
centuries because too-rapid social change would create anarchy.
Impact of the Power Struggle Cosmology on How We
Communicate
In the 1970’s, as my ideas were evolving, people started saying
that what I was teaching was so “disarming.” I eventually
realized that I was teaching a method of communication in
which you don’t have to get defensive no matter what the other
person does — and, at the same time, you have far more power
instead of less. My second insight followed quickly: We’ve
been using the rules of war, not just as a metaphor, but as the
literal infrastructure for how we communicate.
I started to think about the way we use our basic forms of
communication, which I believe are questions; statements,
consisting of both giving others feedback and stating our own
position; and predictions, often called “limit setting.”
I looked up the word “question” in the dictionary and
found it was never defined with the word “curiosity.”
Common words used were “interrogation,” “doubt” and
“mistrust.” Current definitions include “problem,” “dispute,”
“difficulty,” and “controversy.”
Thinking about how we use statements, I thought of the
phrase, “the art of persuasion,” and how often people try to
convince others to agree and/or state opinion as fact. I thought
about how giving feedback is so often delivered and/or
perceived as criticism. I saw predictions used with the intent
to get people to do what we want.
It became clear to me that we had been using each form of
communication for the purpose of manipulating and controlling
others. So even when we communicate with those we love,
we often create and accelerate needless conflict. I call this
traditional communication paradigm “The War Model.”
For decades, I thought that changing how we communicate
was the key to constructive problem solving and fulfilling
relationships. Gradually, I began to realize there was
something else blocking our ability to change.
Impact of the Power Struggle Cosmology on Core Beliefs
Ultimately, I became more conscious of how many of the
conflicts people have are over issues like authority, loyalty,
honesty, and trust. It dawned on me that the “survival of the
fittest” mentality has influenced and shaped global beliefs about
everything from power to intimacy.
While the way we communicate is crucial, it’s only the tip of
the iceberg —the beliefs that shape our experience and thus
dictate how we interact hide mostly below the waterline.
I began to examine a set of predominantly held beliefs about
common human experiences. What I discovered was both
fascinating and appalling.
Power: The Power Struggle Cosmology is based on the
belief that one person/group or the other has the power—one
is dominant, one submissive; one right, one wrong. Bernard
Loomer calls this concept “unilateral power, a non-mutual
power.” It’s also sometimes called “power over.”
When two people using unilateral power interact, it’s like pitting
the voltage from two direct current electrical sources against
each other. Unilateral power is at the core of a philosophy that’s
destructive both to our self-esteem and relationships.
Authority: In this model, the character of authority is dictatorial,
like the army sergeant barking orders. The only alternative is
usually to be permissive, which allows the children and/or adults
being supervised to become unresponsive, demanding, and
dominant. The roles have reversed.
Even when we try not to be authoritarian, we may also
still react in ways that reflect authoritarian beliefs. We
may become embarrassed to admit to a client or another
professional that we made an error. In the realm of unilateral
power, admitting error is a weakness, a cause for shame.
Honesty:Those with power can be brutally honest, even take
pride in it.Those without power often fear to speak the truth
because they feel vulnerable — void of any semblance of strength.
Loyalty: When you “have someone’s back,” you defend
them regardless of what they do. Either you are on their side,
or you are the enemy.
The Power Struggle Cosmology creates an endless stream
of no-win choices between, for example, authority and
accountability, vulnerability and strength, honesty and loyalty.
And the list goes on—protection, love, freedom, compassion,
intimacy, and trust all have missing “parts,” and so often they
too function destructively instead of constructively.
In their book, Mistakes Were Made (but not by me), Carol Travis
and ElliotAronson say, “When we make mistakes, we must
calm the cognitive dissonance that jars our feelings of self-

20
worth. Most people find it difficult, if not impossible, to say, ‘I
was wrong.’” We persist in our denial even when confronted
with irrefutable facts by creating a narrative that absolves us of
responsibility, remembering our version as truth, blaming others
for harm we have caused, and seeing ourselves as victims.
That the majority of us would associate taking accountability
for mistakes with damaging our self-esteem instead of as a sign
of integrity shows clearly how fractured our beliefs are about
what makes us weak or strong.
The Impact On Our Lives Is Enormous
David Loye, PhD, founder of the Darwin Project, says
“the story of ‘survival of the fittest’and ‘the celebration of
selfishness’– [is] fixed in our minds like the programming for
robots driving our species toward destruction.”
Astudy by Sommers and Kosmitzki in The British Journal
of Social Psychology showed only “20% ofAmerican adults
rated gratitude as a useful emotion.” 10% said they “regularly”
experienced it.Those lacking gratitude are more driven by
materialism – which, beyond resources needed for stability –
was strongly correlated with increased rates of mental disorder
(Seligman, Steen, Park & Peterson, American Psychologist, 2005).
A2006 article in the Journal of Happiness Studies also presents
data demonstrating that focusing on victimization, blame, and
negative emotions harms physical and mental well-being. I see
defensiveness, power struggle, and cutthroat competition as
culprits in all of this.
In this reality, being open and vulnerable would be tantamount
to striding onto the battlefield without protection.
Deepak Chopra tells about flies put into a covered jar and left
there for a time. Even when the lid is removed, 95% will never
leave. They accept the boundaries of the jar as their reality. We
have been living within the confines of the Power Struggle
Cosmology “jar,” in bondage to a destructive worldview.
My work has always been motivated by the belief that “It
doesn’t have to be this way.” I feel deep gratitude to live in an
era when the faith many of us have in the inspirational power of
the human spirit is supported by new information that exposes
much of this historical philosophy as faulty.
Harsh World Rationales Debunked
(1) It’s Always Been That Way: This does not hold as an
argument against the possibility of rapid, full-scale change in
the future.Atestament to this is how previously unbelievable
technological changes have dramatically altered our lives in
this century. Given these, it’s clearly not accurate to say that if
something hasn’t happened in the past, then it won’t happen
in the future.And we have adjusted to these changes, which is
what evolution is all about.
(2) Darwin’s Theory Was Misrepresented: In Descent of Man,
Darwin wrote 95 times about love, 92 about moral sensitivity,
27 about cooperation, and just 12 times about competition.
The phrase, “survival of the fittest,” was actually coined by
Herbert Spencer, who successfully used it as “a slogan for
unrestrained and ruthless economic competition” (©
2009
Christ's College, Cambridge).
Darwin suggests, conversely, that the “highest part of our
nature” and the “more important” part of our evolution
involves “moral qualities” that are advanced more through
reasoning, what we learn, and habits we develop than
through “natural selection.”
(3) Genetics Can Be Impacted: Recent research is demonstrating
we can undergo genetic changes in our own lifetime — a
shocking contradiction to previous scientific data.
Through the study of epigenetics, scientists are recognizing
that people’s experiences exert a strong influence on their
biology by silencing or turning on genes, changing the way a
cell functions without changing its DNA sequence.
Abused children living under constant stress become unable
to shut down the alarm mechanism even when danger isn’t
present. They misinterpret innocent behavior as threatening,
impacting their ability to trust and deal with change.And
their trauma can be passed genetically to their own children
(Nova Next, 2014, Abuse Casts a Long Shadow by Changing
Children’s Genes, by Eleanor Nelsen).
In an article in Discover Magazine, Dan Hurley says,
“According to the new insights of behavioral epigenetics,
traumatic experiences in our past, or in our recent ancestors’past,
leave molecular scars adhering to our DNA.” Hurley goes on,
“Our experiences, and those of our forebears, are never gone,
even if they have been forgotten. The DNAremains the same,
but psychological and behavioral tendencies are inherited.”
This explains how traumatic experiences get passed genetically
down through generations. In a world rampant with defensiveness,

21
power struggle, and violence, whole cultures of people can pass on
the trauma from war and other forms of oppression.
I think we all carry varying degrees of traumatic stress at a
cellular level.At the same time, knowing now that our cellular
functioning can be altered—turned on or off, gives us hope for
abused children and adults — for all of us.
Defensiveness Can Be Defused More Easily than We Think
Hard-wired defensiveness takes us to a flight or fight reaction,
unable to access the complex problem-solving center of
the brain. However, scientists have recently discovered that
while we can’t talk someone out of being defensive, if we say
something that prompts a shift to a different feeling state —
such as safety, sadness, or compassion — their physiology
shifts back to normal instantly.
Protection Versus Learning
Bruce Lipton, author of The Biology of Belief, offers
another exciting piece of the puzzle related to our survival
and evolution. Our two basic mechanisms of survival are
“growth and protection.” While both take lots of energy,
protection only depletes our energy, while growth/learning
produces a huge amount. “A sustained protection response
inhibits the creation of life-sustaining energy. The longer
you stay in protection mode, the more you compromise
your growth [and] chronic inhibition of growth mechanisms
severely compromises your vitality.” This supports my belief
that learning to defuse defensiveness is essential to creating
high-speed individual and social change.
(4) Society Does Not Need To Change Slowly To Remain
Stable: In The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell documents that
constructive societal change can be as contagious as any disease
— and is often initiated by only a few “exceptional people.”
Gladwell writes about television producer Joan Ganz Cooney,
who wanted to enhance education for pre-school children to
help counter the effect of poverty on illiteracy. She produced
Sesame Street, which became a “learning epidemic.” By “2001,
there were over 1,000 research studies regarding Sesame
Street's effect onAmerican culture.”
Research from The Greater Good Science Center at the
University of California, Berkeley, also verifies that positive
change in our attitudes can happen quickly. “Aone-time act of
thoughtful gratitude produced an immediate 10% increase in
happiness and 35% reduction in depressive symptoms,” lasting
for months before dissipating!Another study demonstrated a
9% increase in happiness over six months, from an exercise
that took mere seconds a day.
What all this means to me, first, is that misguided beliefs are
creating havoc in the lives of millions, if not billions, of people.
Second, there is no reason to be afraid to change – it’s not
changing that threatens our survival. Third, creating positive
change can happen extremely quickly. Far from creating chaos,
it can give us greater stability and happiness.
The Reciprocity Cosmology
Splitting a “whole” entity, such as an atom, apart can create
ultimately destructive energy. Unilateral power demolishes
reciprocity by splitting “giving” and “receiving” apart,
creating a world of “givers” and “takers.” Those who seek
reciprocity often keep on giving to people who don’t do their
part, don’t show gratitude, and continue to demand more. This
is not reciprocity. This is a master-servant relationship that is
damaging to both parties.
By changing the way we use power, we can find a different
kind of strength, one that fosters reciprocity. Bernard Loomer
calls this second kind of power, relational power; some
call it “power from within.” Here the focus is on how we
respond, not on trying to control others.
I call this second kind of power, “reciprocal power.” While
reciprocity has a reputation for being successful only if
everyone cooperates, I believe the concept of “reciprocity”
has been widely misunderstood.
While cooperation is dependent on the willingness of all
parties, reciprocity is not. Using an example from our
physical world, in an otherwise healthy garden, if I don’t
make sure that I adequately water my tomato plants, they
won’t give me tomatoes. If I do make sure they get enough
water, they’ll give me tomatoes.
Reciprocity is an organic process in which nature gives back
according to what it receives. The tomato plant doesn’t withhold
the tomatoes as punishment; it just “reciprocates” according to
what it gets. If nothing is given, it reciprocates with nothing.
The same is true for reciprocity in our personal and
professional relationships. You may give clients information
that helps them develop a better support system for their
children during a divorce. If they accept that information and

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