1. The Nature of Conflict
Chapter One

2. Conflict Fact of human life
Constructive conflict is an essential set of interpersonal skills

3. Conflict Defined
Conflict varies in intensity. It may seen as a (1) mild difference, (2) disagreement, (3) dispute, (4) campaign, (5) litigation, or (6) fight or war
Is an expressed struggle between at least two interdependent parties who perceive incompatible goals, scarce resources, and interference from others in achieving their goals

4. Effective Conflict Management
Is one aspect of interpersonal therapy, a technique for dealing with depression
An interpersonal approach to conflict management focuses on the communicative exchanges that make up the conflict episode
Intrapersonal Conflict – internal strain that creates a state of ambivalence, conflicting internal dialogue, or lack of resolution in one’s thinking and feeling – accompanies interpersonal conflict

5. Application
Think of an intrapersonal strain you may be feeling right now, or felt for a while in the past. What is the struggle you feel? Think of a picture or metaphor to describe what you are feeling. What words describe the internal strain? Have you ever lived through an intrapersonal conflict that did not ever become expressed? If you answered yes to this question, ask yourself if you might have expressed the conflict ever so slightly in some way. How might you express the internal conflict nonverbally, or by actions you did not take?

6. Family of Origin
Our family of origin socializes us into constructive and destructive ways of handling conflict that carry over into how romantic relationships are later handled.

7. Parental Conflict
Conflict between parents predicts the well-being of the children
Conflict between parents tends to both change the mood of household interactions and shift the parents’ attention to the negative behaviors of their children

8. Effects of Conflict
The number of conflicts experienced does not seem to predict poor health and well-being as much as whether the individuals perceive the conflict to be resolvable
Common responses to abuse, including verbal abuse of yelling and the silent treatment, are hypervigilance; difficulty relaxing; withdrawal at the first sign of tension or conflict; floating away, or dissociating; and not knowing or expressing what one really wants

9. Effects of Conflict, cont.
A child’s general feeling of self-worth are directly affected by interparental conflict

10. Learning about Conflict
Can assist in the process of redrawing family boundaries, letting you see which styles backfire, and which ones work best
Learning effective skills for dealing with your younger brother or sister is far better than engaging in a family dispute that will affect your children and subsequent generations as well

11. Conflicts at Work
Presents important challenges that affect your career development
We carry interpersonal relationships into our workplace; work life and private life intertwine

12. Importance of Skill Development
The skills of conflict management are not intuitively obvious
In conflict, we must learn to do what comes unnaturally
How many of us intuitively know to tell more and more of the truth when a conflict is becoming destructive rather than keeping quiet or yelling?

13. Unresolved Conflict
In personal relationships, unresolved conflict leads to drifting away from one another and sometimes jettisoning the relationship entirely

14. Emotional Intelligence
Conflict management draws upon the skills of emotional intelligence
The capacity for recognizing our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves, and for managing emotions well in ourselves and in our relationships

15. Application
Look on page 7, at the list of list of emotional intelligence
Discuss with a small group what you believe are your three key strengths from the list. What are three areas that you believe, or have been told, need development? Name and describe some people you know who model certain areas of emotional intelligence. What do you notice that they do?

16. Do we have an option?
We do not have an option of staying out of conflict unless we stay out of relationships, families, work, and community

17. Approach to Conflict
Your approach to conflict is not an inborn set of responses but rather a developed repertoire of communication skills that are learned, refined, and practiced

18. Destructive Conflict
We would like to do what we can to prevent destructive, time-wasting, relationship-harming conflict
Conflicts move from episode to episode in a continually unfolding pattern of interaction between the prime parties.
Destructive conflict rely on the same old (unproductive) strategies
Trying harder often doesn’t work

19. Destructive Conflict, cont.
If all participants are dissatisfied with the outcomes of a conflict and think they have lost as a result, then the conflict is classified as destructive
The four horsemen of the apocalypse – when these four behaviors “ride in” to a relationship, the end is near

20. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
Criticizing
Defensiveness
Stonewalling
Contempt

21. Criticizing
The first moments of a conflict interaction – the critical start up – can set the scene for a constructive or destructive conflict

22. Application
In your small group, practice changing criticisms to complaints. Think of destructive criticism, maybe you have used, or that others have used against you, and practice brainstorming about how to change these critical comments to legitimate complaints
Avoid blame
Use “I” statement
Describe instead of judging
Leave the door open for change

23. A Constructive Complaint
Use an “I” statement
Describe the undesirable behavior
Use neutral, not judgmental, language
Ask for a specific, behavioral change

24. Defensiveness
When people use defensiveness communication, they are communicating a desire to protect themselves against pain, fear, personal responsibility, or new information
Some people seemingly can’t help adopting a devil’s advocate or contrary point of view. For them conversation is a battle of wits. The enjoy the game of “batting around ideas” and are often very good at the performance

25. Supportive vs. Defensive Climate
Evaluation vs. description
Control vs. problem solving
Strategy vs. spontaneity
Neutrality vs. empathy
Superiority vs. equality
Certainty vs. provisionalism

26. Support neutralizes defensiveness
Support does not mean agreement
You can disagree and still be supportive

27. Stonewalling Is more than avoidance of conflict
An attempt to signal withdrawal from communication
Maintenance of a stiff neck and frozen facial features

28. Contempt
Often involves a nasty kind of mockery, put-downs, hostile corrections, and nonverbal expressions of contempt
Functions as a powerful attack on the personhood of the other
Full-blown continuing contempt means that intervention of some kind is needed, or the relationship is over

29. Reciprocity of Negative Emotion
Can lead to destructive conflict
Three kinds of reciprocity:
Low intensity emotion is respond to in kind (anger)
High intensity emotion is met in kind (fury)
Low intensity emotion is met with high intensity emotion (hurt with rage)
Meeting negative emotion with more, especially more destructive, negative emotion leads to big problems in relationships

30. Communicative Behavior
Easily identified with conflict, such as when one part openly disagrees with the other
An interpersonal conflict may be operating at a more tacit level
The interpersonal struggle is expressed by the avoidance

31. Intrapersonal perceptions
The bedrock upon which conflicts are built
But only when there are communicative manifestations of these perceptions will an “interpersonal conflict” emerge.

32. Communication is the central element in all interpersonal conflict
Communication and conflict are related in the following ways:
Communication behavior often creates conflict
Communication behavior reflects conflict
Communication is the vehicle for the productive or destructive management of conflict

33. Interdependence
Conflict parties engage in an expressed struggle and interfere with one another because they are interdependent
A person who is not dependent upon another – that is, who has no special interest in what the other does – has no conflict with that other person
In a healthy family, everyone can talk to every other member. This builds healthy interdependence

34. Strategic Conflict
Conflict in which parties have choices as opposed to conflict in which the power is so disparate that there are virtually no choices
No one party in a conflict can make a decision that is totally separate – each decision affects the other conflict participants

35. Gridlocked Conflicts
The conflict makes you feel rejected by your partner
You keep talking but make no headway
You become entrenched and are unwilling to budge
You feel more frustrated and hurt after you talk than before

36. Gridlocked Conflict, cont.
Your talk is devoid of humor, amusement, or affection
You become more entrenched over time so you become insulting during your talks
More vilification makes you more polarized, extreme, and less willing to compromise
Eventually you disengage emotionally or physically or both

37. Perceived Incompatible Goals
People usually engage in conflict over goals that are important to them
Opposing goals are a fact of life
If goals are reframed or put in a different context, the parties can agree
Trust is built through a discussion of goals

38. Conclusion Conflict brings both danger and opportunity
Changing our usual behavior, learning to “do what comes unnaturally,” requires an examination of one’s most deeply held values and spiritual beliefs