How to Mitigate the Non-Constructive Results of Confrontation: Tips for Professionals

How to Mitigate the Non-Constructive Results of Confrontation: Tips for Professionals by Jeff ZimmermanConfrontation is often interpreted as an attack. In counseling scenarios, regardless of what the professional therapist or mediator is confronting (feelings, ideas, logic, etc.), the client’s response is generally to do one of three things: fight, flee, or freeze.

Fighting back, shutting down, or experiencing a sort of paralysis in thinking is seldom constructive, particularly in a collaborative divorce or a mediation. Professionals seek to help clients move toward resolution, but that becomes challenging when clients focus on “the attack.” Read More