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THE CARING MEDIATOR: ESSENTIAL VIRTUE OR ABSOLUTE HERESY By Allan Barsky
Introduction The Massachusetts Council on Family Mediation (n.d.) defines a family mediator as “a neutral, trained individual who helps families create an agreement for their particular circumstances, understand the laws applicable to divorce and separation, and negotiate a fair and reasonable determination of parental responsibilities, financial, obligations, and division or property” (italics added). Like most definitions of mediation, the mediator is described as a neutral person. And like most definitions, in no way is the mediator defined as a “caring” person. Mediators stand out from helping professionals such as psychotherapists, social workers, educators, clergy, and nurses, who pride themselves in caring for the people they serve. For such helping professionals, caring is not merely a desirable characteristic, but an integral virtue for ethical practice (Beauchamp & Childress, 2009; Cohen & Cohen, 1999; Walker & Ivanhoe, 2007). In this article, I maintain that it is time for mediators to embrace caring as a professional virtue. Although some mediators might think that caring is the
caring will help these concepts find common ground as mediator virtues.
Neutrality as Objectivity or Impartiality Various theorists have defined neutrality as objectivity or impartiality. For a mediator to maintain objectivity or impartiality, the mediator must guard against allying with one party or the other. If a mediator likes one party more than the other, the mediator might use this attitude – consciously or unconsciously – to provide favored treatment for that party (Beck, Sales, and Emery, 2004). Thus, to care for one party might be viewed as being biased. Even caring for both parties might be viewed as risky. According to the standard of objectivity, a mediator needs to maintain professional distance from both parties. Becoming too close to either or both parties is considered a violation of professional boundaries. The mediator may lose impartiality as a result of developing emotional connections or attachments to the parties. A caring mediator might be inclined, for instance, to persuade the parties to do what the mediator feels is best for them, rather than that it is time for allow the parties to develop to embrace caring their own self-determined solutions.
I maintain mediators as a professional virtue. antithesis of the mediator as a neutral, perhaps a reframing of neutrality and
Mediation derives some of its notions about mediator neutrality from the
Family Mediation Quarterly