Alain Ruffion (mediator) has before him a couple who have been separated for six years. The divorce has not been pronounced but the custody of the children is going well. This couple, who have now officially chosen to divorce, is calling on a mediator because they feel the need for “a third person who can help to share the property, share the burden of the budget granted to the children…” .
Both will, in fact, share many of their concerns. “And if I become unemployed, what am I going to do to pay for the house,” the husband asks.
We are very attentive to our interlocutors,” says Alain Ruffion, “and above all we don’t judge them from above. We go a long way with them to help them find a solution or to analyze their situation more clearly. Above all, we want to leave them the ownership and responsibility for their decision.
Family mediators don’t always get to that kind of outcome and they encounter other, more difficult situations. And Alain Ruffion knows what he’s talking about since a meeting between a mother and her 17-year-old daughter went badly wrong. So much so “that there was so much aggression, with the mother trying to destroy the daughter, that we had to stop the interview. In fact,” he adds, “we don’t say enough that our job is also to separate and not to bring together at all costs. When people are caught up in destructive and interminable tensions, we invite them to step back from the situation. Couples may thus decide to separate.
The mediator is therefore not a reconciler, a judge or an arbitrator. This requires an important work on oneself in order “not to project our own family difficulties in the middle of mediation… previous experience has shown us that we were taking the 17 year old daughter’s side”, which can take away the mediator’s credibility towards the mother for the rest of the events.
This is why many professionals agree on the need for consistent training.
The Mediation Training Institute states that “without being an expert, the family mediator must have knowledge of psychology, law and economics. 11 must also know the values conveyed by his own culture and be aware of the plurality of both cultural values and the ways in which families function”.
On this subject, we mention an experiment, “Temps de parole”, carried out at the Maison de la Médiation in Paris.
The participants, from different backgrounds, talk about their family situations, exchange information, sometimes unblock situations, and in any case come out of their isolation.
What will make one of the organizers say that here, people learn to listen to each other, go their own way, without anyone telling them what to do”.
