empathy in mediation: When does play a key role mediation?

This paper covers the following: Mediation is used in many areas where conflicts arise, ranging from business matters and the legal system to the psychosocial sphere. Empathy is strongly emphasised in most psychosocial training programmes, yet it is scarcely examined in depth during mediator training. It is often taken for granted, or the literature refers to therapeutic aspects. This paper aims to highlight the role of empathy in mediation and to clarify whether empathy is a tool consciously employed to achieve a specific effect within the process. The central question here is: When does empathy play a significant role in mediation? In order to answer this question with the most well-founded knowledge possible, mediators were interviewed who have been working in a wide variety of fields for many years and who, in some cases, also offer supervision and/or training seminars on the subject of mediation.