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Case Study of Conflict Management: To Resolve Disputes and Manage Conflicts, Assume a Neutral 3rd Party Role

Here is a case study of conflict management emphasizing the importance of hearing all sides in a dispute.

By PON Staff — on September 5th, 2024 / Conflict Resolution

In their book Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most (Penguin Putnam, 2000), authors Douglas Stone , Bruce Patton , and Sheila Heen tell us how to engage in the conversations in our professional or personal lives that make us uncomfortable by examining a case study of conflict management. Tough, honest conversations are critical for managers, whether they need to change the group culture, manage conflict within a team, give a negative performance evaluation, disagree with others in a group, or offer an apology.

To set the stage for a productive discussion, open a difficult conversation with the “Third Story,” advise the authors of Difficult Conversations . The Third Story is one an impartial observer, such as a mediator, would tell; it’s a version of events both sides can agree on. “The key is learning to describe the gap—or difference—between your story and the other person’s story. Whatever else you may think and feel, you can at least agree that you and the other person see things differently,” Stone, Patton, and Heen write.

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In our FREE special report from the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School - The New Conflict Management: Effective Conflict Resolution Strategies to Avoid Litigation – renowned negotiation experts uncover unconventional approaches to conflict management that can turn adversaries into partners.

Suppose two regional sales reps share responsibility for sending weekly updates to their manager. Brad always submits them on time, but Frank often turns them in late. Saying, “Frank, you’ve turned in the sales reports late again” would only put Frank on the defensive. Instead, Brad opens the conversation this way: “Frank, you and I place a different value on deadlines. I want to explain why meeting them is important to me, and then I’d like to hear your take on them.”

Brad learns that Frank, when faced with the choice of possibly making a sale or compiling the report, thinks he should focus on the sale. With this insight, Brad proposes another way to share responsibilities: Brad will complete the report when it’s Frank’s turn to do so, as long as Frank gives Brad two hours’ notice and a share in any commission Frank earns as a result of being able to continue pursuing a lead.

What are your favorite conflict management methods?

Related Conflict Resolution Article: Conflict Management Skills When Dealing with an Angry Public – Here is some negotiation advice drawn from a case study of conflict management dealing with an angry public.

Adapted from “How to Say What Matters Most,” by Susan Hackley (former managing director, Program on Negotiation), first published in the  Negotiation  newsletter.

Originally published in 2010.

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Confronting Patients: Therapists’ Model of a Responsiveness Based Approach

• Original Paper
• Published: 01 November 2017
• Volume 48 , pages 61–67, ( 2018 )

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• Laura Moeseneder   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-7353-9459 1 , 2 ,
• Patrick Figlioli 1 , 3 &
• Franz Caspar 1 , 4  

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Confrontation represents a way of challenging patients in psychotherapy to stimulate change. Confrontation draws attention to discrepancies, for example between elements in a patient’s functioning. The present study was designed to construct a conceptual model of confrontation used by therapists when trying to address two main questions: what are the risks and opportunities of confrontation and how can these effects be influenced? Fifteen therapists from the Psychotherapy Outpatient Clinic of the University of Bern in Switzerland participated in semi-standardized interviews, which were analyzed using qualitative content analysis and thematic analysis. Several main themes merged into a dynamic, sequential model: groundwork required before a confrontation, shaping the confrontation, the (immediate) effects, and management of negative consequences. Therapists assume that a confrontation may induce insight and can strengthen the therapeutic relationship either directly or indirectly through the repair of a rupture in the alliance.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the participating therapists for making time for the interviews as well as our Masters students for their assistance gathering and analyzing the data.

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Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Institute of Psychology, University of Berne, Berne, Switzerland

Laura Moeseneder, Patrick Figlioli & Franz Caspar

Institut für Psychologie, Fabrikstrasse 8, 3012, Bern, Switzerland

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Moeseneder, L., Figlioli, P. & Caspar, F. Confronting Patients: Therapists’ Model of a Responsiveness Based Approach. J Contemp Psychother 48 , 61–67 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10879-017-9371-x

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The Skill of Challenge

The skill of challenge in counselling.

Challenge in counselling is the skill of highlighting incongruence and conflicts in the client’s process.

By the therapist gently confronting or challenging the client, it can open opportunity for therapeutic exploration.

Challenge should be offered thoughtfully , and not in a way which is likely to be perceived as judgmental or reprimanding.

How to Challenge Clients

We may wish to use challenge as an intervention for a number or reasons. These could include:

a. Highlighting inconsistencies in the client’s process

A client may have conflicting desires or feelings which are causing them discomfort at an unconscious level .

Noticing and verbalising conflicts in the client’s narrative can bring these conflicting elements of self into awareness , so they can be heard, explored, and potentially resolved as they are reflected upon in therapy and beyond.

b. Issues in the therapeutic relationship

A client may communicate with their therapist, not only through therapeutic conversations, but perhaps through their behaviour in the relationship too.

If a client is persistently late, for example, the therapist may want to raise this in the form of a gentle challenge.

The purpose of this intervention is not to scold the client, but rather to put words to what is happening in the relational dynamic, so that therapist and client can together explore whether there is deeper meaning to the behaviour which might relevant to the work.

c. An ethical concern

Occasionally, the client may say something which raises an ethical concern for the therapist.

Depending on the situation, the therapist may wish to challenge the client on the material they are discussing.

This must be done with care , and in line with the therapeutic contract, organisational policies and procedures, and the law.

Examples of When Challenge May Be Appropriate

• A client who is consistently late or regularly does not attend
• A client who appears to be under the influence of substances
• A client who does not wish to engage with therapy
• A client who is a danger to themselves or others
• A client who behaves in a way which seems incongruent with how they say they are thinking and feeling
• A client who needs a different form of support

The Relationship between Challenge and Support

For challenge to be effective, both support and challenge must be clearly offered by the therapist.

A high level of challenge with low support is likely to be received as hostile and scary, and the client is likely to withdraw.

A high level of support with low challenge can, for some clients, become too comfortable, and the work of therapy can stagnate.

A high level of challenge alongside a high level of support is most likely to offer the necessary level of safety and insight for growth and development.

Challenging Skills

• Should have a clear therapeutic purpose – not challenge for the sake of it.
• Should take place within an established therapeutic relationship. It is important that the therapist knows their client and has an idea of how they might respond to challenge.
• It is important that challenge is offered in an encouraging and nonjudgmental way, and that the therapist is empathic, acknowledging that seeking therapeutic change is likely to be difficult for the client.
• It is important to check in with the client and ensure they are happy for challenge to take place. It should not be imposed upon them.

"Challenge should be offered thoughtfully, and not in a way which is likely to be perceived as judgmental or reprimanding."

Empathic Confrontation

• Any challenge needs to be delivered thoughtfully and accurately. It is important to reflect on the intervention and to maintain a dialogue with the client about its accuracy, being open to clarification and corrections.
• Again, empathy, non-judgement and encouragement are vital ingredients needed to offer challenge in a supportive way.
• It is important to look at client movement from the client’s frame of reference – a small shift in the work may feel like a huge leap from the perspective of the client.

Challenge in Different Counselling Modalities

The use of challenge is likely to look different depending on the modality of the therapist.

In Behavioural Therapies

In behavioural therapies such as CBT , cognitive distortions are likely to be highlighted by the therapist.

The therapist may take a lead in looking at ways for the client to adapt their thought processes. This is among the more therapist-led forms of challenge.

In Transactional Analysis

A transactional analyst may highlight the client’s interactions in the relationship using the Parent-Adult-Child model, so that the client can identify where their ego state may be contributing to difficulties in their relationships, and to strengthen the adult ego state.

This form of challenge is psycho-educational and helps the client to identify and change the way they interact with others.

In Person-Centred Therapy

A challenge in Person Centred Therapy is likely to be more indirect, and to focus on highlighting incongruence in the client’s process.

This may help the client to identify where their conditions of worth or introjected values are in conflict with their authentic self, and make sense of their internal conflicts.

In person-centred therapy, challenge is offered tentatively, and is a non-directive intervention.

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When to Use Challenge in the Counselling Relationship

Challenging in person-centred counselling

Sometimes clients can send us mixed messages, which need a non- judgmental approach to clarify. Ivey et al. ( 2013) remind us that challenge is a form of confrontation, which requires thoughtfulness and consideration on behalf of the counsellor. If used correctly, the use of challenge allows both the client and the counsellor to talk in more detail, enhancing the therapeutic reationship.

One of the authors reminds us that-

"Confrontation is not a direct, harsh challenge. Think of it, rather, as a more gentle skill that involves listening to the client carefully and respectfully; and, then, seeking to help the client examine self or situation more fully. Confrontation is not "going against" the client; it is "going with" the client, seeking clarification and the possibility of a creative "New", which enables resolution of difficulties."

Ivey, A., Ivey, M. and Zalaquett, C. (2013). Intentional Interviewing and Counseling. Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning, p.241.

This article was written for Counselling Tutor by Erin Stevens.

Updated 2019 

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Appendix A: Case Studies

List of case studies, case study 1: handling roommate conflicts, case study 2: salary negotiation at college corp, case study 3: oecollaboration, case study 4: the ohio connection, case study 5: uber pays the price, case study 6: diverse teams hold court.

Chapter Reference: Section 2.2 Approaches to Conflict

Whether you have a roommate by choice, by necessity, or through the random selection process of your school’s housing office, it’s important to be able to get along with the person who shares your living space. While having a roommate offers many benefits such as making a new friend, having someone to experience a new situation like college life with, and having someone to split the cost on your own with, there are also challenges. Some common roommate conflicts involve neatness, noise, having guests, sharing possessions, value conflicts, money conflicts, and personality conflicts (Ball State University, 2001). Read the following scenarios and answer the following questions for each one:

• Which conflict management style, from the five discussed, would you use in this situation?
• What are the potential strengths of using this style?
• What are the potential weaknesses of using this style?

Scenario 1: Neatness. Your college dorm has bunk beds, and your roommate takes a lot of time making their bed (the bottom bunk) each morning. They have told you that they don’t want anyone sitting on or sleeping in the bed when they are not in the room. While your roommate is away for the weekend, your friend comes to visit and sits on the bottom bunk bed. You tell your friend what your roommate said, and you try to fix the bed back before your roommate returns to the dorm. When they return, your roommate notices that the bed has been disturbed and confronts you about it.

Scenario 2: Noise and having guests. Your roommate has a job waiting tables and gets home around midnight on Thursday nights. They often brings a couple friends from work home with them. They watch television, listen to music, or play video games and talk and laugh. You have an 8 a.m. class on Friday mornings and are usually asleep when they returns. Last Friday, you talked to your roommate and asked them to keep it down in the future. Tonight, their noise has woken you up and you can’t get back to sleep.

Scenario 3: Sharing possessions. When you go out to eat, you often bring back leftovers to have for lunch the next day during your short break between classes. You didn’t have time to eat breakfast, and you’re really excited about having your leftover pizza for lunch until you get home and see your roommate sitting on the couch eating the last slice.

Scenario 4: Money conflicts. Your roommate got mono and missed two weeks of work last month. Since they have a steady job and you have some savings, you cover their portion of the rent and agree that they will pay your portion next month. The next month comes around and your roommate informs you that they only have enough to pay their half of the rent.

Scenario 5: Value and personality conflicts. You like to go out to clubs and parties and have friends over, but your roommate is much more of an introvert. You’ve tried to get them to come out with you or join the party at your place, but they’d rather study. One day your roommate tells you that they want to break the lease so they can move out early to live with one of their friends. You both signed the lease, so you have to agree or they can’t do it. If you break the lease, you automatically lose your portion of the security deposit

Works Adapted

“ Conflict and Interpersonal Communication ” in Communication in the Real World  by University of Minnesota is licensed under a  Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Ball State University. (2001). Roommate conflicts. accessed June 16, 2001, from  http://cms.bsu.edu/CampusLife/CounselingCenter/VirtualSelfHelpLibrary/RoommateIssues.asx.

Chapter Reference:  Section 2.4 Negotiation

Janine just graduated college, she’s ready to head out on her own and get that first job, and she’s through her first interviews. She receives an offer of a $28,000 salary, including benefits from COLLEGE CORP, from an entry-level marketing position that seems like a perfect fit. She is thrown off by the salary they are offering and knows that it is lower than what she was hoping for. Instead of panicking, she takes the advice of her mentor and does a little research to know what the market range for the salary is for her area. She feels better after doing this, knowing that she was correct and the offer is low compared to the market rate. After understanding more about the offer and the rates, she goes back to the HR representative and asks for her preferred rate of $32,500, knowing the minimum that she would accept is $30,000. Instead of going in for her lowest amount, she started higher to be open to negotiations with the company. She also sent a note regarding her expertise that warranted why she asked for that salary. To her happy surprise, the company counter offered at $31,000—and she accepted.

• What key points of Janice’s negotiation led to her success?
• What could have Janice done better to get a better outcome for her salary?

“ Conflict and Negotiations ” in Organizational Behaviour by OpenStax is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License .

“Good & Bad Salary Negotiations,”  Salary.com , April 19, 2018, https://www.salary.com/articles/good-bad-examples-of-salary-negotiations .

Herner, M. (n.d). 5 things HR wishes you knew about salary negotiation. Payscale.com, accessed October 21, 2018, https://www.payscale.com/salary-negotiation-guide/salary-negotiation-tips-from-hr .

Chapter Reference:  Section 3.2 Creating, Maintaining, and Changing Culture

At OECollaboration, a technology company that develops virtual collaboration software for new companies, Mike Jones is a new manager. One of the biggest challenges he has faced is that the team that he is managing is well established and because he is an outsider, the team members haven’t yet developed trust in him.

Two weeks into his new employment, Mike held a meeting and discussed all of the changes to the remote work agreements as well as implementing new meeting requirements for each employee to have a biweekly meeting scheduled with him to discuss their projects. The team was outraged, they were not excited, and the following days he wasn’t greeted in a friendly way; in addition, his team seemed less engaged when asked to participate in team functions.

Tracy James is also a new manager at OECollaboration who started at the same time as Mike, in a similar situation where she is a new manager of an existing team. Tracy was able to hold a meeting the first day on the job to listen to her team and get to know them. During this meeting she also told the team about herself and her past experiences. Additionally, she held one-on-one meetings to listen to each of her team members to discuss what they were working on and their career goals. After observation and discussion with upper management, she aligned her own team goals closely with the skills and experiences of her new team. She met with the whole team to make changes to a few policies, explaining why they were being changed, and set the strategy for the team moving forward.

Because she got her team involved and learned about them before implementing her new strategy, this was well received. Her team still had questions and concerns, but they felt like they could trust her and that they were included in the changes that were being made.

• What challenges can a new manager encounter when starting to manage an existing team?
• What strategies can a new manager implement to ensure that their new team is engaged with them and open to change and growth?

Adapted Works

“ Organizational Power and Politics ” in Organizational Behaviour by OpenStax is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License .

Giang, V. (2013, July 31). The 7 types of power that shape the workplace. Business Insider. https://www.businessinsider.com/the-7-types-of-power-that-shape-the-workplace-2013-7

Morin, A. (2018, June 25). How to prevent a workplace bully from taking your power. Inc. https://www.inc.com/amy-morin/how-to-prevent-a-workplace-bully-from-taking-your-power.html

Weinstein,  B. (n.d.). 10 tips for dealing with a bully boss,” CIO , accessed October 13, 2018, https://www.cio.com.au/article/198499/10_tips_dealing_bully_boss/.

Chapter Reference:  Section 4.1 Power

Janey worked as an executive assistant to a product manager at her company: Ohio Connection. Overall, she loved her job; she was happy to work with a company that provided great benefits, and she and found enjoyment in her day-to-day work. She had the same product manager boss for years, but last year, her manager left Ohio Connection and retired. Recently her new manager has been treating her unfairly and showcasing bullying behavior.

Yesterday, Janey came into work, and her boss decided to use their power as her manager and her “superior” to demand that she stay late to cover for him, correct reports that he had made mistakes on, and would not pay her overtime. She was going to be late to pick up her son from soccer practice if she stayed late; she told him this, and he was not happy.

Over subsequent days, her boss consistently would make comments about her performance, even though she had always had good remarks on reviews, and created a very negative work environment. The next time she was asked to stay late, she complied for fear of losing her job or having other negative impacts on her job. Janey’s situation was not ideal, but she didn’t feel she had a choice.

• What type of power did Janey’s boss employ to get her to do the things that he wanted her to do?
• What negative consequences are apparent in this situation and other situations where power is not balanced in the workplace?
• What steps should Janey take do to counteract the power struggle that is occurring with her new manager?

Chapter Reference:   Section 5.1 Interpersonal Relationships at Work

Uber revolutionized the taxi industry and the way people commute. With the simple mission “to bring transportation—for everyone, everywhere,” today Uber has reached a valuation of around $70 billion and claimed a market share high of almost 90% in 2015. However, in June 2017 Uber experienced a series of bad press regarding an alleged culture of sexual harassment, which is what most experts believe caused their market share to fall to 75%.

In February of 2017 a former software engineer, Susan Fowler, wrote a lengthy post on her website regarding her experience of being harassed by a manager who was not disciplined by human resources for his behavior. In her post, Fowler wrote that Uber’s HR department and members of upper management told her that because it was the man’s first offense, they would only give him a warning. During her meeting with HR about the incident, Fowler was also advised that she should transfer to another department within the organization. According to Fowler, she was ultimately left no choice but to transfer to another department, despite having specific expertise in the department in which she had originally been working.

As her time at the company went on, she began meeting other women who worked for the company who relayed their own stories of harassment. To her surprise, many of the women reported being harassed by the same person who had harassed her. As she noted in her blog, “It became obvious that both HR and management had been lying about this being his ‘first offense.’” Fowler also reported a number of other instances that she identified as sexist and inappropriate within the organization and claims that she was disciplined severely for continuing to speak out. Fowler eventually left Uber after about two years of working for the company, noting that during her time at Uber the percentage of women working there had dropped to 6% of the workforce, down from 25% when she first started.

Following the fallout from Fowler’s lengthy description of the workplace on her website, Uber’s chief executive Travis Kalanick publicly condemned the behavior described by Fowler, calling it “abhorrent and against everything Uber stands for and believes in.” But later in March, Uber board member Arianna Huffington claimed that she believed “sexual harassment was not a systemic problem at the company.” Amid pressure from bad media attention and the company’s falling market share, Uber made some changes after an independent investigation resulted in 215 complaints. As a result, 20 employees were fired for reasons ranging from sexual harassment to bullying to retaliation to discrimination, and Kalanick announced that he would hire a chief operating officer to help manage the company. In an effort to provide the leadership team with more diversity, two senior female executives were hired to fill the positions of chief brand officer and senior vice president for leadership and strategy.

Critical Thinking Questions

• Based on Cox’s business case for diversity, what are some positive outcomes that may result in changes to Uber’s leadership team?
• If the case had occurred in Canada, what forms of legislation would have protected Fowler?
• What strategies should have been put in place to help prevent sexual harassment incidents like this from happening in the first place?

“ Diversity in Organizations ” in Organizational Behaviour by OpenStax is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License .

Della Cava, M. (2017, June 13). Uber has lost market share to Lyft during crisis. USA Today. https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2017/06/13/uber-market-share-customer-image-hit-string-scandals/102795024/

Fowler, T. (2017, February 19). Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber. https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber.

Lien,  T. (2017, June 6). Uber fires 20 workers after harassment investigation. Los Angeles Times.  http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-tn-uber-sexual-harassment-20170606-story.html

Uber (2017, February). Company info. https://www.uber.com/newsroom/company-info/

Chapter Reference:  Section 5.3 Collaboration, Decision-Making and Problem Solving in Groups

Diverse teams have been proven to be better at problem-solving and decision-making for a number of reasons. First, they bring many different perspectives to the table. Second, they rely more on facts and use those facts to substantiate their positions. What is even more interesting is that, according to the Scientific American article “How Diversity Makes Us Smarter,” simply “being around people who are different from us makes more creative, diligent, and harder-working.”

One case in point is the example of jury decision-making, where fact-finding and logical decision-making are of utmost importance. A 2006 study of jury decision-making, led by social psychologist Samuel Sommers of Tufts University, showed that racially diverse groups exchanged a wider range of information during deliberation of a case than all-White groups did. The researcher also conducted mock jury trials with a group of real jurors to show the impact of diversity on jury decision-making.

Interestingly enough, it was the mere presence of diversity on the jury that made jurors consider the facts more, and they had fewer errors recalling the relevant information. The groups even became more willing to discuss the role of race case, when they hadn’t before with an all-White jury. This wasn’t the case because the diverse jury members brought new information to the group—it happened because, according to the author, the mere presence of diversity made people more open-minded and diligent. Given what we discussed on the benefits of diversity, it makes sense. People are more likely to be prepared, to be diligent, and to think logically about something if they know that they will be pushed or tested on it. And who else would push you or test you on something, if not someone who is different from you in perspective, experience, or thinking. “Diversity jolts us into cognitive action in ways that homogeneity simply does not.”

So, the next time you are called for jury duty, or to serve on a board committee, or to make an important decision as part of a team, remember that one way to generate a great discussion and come up with a strong solution is to pull together a diverse team.

• If you don’t have a diverse group of people on your team, how can you ensure that you will have robust discussions and decision-making? What techniques can you use to generate conversations from different perspectives?
• Evaluate your own team at work. Is it a diverse team? How would you rate the quality of decisions generated from that group?

Sources: Adapted from Katherine W. Phillips, “How Diversity Makes Us Smarter,” Scientific American, October 2014, p. 7–8.

“ Critical Thinking Case ” in  Organizational Behaviour by OpenStax is licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License .

Conflict Management Copyright © 2022 by Laura Westmaas, BA, MSc is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Facing a Fear of Confrontation in Couples Therapy

When Couples Issues Hit Close to Home, Moving Forward Means Putting Aside the Fear of Confrontation

Throughout my childhood, my parents carefully avoided open conflict and taught me to do the same. To this day, I prefer to sidestep conflict whenever possible, but that’s not an option in couples therapy. We frequently need to confront our clients, and putting aside a fear of confrontation—not to mention a fear of losing clients—we must risk the possibility that one partner, or perhaps both, will become openly angry with us.

When I first saw Joe and Jill, they’d been in a power struggle for 10 years. They’d seen several therapists and gotten nowhere. Their fights were escalating, most intensely about Jill’s weight. She hated Joe for nagging her to diet, and by now was angry enough to consider having an affair, partly to demonstrate that she didn’t need to lose weight to be attractive to men, and partly to get revenge on Joe for attacking her self-image.

As soon as their struggle became apparent, my first thought was, “I’m the wrong therapist for this couple. How will I avoid imposing my own issues and fear of confrontation on them?” Throughout my childhood, my mother had constantly pushed me to lose weight, and I’d despised the pressure she’d put on me.

I knew untangling Joe and Jill’s struggle would take skillful confrontation, yet the prospect of confronting them directly on the issue of weight made me shudder, and I secretly hoped they’d shift their focus to something else. They didn’t.

I tried to delay the issue by offering to teach them some skills for talking about tough topics before they embarked on this problem. That worked for a little while, but Joe remained focused on Jill’s resistance and how selfish he thought she was. “She wants me to think she’s beautiful,” he said, “but I think she’s pretty self-centered if she won’t make any effort to be attractive to me.”

By now, Jill was crying. “Why can’t you love me as I am?” she wept. I knew it was show time. I could no longer postpone the issue because of my fear of confrontation, but how could I intervene without tangling them up in my own issues? I was deeply aware of my desire to rescue Jill.

“Jill, will you ask him what your weight symbolizes, and what he thinks should happen once he’s asked you to lose weight,” I said carefully, and then took a baby step toward confrontation.

“You’ll lose weight,” Joe cut in. “You know, buckle down and get it done. And it symbolizes your selfishness.”

Many partners make incessant angry demands without realizing their own part in what’s going on. Joe kept suggesting that Jill was lazy and selfish for not doing what he wanted, as if it had no connection to his own attitudes and behavior. As a slightly overweight female therapist, I wasn’t sure I could handle this situation without his concluding that I was simply siding with Jill.

The session was heating up. Clearly, resolving this struggle was going to involve more accountability from each of them. Although I wanted Joe to take more responsibility, this tug-of-war couldn’t really all be about his wife’s perceived refusal to lose weight. At the same time, I’d need to light a fire under Jill to get her to acknowledge her own part in what was going on.

It wouldn’t be easy, but I had to put aside my fear of confrontation to get them both to face an issue freighted with psychological meaning for me. Many years ago I’m not sure I could have found the right mix of gentleness and strength, but at least for this hour, I could feel the difference that 25 years of couples work made in my own clarity and sense of inner direction.

Ellyn Bader, PhD, and Peter Pearson, PhD, couples therapists for more than 25 years, are the founders and directors of  The Couples Institute  and creators of the Developmental Model of Couples Therapy. They’re the authors of  In Quest of the Mythical Mate: A Developmental Approach to Diagnosis  and  Treatment in Couples Therapy .

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