An Exercise in Conflict Resolution Excerpts from Making Healthy Families By Gayle Peterson, Ph.D. Copyright 1996-2003.  Gayle Peterson All rights reserved. Have a Problem? Try These Seven Simple Steps: Identify the problem. Communicate with the appropriate people about the problem. Develop a set of possible alternative solutions. Decide on one of the alternatives. Carry out the action required. Monitor to guarantee the action is taken. Evaluate the effectiveness of your decision-making process. What is the rate of successful conflict resolution in your marriage and what is the quality of your experience? Do topics of discussion reach closure, particularly when action needs to be taken? Pay attention to how you make decisions in the family and how this process feels to you and other family members. Ask yourself and your partner to reflect on the following two questions. Write down your first response after reflecting on the question. You may also come back again to this question in a week, two weeks and four weeks and take the average of your responses after one month's observations. 1. What percentage of problems reach successful compromise in your marriage? Rate it below. Level of conflict resolution: 0%----------20%---------40%------60%-------80%-------100% 2. What is the quality of your experience around problem solving in your relationship? Rate it below: Quality of the experience: 1--------2--------3--------4----------5 1. Extremely painful/not "worth it" and would like to avoid this process 2. Painful and exhausting but would do it again reluctantly only if absolutely necessary 3. Somewhat difficult and time consuming, but happy with the outcome 4. Difficult and very rewarding experience 5. Stimulating and bonding experience The rate of successful resolution that is carried through to completion builds trust and self-esteem in family relationships. A persistent miscarriage of plans or compromises that are reached only after great anguish result in distrust of the process and decreased energy for dealing with life's problems. This kind of family atmosphere can become a breeding ground for depression or other disturbances in health. Go to: 6 Ingredients of Healthy Communication Return to Dr. Gayle Peterson's Home Page Copyright 1996-2003.  Gayle Peterson All rights reserved. Send Comments and Inquiries to Dr. Gayle Peterson at gp@askdrgayle.com