Mediation is a little like the parable of the “Blind Men and an Elephant,” a story about a group of blind men who have never come across an elephant before, who learn and imagine what the elephant is like by touching it.
Each blind man feels a different part of the animal’s body, but only one part, such as the side, leg, trunk, tail, or tusk. Each man then describes the animal based on their limited experience and their descriptions of the elephant are different from each other.
In some versions of this parable, each man starts to suspect that the others are dishonest and this causes arguments.
The first blind man felt the elephant’s leg and said, “This creatureis built like a tree!”
The second blind man felt the elephant’s side and said, “Wrong! This
creature is like a wall!”The third blind man held the elephant’s tail and said, “What
nonsense! This creature is like a rope!”The fourth blind man touched the elephant’s tusk and said, “So
foolish! An elephant is a long smooth object like a spear!Across several versions of this story are just as many versions of the men describing different things and how they fight and/or if they figure it out.
The moral of the parable is that humans have a tendency to claim absolute truth based on their limited and subjective experiences while they ignore other people’s limited and subjective experiences which may be as equally true.
Claiming absolute truth based on limited and subjective experiences while completely ignoring someone else’s limited and subjective experiences, with each person claiming to fully understand something they have only partially experienced, can cause friction and disputes in relationships.
The goal of Francell Mediations is to peacefully collaborate with one another to better understand each party’s “truth,” and thus the entirety and complexity of the “elephant” in the room.
“Mediation: a process during which an impartial person, the Mediator, facilitates communication between the parties in a dispute to assist reconciliation, settlement or understanding.
The Mediator may suggest ways of resolving the dispute, but may not impose their own judgement on the issues for that of the parties.”
– Texas Mediator Credentialing Association
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