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Session C.4: Saturday, 10:45am-12:00pm

Panel Title: Workshop: Dr. Rachel Goldberg

'God in the Process:Is there a place for religion in conflict resolution ?'
Rachel Goldberg (Salisbury University)

Does God belong in conflict resolution processes? The field of conflict resolution has long worked to keep processes neutral and value-free, but there is an increasing demand for value-laden processes, or at least processes that take faith seriously, like Christian mediation, Ho'oponopono, and Harvard's Insight GNII (Global Negotiation Insight Institute). This workshop consists of two parts. The first will look at the role of religion and spirituality in dispute resolution processes -- what are the risks, what is the potential, can we include faith and support the self-determination of parties – summarizing the debate so far in the field. The second part explores new ideas on how to include religion, faith, spirituality into our processes safely by exploring the integration of mind, heart, body/somatics, and spirit which maximizes mediator presence in the room, and drawing on approaches from psychology that protect party self determination.