Welcome to Mediation Myth Busters!

Our goal for this blog is to explain how applying neuroscience concepts can improve mediation. While we have given conference and workshop presentations  and published a law review article, we wanted to make our ideas more accessible to a wider audience by breaking them down into small focused topics.

Today, we begin by introducing ourselves and giving you a preview of some future topics.

We have collaborated since 2012 to explore how neuroscience can help mediators and mediation. Our goal has been to explain the basic neuroscience and directly apply it to mediation practice. We want to give mediators easy-to-use tools that will improve their mediation skills, and we want to show how science validates traditional facilitative mediation strategies.

I am Jill Tanz, JD, (on left in photo) a commercial mediator since 2003, training and teaching mediation since 2006. My background is in transactional law, primarily in real estate and corporate practice.

I am Martha McClintock, PhD, (on right in photo), behavioral neuroscientist at The University of Chicago since 1976. My research elucidates how social interactions affect the brain, hormones and the immune system, including stress, sex differences and pheromones.

We will add posts to this blog about once a month and plan to cover such topics as:

  • Stress During Conflict and Mediation
  • Science Validates Traditional Mediation Tools
  • Rethinking the Structure of Mediations
  • The Dangers of Venting
  • Dealing with Strong Emotions

These posts will include materials we have previously presented as well as new material that continues to build on our foundation of neuroscience and mediation.

We hope you will become a regular visitor!

Jill and Martha

5 thoughts on “Welcome to Mediation Myth Busters!

  1. This is amazing! You should write more about this! Al this issues can improve our work as mediators! For example. “The Dangers of Venting”.

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