19 November 2025

I am sitting on land that has hosted and been cared for by 12 to 15 thousand generations of a continuous civilisation, the Boon Wurrung / Bunurong people of the Kulin Nation. That is some 50 thousand or more years and the land remains unceded. I came to this island only 70 years ago. It is only around 190 years since a mob of people with mostly English and Irish heritage sailed to the north of what the indigenous people called Nairm – we call it Port Phillip – from an island called Lutruwita – called Tasmania by us.

I acknowledge this, because most of those who came by boat in 1835 to what we now call Melbourne, treated the indigenous people atrociously. This was largely a disparity of meaning: the original inhabitants saw themselves as belonging to country; the invaders saw the land as an opportunity to amass riches. Not long after this, in 1850, gold was discovered. The yellow metal had great meaning to those who dug it up but little, if any, to the indigenous people, other than that it led to even greater forced alienation of them from country.

There was existential meaning on both sides. Hopefully, this rather lengthy introduction means something to you. Meaning is one of the four existential concerns identified by psychiatrist Irvin Yalom¹.

Most of us spend the greater part of our lives searching for meaning. Some people find it, or conclude that there is none.

While disputes between people or groups of people may not arise directly from this existential imperative, the search is there for all of the parties. If, as mediators, we are aware of this, we may contribute a useful dimension to the journey towards some resolution of the dispute.

Of course, it is not only existential meaning that is at play. People easily tumble into dispute through misunderstanding, which goes hand-in-hand with miscommunication.

I came across a snippet of wisdom many years ago, author unknown: “I know that you believe you understand what you think I said; but I am not sure you realise that what you heard is not what I meant.”

It is a miracle that we are able to communicate at all, let alone clearly. Read the above quote again and try to really understand it.

What meaning do we extract from what someone says or what we think they said? Do I mean what I said? Did I mean to say it quite that way? Could I have said it better, but now I don’t want to admit to that? Were they really listening to me? Were they distracted by whatever my words brought up for them?

If all that could be untangled, there would be fewer disputes. Perhaps not good for lawyers and mediators.

Part of the task of the mediator is to identify meaning in what is said by the parties and then shine a light on it. This can only truly happen if the parties are allowed to communicate directly with each other. Having lawyers do the talking on the parties’ behalf or the mediator shuttling between them, makes this process of finding meaning extremely hard, if not impossible.

Not allowing the parties in a mediation to discuss their grievances and possible solutions face-to-face is tantamount to continuing on the adversarial path, often assisted by their respective lawyers. It may be a form of ADR but it is not really mediation.

I am not saying that lawyers should not represent their clients’ instructions to the best of their ability, using their training, expertise and experience. But their clients’ best interests may at some point be best served by transitioning from combat to open discussion.

Within the context of a search for meaning in conflict, mediators are especially well positioned to assist parties. The mediator is trained to draw participants out, listen carefully to what they say and then test their own understanding of what was said and what was meant. As well as this, in private sessions during the mediation process, the mediator is able to assist each person to dig deeper to find what is important to them.

The search for meaning is, in part, a process of self-examination. This involves a forensic dissection through layers of upbringing, socialisation, education, prejudices, stigmas, fears, dreams, possible health issues and degrees of a sense of self-worth. One always needs to do this for oneself. The mediator can assist through active listening and asking relevant and appropriate open questions. Many of these questions start with ‘why’, ‘how’, ‘when’ and ‘where. ‘Can you say more about that?’ can also elicit deeper meaning.

A vital component of the process is the parties hearing each other and gaining insight into what is important to the other – what it is that has meaning for the other – and how this fits or doesn’t fit with their own. When conflicting parties are able to safely speak and listen to each other, they can navigate a path that may lead to understanding and compromise.

If the free dialogue is not permitted to take place, either because the parties are kept in separate rooms or because lawyers or others speak for them, understanding and compromise are unlikely. What has meaning for each party will seldom be the same as anything considered to be important by their respective lawyers or other representatives. In shuttle mediation, the parties are also denied the subtle but vital communication inherent in body language.

What is important to someone can be anything: their self-esteem; an apology or simply acknowledgement; money; restoration of a situation; revenge; mending of a relationship; children, parents, relatives; peace; an opportunity to be heard; an opportunity to vent anger, frustration or despair. Anything at all. No-one can assume what has meaning for another person.

What the mediator may be personally struggling with at the time is not relevant, nor is what the mediator may think would be a good outcome. The role of the mediator includes creating the space for the parties to explore what is important to them and to guard that space. This is a sacred trust and a privilege and is to be honoured. This is also a gift to those participating in the process.

The parties’ participation in the mediation process is and needs to be entirely voluntary. It is in such a free exploration that the parties exercise autonomy. They cannot be forced into a position or to agree to someone else’s position. The title of this essay is borrowed from Viktor Fankl² and I quote him in relation to the above: “Everything can be taken from a [person] but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

Of course, the mediator is searching for meaning in their work and their own life. That is partly why we work as mediators, possibly a large part. But the mediator’s search for meaning needs to be conducted outside the mediation. However, it is vital that we all pursue this quest for meaning. It nurtures us.

Like all other humans, mediators are complex beings. Like the parties we are assisting, we are formed through our upbringing, socialisation, education, etc. Like the parties we are sitting with for three hours or a full day, we have our own prejudices, unconscious biases, frustrations and, perhaps, aches and pains on the day. Our training, peer reviews and self-reflections help us identify these and find ways to deal with them, both within particular mediations and outside them. Within each mediation, we are helping others find the meanings and use their insights to move towards an acceptable settlement.

Even if the parties fail to find any meaning in their contretemps, the process may assist them after the session in ways that are unpredictable and may remain unrecognised. Similarly for the mediator: analysis and reflection after a session, however it played out, is part of the meaning-discovery journey. If, in the course of a mediation, the mediator identifies something in themselves that is triggered by what is happening in the mediation, they need to note it down in order to deal with it after the mediation. It is essential that the mediator honours this process and takes the later self-examination seriously, with or without the assistance of a third-party professional.

This may all sound very mystical. At one level it is. It is grounded in the experience many of us have had and continue to have, that there is a reality that is larger than our day-to-day physical, emotional and mental experiences. It is what gives beauty to our lives and opens us up to the numinous. The absence of this in someone’s life, or the absence of their awareness of it, may be part of the journey into dispute.

What has led you to be a mediator? Did you take this path early in your professional life or did you come to it after pursuing another career, or several other careers? I suggest that whichever is true for you, it was at least partly in search of meaning. It is true for me.

I started off studying science, changed to and graduated in law, worked as a solicitor; travelled overseas; studied psychotherapy and practised in that discipline; studied naturopathy; served as CEO of a medical college for more than a decade; returned to legal practice; trained in and became accredited as a mediator and FDRP and am now pursuing accreditation in elder mediation. Along the way I worked as a cinema projectionist, taxi driver, computer programmer and in IT support, as well as a writer, editor and photographer. Some would say that I am still trying to work out what to do when I grow up. Yes, I did all of that on my journey to find meaning. I get occasional glimpses, which animates me to continue the search.

1. See Irvin Yalom’s book, Existential Psychotherapy,(1980, Little Brown, UK, ISBN 9780465021475)
2. The title of the English translation of Viktor Frankl’s German-language book, From Death Camp to Existentialism, was published in 1959 as Man’s Search for Meaning. Available in reprint: 2008, Random House, UK, ISBN 9781846041242.

[This article was used as the basis of a presentation to a Mediation Institute conference on 19 November 2025, via Zoom.]