Interpersonal Conflict Article Summary - http://www.drbalternatives.com/articles/cc2.html

In my article, I learned the most from the paragraph that talked about how people usually deal with conflict. They gave four negative responses that are generally the most common. They were:

1. Deny or Avoid the conflict
2. Getting mad and blaming the other person
3. Use power and influence to "win" over the other person
4. Manipulat the other person into believing that you have compromised, when really, you've forced them to let you win.


I thought that the rest of the article was pretty surface level. They talk about how to resolve conflict in a healthy way, how to prevent conflict, and how to recognize conflict. All of the instructions they gave would be very helpful to someone who has lived in a lead box their entire life and has never had to communicate before, but for those of us who have actually been in situations of conflict, the suggestions were shallow and, in my opinion, didn't really complete thier objectives - they simply water down the conflict, and put a mask on the person using these techniques.
For example, two of their suggestions were completely they opposite of what Brother Adams has been teaching us, and heaven forbid any other ideology be right.
The first suggestion was called the "diffusion" technique, where you simply agree with the other person, "Yes, I'm an idiot. Yes, I deserve to be punished." etc.
The other suggestion was to ask "probing questions to see what the other person is thinking and feeling." This obviously is the polar opposite of what Brother Adams has been reiterating for the past two months.
Something else that I thought was kind of funny was the "stroking" technique - in other words, sucking up. Personally, if I was in the middle of a heated argument, I would get more upset if the other party were to say something like, "I admire your courage in speaking to me in such a manner, Brooke." I just might react violently.
Basically, I learned to recognize what I do in interpersonal conflicts, and I learned that I need to find my own ways to solve conflicts on a case-by-case basis, rather than have a canned response to every problem.