“Care Work” in Facilitative Mediation: Interactional Techniques for Emotional Support in the Context of Conflict Resolution

This paper investigates how facilitative mediators use “care work” techniques when participants display emotional or relational concerns during the session. Conversation analysis is used to analyze a pre-existing dataset of video-recorded small claims and divorce mediation sessions. Techniques the mediators used to do care work include reflection, topic refocusing, complimenting, role modeling, and coaching. The analysis shows how the trajectory of the talk in the mediation session is impacted by care work. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for the mediator’s role and the effectiveness of the interaction for the conflict resolution process in mediation.