Traditional approaches to mediation treat active listening skills like formulation (reflecting, mirroring) as neutral means through which mediators may come to know the issues of concern to disputants. This study investigated the use of formulation through the microanalysis of a mediation session and a therapy session. The analysis shows that formulating is a nonneutral means of communication that allows the mediator to (1) transform disputants' statements, (2) select or ignore disputants' issues, and (3) invite or discourage disputants' contributions to these issues. Formulation apparently plays an important function in the reformulation of dispute narratives.
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Bruce Phillips (1999) studied this question.
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