A negotiator or mediator must accept the expression of emotion as a natural and necessary part of the conflict, not to be suppressed but constructively managed. In the same way physical pain or discomfort is symptomatic of an underlying body dysfunction or illness, emotion is the expression of underlying personal or interpersonal stressors. As health care providers are coming to understand, treating the pain without assessing the underlying circumstance makes no sense, nor does managing the illness without addressing the pain. Likewise, quashing the emotion in a dispute may serve to cosmetically cover up the underlying stressors without effectively managing the conflict. The mediator redirects and uses the energy the conflict generates constructively.
Conflict contains within it considerable natural force and energy.
The only hope will be to deal with the river on its terms, which means to paddle hard and fast enough to approximate the river's speed, thereby allowing the pilot to position him or herself to use the river's energy. The trick is to stay centered, off the rocks and out of the sinkholes. Like a good pilot reads the river and sometimes must calculate bouncing off of one rock to avoid a more perilous one or a worse situation, a good mediator reads the conflict between the parties and devises a strategy that effectively uses the parties' force and energy to negotiate the conflict. A significant task in the mediation process will be to understand, analyze, and effectively use the conflict between the parties. For instance, if you tend to be sensitive and avoid conflict, you may need to be overly wary and hesitating to raise difficult issues because of the potential conflict.