From Chronic Conflict to Mutual Learning and Collaboration: An Interview with Corky Becker

from Leverage Points Issue 56

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Corky Becker is a founding associate of the Public Conversations Project (PCP), an organization committed to helping people enter into dialogue about polarizing issues related to values, identity, and world view. As a clinical psychologist and family and couples therapist, she has spent many years developing strategies for helping people interact differently with each other. Through her work at PCP, Corky has become involved with "Let's Talk America," a nationwide movement to promote inclusive, nonpartisan, and respectful discussion about the future of democracy. At this year's Pegasus Conference, Corky will be facilitating a "Let's Talk America" session—the session is open to the public at no charge (click here for more information).

In the following interview conducted by Leverage Points editor Kali Saposnick, Corky talks about the process of developing safe spaces for people in extreme conflict to converse in ways that allow them to understand and support each other. She also discusses the dynamics that polarize people around hot topics and how to shift the conversation to promote mutual learning and collaboration.

Leverage Points: How has your background in clinical psychology and family therapy influenced your work with the Public Conversations Project?

Corky Becker: Much of my experience has been working with couples and families in chronic conflict. Before I began working at the Public Conversations Project, I had been examining the effects of the vicious cycle of blame/attack/defend on families and couples, and developing strategies for helping people interact differently. This cycle creates a victim-villain relationship in which people blame, negate, and overgeneralize, creating defensiveness in others. It then becomes very hard for couples or family members to feel a sense of intimate connection, to reflect openly on their experiences, or to find ways to problem-solve creatively together.

This work translates pretty directly to the Public Conversations Project. The idea for the group was born while Laura Chasin, the project's founder, was watching a televised debate on abortion. In the debate, the pro-choice and pro-life leaders were hurling invectives at each other and not listening, until finally the moderator had to stop them and say, "There's nothing going on here but a lot of noise." Laura invited a group of us, who were experienced family therapists and knew how to facilitate constructive conversations on extremely polarized topics, to put something together that would create a safe enough context for people to speak and listen to each other about differences of value, world view, or identity. We were interested in abortion because it had those qualities.

LP: What are some of the outcomes of your work? In what ways, if any, has the Public Conversations Project been able to build collaborations? Have any of these collaborations brought about large-scale change?

CB: First of all, our idea of an outcome is that people talk to each other differently. It's a very unusual idea, and most people would say that that isn't an outcome. We look at it as a process outcome. In fact, some staff at the Public Conversations Project would call it a "ripple effect" rather than an outcome or large-scale change.

Consequently, we are not building collaborations directly, although collaborations may develop as a result of people listening respectfully. I can tell you the kind of thing that does happen: When people develop more positive, trusting, respectful relationships with each other, they work together differently on projects of common interest in which they might have different positions or different roles.

A lot of our work is very difficult to measure, but I can share some examples of what I mean by ripple effects. One project involved three groups—conservationists, manufacturers, and landowners—who got together to look at the use of the northern forest in New England. Another involved a biodiversity project in the Adirondacks. Although I didn't work on these projects directly, from what I understand, in both of these groups two things changed as a result of the conversations PCP facilitated. One is that people developed relationships in which they began to check in with each other when legislative issues came up. The other is that they spoke about the "other" differently to the media.

LP: If this work is so difficult to measure, from where does your commitment and confidence come to do it?

CB: I think it's from the experience I've witnessed during these conversations. What you see on the surface is not very dramatic, but there is intense drama going on inside of people. You can see them struggling to embrace their own view and that of someone else whose view is very difficult for them to stomach. When they're really stretching themselves to hold this cognitive dissonance, you can feel it in the room. People really learn to care about each other even though they see things very differently.

LP: What conversational skills are the most difficult for people to implement? Which ones do you think have the highest leverage in generating change among a group of people?

CB: There are four skills we focus on while doing this work:
• Listening to understand what the other person means rather than hearing people through the filter of our own assumptions
• Speaking from the heart about one's own experiences rather than primarily speaking about one's positions
• Reflecting on what is happening to one's own thinking as one is listening to what other people are saying, rather than reacting
• Holding one's own sense of self, views, and experiences at the same time that one is attempting to hold somebody else's experiences in mind

With couples, for example, it's very important to be clear about the objectives of the conversation. It's not a short-term goal of protecting oneself, winning an argument, or being right, but a longer-term goal of trying to shift how they are in relation to each other, how they can understand their differences more clearly to work together creatively in their situation. That's a major paradigm shift for families and couples. The vicious cycle of blame/attack/defend often prevents people from recognizing the subjective experience of the other person. When people speak and listen in ways that foster respect and care for each other, they find ways to manage their differences with respect and care.

The Public Conversations Project has an analogous model for understanding what happens in communities. As people feel they're under threat, they join different interest groups. As the threat increases, these interest groups become positioned. In the process, people in the middle, undecided, or confused go to the margins of the public conversation. They lose their voice because they can't participate in such an extreme debate. An illusion then gets created of two sides that hate and malign each other rather than many people with many experiences and values. Differences get lost not only between people inside of a positioned camp, but within individuals. For example, in the abortion issue, somebody may feel it's important to reduce the number of abortions, but still want a woman's right to choose, but don't want partial births-and they can't share those complexities because they feel they have to take a side that is framed in an all or nothing way.

What we try to do is facilitate a conversation in which people feel safe for the duration of the conversation. This involves having people agree on how they're going to act. We structure the conversation in what we call "go-rounds," in which people share the amount of time they talk and speak from personal experience. This process creates a container that allows people to talk about what really matters to them and why, and about the gray areas—things that are complex or make them feel confused or conflicted. The questions we often use in our first meeting create bridges instead of walls, emphasize places where people basically agree, and encourage people to talk about their lived experience rather than their position. Through the conversation, they may draw conclusions that are different from what they started with.

We don't think of these conversations as having the goal of changing anybody's mind about anything. Rather, they are learning conversations, in which people who haven't been able to talk to each other come together and hear what the other has to say. In order to do that, people have to be ready. Often that means people are fed up with the debate or feel the debate is too costly and not getting them anywhere. In mediation or conflict resolution, people are working toward agreement or a common solution. In dialogue, people are working toward understanding and recognition of others who have a different perspective and experience in relation to identity, values, or worldview.

LP: Describe the "Let's Talk America" session you will be facilitating at the upcoming Pegasus Conference.

CB: "Let's Talk America" is a nationwide movement that was started in order to bridge the growing divide between Americans by bringing people from across the political spectrum together for lively, open conversation about revitalizing democracy. The fundamental premise is to get people across the country together to talk, using the questions and formats that are described on the web site (http://www.letstalkamerica.org). The idea is that when people don't talk to each other, they're not really practicing democracy. Talking about democracy allows people to recognize its complexity, what it is, what it involves, what we value about it, how we need to protect it, and what it requires of us.

I work with divorced parents. In some ways democracy is like the child in a divorce. We may be divided in the United States, but we all care about democracy. When two parents split up, in spite of their experiences of betrayal, hurt, and anger, it is important to come together to think about what is best for the their children. This requires being able to talk to each other in ways that allow for mutual understanding and recognition in the context of a shared commitment. We need to do the same in relation to our democracy. That is the hope of the conversations sponsored by "Let's Talk America" and the Public Conversations Project.