Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: Conflict Resolution -- Avoiders

[Rob Sandelin (floriferous]

Some questions have come up about Conflict avoidance. Here are some further
ideas.

A person who avoids conflicts typically displays some of the following
behaviors:

They drop out of events and functions in which the person they conflict with
is attending.
They have trouble talking with the person they conflict with about even
general things not related to the conflict.
They may enter the commonhouse or other public gathering place, see their
conflict person, and leave before anybody notices them.
They avoid conflict subjects, and often make excuses to leave should the
subject be raised.
They don't like how conflicts make them feel and so they avoid anything in
which might generate a conflict.
They often actively discourage areas of investigation because it might raise
a conflict.
They don't answer calls for mediation invitations, make excuses, create
diversions to avoid being in the mediation.
They don't show up for scheduled mediation invitations.

Most often they just drop out. It is often the case in smaller intentional
communities that it is easy to notice this. In larger cohousing groups,
dropping out often goes unnoticed, and typically nobody asks: Gee, why isn't
Jane around any more?

I have seen groups where conflict avoiders pull out of meetings and social
processes, and in some places this has  meant 40% of the group stops
participating. In my experience, successfully working with this style takes
somebody with a great deal of training, empathy, and persistence.

It usually does not work just to "get together and talk about it" because
avoiders don't show up. In a larger community like cohousing, which does not
have strong personal growth requirements, people with the conflict avoidance
style easily suit themselves by avoidance and dropping out. This is very
different than say a group house with 5 housemates. When you live with 50
other adults, not participating can easily go unnoticed, and usually there
is nobody paying attention anyway.

Noticing participation patterns is one of the easy first steps you can take
to diagnose this. Is Jane not involved because she is avoiding a conflict?
Having an empathetic person to personally dialogue with can move a conflict
avoider into a process. But, this is a lot like personal therapy, and is
often WAY more than cohousers are willing to do. In a small community, with
a more intense focus, this kind of work is natural. In cohousing, it is
unnatural and I have seldom seen it done.


Rob


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