"It is much simpler to do things than to explain what you are trying to do, what the method is that you are employing in doing it, and how that method will give you the result." -Bernard Lonergan
The Insight Approach as Method in Conflict Resolution
The Insight approach to conflict analysis and resolution asks "what are we doing when we are using our minds to engage and disengage in conflict?"
It asks this question in pursuit of developing a method for the field of conflict analysis and resolution, or what Lonergan calls an "explanatory framework for collaborative creativity," where efforts towards peace yield progressive and cumulative results.
Developing this method requires formulating not the answers for why conflict and peace happen, but formulating the scope of questions to ask in situations of conflict and peace that carry us beyond the content of those situations-- the who, what, when, where-- to what it is we are doing, as people both individually and collectively, when we are making decisions that lead us to engage in conflict and peace.
The basis of this method is what Lonergan has termed our "operations of consciousness," that is, the performances of our minds.
It asks this question in pursuit of developing a method for the field of conflict analysis and resolution, or what Lonergan calls an "explanatory framework for collaborative creativity," where efforts towards peace yield progressive and cumulative results.
Developing this method requires formulating not the answers for why conflict and peace happen, but formulating the scope of questions to ask in situations of conflict and peace that carry us beyond the content of those situations-- the who, what, when, where-- to what it is we are doing, as people both individually and collectively, when we are making decisions that lead us to engage in conflict and peace.
The basis of this method is what Lonergan has termed our "operations of consciousness," that is, the performances of our minds.
It is quite difficult to be at home in [Insight theory], for that … is a matter of heightening one’s consciousness, objectifying it, and that is something that each one, ultimately, has to do in and for [themselves].
-Bernard Lonergan, Method
The Insight Approach and the Operations of Consciousness
The Insight approach pays specific attention to the way we use our minds, to the way we operate our consciousness. By paying attention to this operation and wondering about it, the meanings that we make of our own experiences and how they influence the decisions we make emerge. This data is critical to not only unpacking conflict dynamics, but to changing them.
The Key to Insight Conflict Resolution
The Insight approach notices that conflict is both a behavior and an interaction characterized by feelings of threat that are linked to an anticipated dire future and a decision to defend against the realization of that dire future.
As scholars in fields from conflict analysis and resolution to cognitive psychology have identified, the understandings we base our decisions on in conflict are often constricted. They are full of perceptual and factual errors. Nonetheless, the feelings of threat that accompany our understandings in conflict put us on the defensive in a way that shuts us down to new information, because we are compelled to protect ourselves from the realization of our dire futures. This makes us certain and nearly incapable of learning or changing. Unless... The threat is delinked.
Insight practice uses skills to delink threat that inquire into the understandings, feelings, and decisions to defend that result in conflict behavior. By asking questions directed at this "data of concsiousness," individuals and groups are given the opportunity to wonder about their often misguided understandings, feelings and decisions. This questioning opens up the potential for insights that not only change people's minds, but their actions, thereby heightening the probability that constructive behavior rather than conflict behavior will prevail.
As scholars in fields from conflict analysis and resolution to cognitive psychology have identified, the understandings we base our decisions on in conflict are often constricted. They are full of perceptual and factual errors. Nonetheless, the feelings of threat that accompany our understandings in conflict put us on the defensive in a way that shuts us down to new information, because we are compelled to protect ourselves from the realization of our dire futures. This makes us certain and nearly incapable of learning or changing. Unless... The threat is delinked.
Insight practice uses skills to delink threat that inquire into the understandings, feelings, and decisions to defend that result in conflict behavior. By asking questions directed at this "data of concsiousness," individuals and groups are given the opportunity to wonder about their often misguided understandings, feelings and decisions. This questioning opens up the potential for insights that not only change people's minds, but their actions, thereby heightening the probability that constructive behavior rather than conflict behavior will prevail.
Check out our Insight Blog from more on Insight theory and other things
Resources
"Explaining Conflict: Human Needs Theory and the Insight Approach" by Jamie Price
Beyond Basic Human Needs: Implications for Theory and Practice edited by Kevin Avruch
Beyond Basic Human Needs: Implications for Theory and Practice edited by Kevin Avruch
"Method in Peacemaking" by Jamie Price
Peacemaking: From Practice to Theory edited by Susan Allen Nan
Peacemaking: From Practice to Theory edited by Susan Allen Nan
"Spiritual Values, Sustainable Security, and Conflict Analysis" by Jamie Price and Andrea Bartoli
The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Security
The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Security
"Recovering Sargent Shriver’s Vision for Poverty Law: The Illinois FamilyCare Campaign and the Insight Approach to Conflict Resolution and Collaboration" by Jamie Price and Kenneth Melchin
Clearninghouse Review, January-February 2010
Clearninghouse Review, January-February 2010
"Practical Idealism: How Sargent Shriver Built the Peace Corps." by Jamie Price
Commweal 139, 3.
Commweal 139, 3.
"Rethinking Conflict: Perspectives from the Insight Approach." by Neil Sargent, Cheryl Picard and Marnie Jull
Negotiation Journal 27, 3. 323-366.
Negotiation Journal 27, 3. 323-366.
Transforming Conflict Through Insight by Kenneth Melchin and Cheryl Picard
"Learning Through Deepening Conversations: A Key Strategy of Insight Mediation." by Cheryl Picard and Marnie Jull
Conflict Resolution Quarterly 29, 2. 151-176.
Conflict Resolution Quarterly 29, 2. 151-176.
"Insight Mediation: A Learning-Centered Mediation Model." by Kenneth Melchin and Cheryl Picard
Negotiation Journal 23, 1. 35-53. 2007
Negotiation Journal 23, 1. 35-53. 2007
Method in Theology by Bernard Lonergan
Insight: A Study of Human Understanding by Bernard Lonergan
"Circulating Grace: Resources for a Just Economy." by Jamie Price
The Lonergan Review 2, 1. 329-339.
The Lonergan Review 2, 1. 329-339.
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