Does Honoring Individuality Help Resolve a Dispute?

By Lara Traum (mediator with the Law Firm and Mediation Practice of Alla Roytberg, P.C.)

“There are men who can think no deeper than a fact” – Albert Einstein.

We live in a world of absolute truths. History, math and science tell us that facts exist, that questions have answers, and that formulas can be applied to resolve many of life’s mysteries. We make firm projections about the future just as we reflect with conviction on the past. We rarely pause to wonder whether the way we experience a situation is indeed that objective – whether the person sitting next to us who has lived on the same block and eaten at the same diner and talked to the same street vendor for the past ten years has experienced the picture entirely differently.

Vantage point is the depth beyond fact that individuates personhood. But what happens when one identity has been enmeshed with another for years? Click here to read more.