If the high conflict couple chooses mediation rather than going into a court, it is typically motivated by external costs such as hurting the children or spending exorbitant monies on legal bills. It is definitely not due to any great desire for a respectful, harmonious, amicable end for the marriage. Both motivations mentioned are fragile and can be lost sight of in a second when their emotional fears and hurts take over the scene.

As a mediator faced with the blow-up of the process or a sensing that the couple is merely going through the motions of cooperating with the task at hand, I am faced with several choices. I can hope that the couple fits into standard family mediation models, find some forceful way to get them to follow my mediation process, or create a model that reflects and takes into consideration the nature of the high conflict couple. I have chosen the latter.

My High Conflict Divorce or Impasse Directed Mediation model takes into account four guiding assumptions.

1. Couples who are too intense cannot do typical mediation because their emotionality precludes listening or focusing.
2. High conflict couples are filled with all kinds of negative associations which trigger reactivity, from just looking at the other or hearing their partners say the slightest thing. This greatly inhibits communication.
3. Couples at this level of intensity cannot relate and agree on extremely sensitive issues that have long-standing consequences.
4. High conflict couples are very powerful in their commitment to create heat and escalate the relationship into chaos. Thus, the methods I use need to be just as powerful in reducing heat as the high conflict couple is in creating it.

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