de-normativizing violence: applications of cognitive restructuring theory through the ideological-st

Civilizational Dialogue as an Instrument of Peace López, Rivera & Ruiz (2014)

1 Centro de Diálogo y Bienestar Humano Centre for Dialogue & Transformation

Tecnológico de Monterrey Campus Chihuahua University of Malaya

México Malaysia

De-normativizing Violence:

Applications of Cognitive Restructuring Theory

through the Ideological-Structural Analysis

By

Carolina López C.,

Isabel Rivera Rivera

&

Angélica Ruiz León

Who are we? ‗The Centre for Dialogue and Transformation: Integrating Humanity-

Environment- Economy‘ (CDT) opened at Fraser‘s Hill, Pahang, Malaysia on 1 May 2011.

It‘s parent organization is the Centro de Diálogo y Bienestar Humano (CDBH- Center for

Dialogue and Human Wellbeing) at Tecnológico de Monterrey University in Chihuahua,

México. CDBH staff have been involved in activities in México, Malaysia and beyond

over the years in areas such as peace education, youth leadership training, mediation

services, conflict transformation, healing historical memories and trauma healing, among

others. Under the auspices of the University of Malaya, the new CDT provides an actual

physical space from which to conduct these same activities in Malaysia.

What do we wish to do? Academic work conducted at the CDBH and the CDT aims to

provide deeply-researched responses to concrete needs on-the-ground in order to give the

best possible service to the people with whom we are called to work. In the present article

we wish to share with Explore readers about how our work is conducted and what guides

our thought processes while developing intervention programs and activities tailored for

each specific situation. We wish to explore potential applications of Cognitive

Restructuring Theory (CRT) for working with groups locked into violent conflict, because

we believe that CRT-derived techniques will help improve our practice. We hope that

readers will find something useful in our musings as you go about your own efforts to offer

spaces of healing and light to those with whom you work.

How will we go about it? Purpose and organization of the article The present article

focuses on situations and contexts where ongoing cycles of violence have sadly become the

norm. It provides a summary of the steps followed when preparing, conducting and

following up on interventions with communities steeped in violent conflict. It gives an

overview of the Ideological-Structural Analysis—our primary analytical tool, and it

explores the literature on Cognitive Restructuring Theory— seeking insights and

applications designed to improve the services our Centers can provide. We are not experts

in Cognitive Restructuring, and the present exploration is theoretical in nature. However, at




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both Centers we plan to empirically test the effectiveness of our interventions with subject

populations in the ongoing effort to improve our practice. Results of the empirical testing

will be put forth once we‘ve been able to operationalize, apply and analyze outcomes of

interventions provided through the CDBH and the CDT.

What is normativized violence?

For our purposes, the term ‗normativized violence‘ refers to a context or a milieu where

individuals and communities are exposed day-to-day to potentially life threatening

violence, of which they may be witnesses and/or victims. War zones, areas where genocide

and ethnic cleansing are rife, places where tit-for-tit intercommunal conflict is rampant-- all

of these contexts place people into a situation where violence is a part of everyday life.

People trying to carry out their daily activities are truly not sure if they will return home

safely in the evening. An atmosphere of ongoing—often unspoken—fear and tension

prevails. Authorities are unable to stem the violence. They may be a part of it; they may

be victim to it, or both. These situations undermine the very social fabric upon which

communities rely for their sense of safety in the daily environment, provoking a state of

hypervigilance and mistrust in the most ordinary of circumstances. When exposed to

prolonged and heinous violence, people‘s sense of shock at the daily incidents tends to dull.

Ordinary criminals take advantage of the lack of law and order, engaging in car theft,

armed assault, drug dealing, purse snatching, extortion, kidnapping, etc. with reasonable

certainty that impunity will be theirs. We have seen the amazing resilience of the human

spirit in these situations, where the majority of people go about their daily lives,

maintaining personal integrity and continuing to function in the midst of it all.

Nonetheless, society has become sick. Children growing up in this sort of milieu may have

never experienced a safe environment. In their play, we observe them reenacting scenes

related to prostitution, drug selling, drug consumption, human trafficking, and the like, as

this is what is present day-to-day in the external environment. Children‘s play, after all, is

a mode of processing that which they experience in the adult world around them.

The following section relates an incident which occurred toward the end of the last century,

igniting a chain reaction of tit-for-tat violence in a neighborhood whose residents are of

mixed cultural and religious traditions. The aggregate socioeconomic level in the locality is

low, and crime rates have been somewhat high; however, residents had coexisted

peacefully throughout the neighborhood‘s history until the trigger event took place.

The Star Heights Incident: Two boys at play

become a catalyst for deadly conflict, (Based on a true story)




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Somewhere in Asia right around the beginning of the Twenty-first Century, two boys, aged 7 and 8,

are at play in the street on which each of them lives. The area is inhabited by a mixed group of

working class families, primarily from the Hindu and the Muslim faith traditions. ‗Boy A‘ is riding his

bicycle while ‗Boy B‘ plays alongside him—helping push the bike, ‗hitching a ride‘—or being pulled

along by ‗Boy B‘ and engaging in the sort of play that boys at this age tend to enjoy. In the middle of

the roughhousing, ‗Boy A‘ falls off his bicycle, hitting the pavement hard. As he stands up, his nose is

bleeding; he‘s full of scrapes and abrasions, both to himself and to his sense of pride. In anger, ‗Boy

A‘ reproaches ‗Boy B‘ accusing him of intentionally knocking him off the bicycle, to which ‗Boy B‘

responds heatedly that no such thing was intended. In short, the two friends end their play that day in

a scuffle, with ‗Boy A‘ still bleeding from the cuts received in his fall from the bicycle.

‗Boy A‘ goes home upset, bloodied and with torn clothes—fearful that he might be scolded by his

mother. He angrily tells her that ‗Boy B‘ has ‗knocked him off the bicycle,‘ causing the mishap which

resulted in the scrapes and the torn clothing; ‗Boy A‘s‘ older brother overhears the conversation. The

mother, alarmed by the blood and unhappy with the spoiled clothing, complains saying ―They are all

like that. I‘ve already told you not to play with ‗Boy B.‘ You know you can‘t trust those people.‖

Anger spirals and grows as internalized stereotypical assumptions about ‗people like ‗Boy B‘‘ are

given free reign, changing perception of the incident from a simple accident during play time, to what

soon becomes intercommunal rage directed from one group toward the other.

When ‗Boy A‘s‘ older brother sees ‗Boy B‘s‘ sibling on the street, he angrily reproaches him for the

incident, to which the older boy responds with great anger, feeling the sting of the accusation directed

toward his little brother and toward his community in general.

The incident grows until young men from both communities—brothers, fathers and friends on both

sides-- come out to the street and directly fight with each other-- using fists, feet, and machetes in a

mass confrontation. The end result is a count of three dead and seven injured on Side A, with seven

dead and twelve injured on Side B.

Since that day at the beginning of the Twenty-first Century, violence between the two communities has

spiraled, going from tit to tat, with one side striking out and the other retaliating, piling on ever-more

layers of historical injury-- of accusations and counteraccusations. The bicycle incident lies buried

under layers of violent acts committed by each side toward the other. There seems to be no way out

of the cycle of violence.

The national government is aware of this ongoing conflict, and has found no way of ending

it, in spite of numerous efforts made by social workers and neighborhood associations.

CDBH staff will offer workshops for youth, their families and community members, to be

held on Saturdays at a community center. The goal is to break the cycle of violence, and

bring community members back into peaceful collaborative relations with one another.

Empirical observation reveals a complex and interwoven web of issues both causal to and

resulting from the ongoing violence present in the milieu. Beyond observation, this web is

reflected within individuals and across the collective psyche of the locality. In order to

tease apart the complexities, CDBH staff conduct Situational and Needs Analyses, using




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the Ideological-Structural Analysis (I-SA) Macro-theory,1 which attempts to understand the

world of human interactions ‗from the skin outward,‘ as it were, focusing on the social

milieu. These preliminary studies use archival research, reports from the popular press,

interviews, questionnaires, informal group meetings and the like to ‗find the pulse‘ of the

cross-sections of people living in Star Heights. We want to understand how people in the

neighborhood relate to other residents, what they think, what they feel and fear, and how

they envision the future in order to design interventions tailored to the specific situation at

hand.

When creating workshop activities and self-care strategies, we use the I-SA‘s Micro-theory

component—which explores human cognition and psycho-affect. Activities are designed

to offer participants an inner journey, as it were, to come to know themselves, to heal where

needed, to explore, and to choose a new vision for the future. As a collective, community

members are invited to devise ways forward, working together toward a less violent

individual and collective future.

The remainder of the article explains how I-SA Macro-theory helps us understand the

multiple forms of violence found in the milieu where we are working. It discusses how the

Micro-theory is applied to enhance participants‘ awareness of our non-peaceful behaviors,

and the cognition and psychoaffect underlying them. With this newfound awareness, self-

care techniques are offered for people to apply at home, in schools or where needed when

faced with violence and the thoughts and emotions underling it. Self-care techniques are

designed for those in both the victim and the perpetrator roles. The article ends by sharing

with readers what we‘ve learned by studying the Cognitive Restructuring literature, which

we believe, 1) helps us update the Ideological-Structural Analysis as an analytical tool and,

2) points toward many ideas and techniques which will enhance our practice as it stands

today.

Ideological-Structural Analysis Macro-theory: A tool for understanding the milieu

. Historical Analyses and Socio-economic Studies

Prior to entering Star Heights, CDBH staff gather information which allows us to best meet

needs and concerns expressed by the residents. We seek historical and socioeconomic

studies of the locality. The first stop is the Municipal Office, where ample research has

been conducted on this neighborhood and other ‗disadvantaged‘ parts of the city. We seek

independent academic studies from NGOs and local tertiary institutions as well. This data

1 Ideological-Structural Analysis Macro- and Micro-theory will be discussed at length below.




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gives us a solid idea about what exists and what sort of interventions have been offered in

the past.

. Demographics: Who are the inhabitants?

The next step is to identify and talk to relevant segments of the population. In Star Heights,

we approach the business community, educators, religious leaders, public servants, parents,

youth, and secondary school students. In identifying stakeholders, we also ask ‗Who are

the invisible?2 Why are they invisible? If ‗invisible‘ sub-populations are identified, shall

we seek to engage them? If so, how?

. What is the current situation like?

Using questionnaires, interviews and group discussions we try to find out how residents

perceive the current situation in Star Heights. People who are willing to talk describe their

daily routine; they discuss salient events—which are often related to the conflict. People‘s

right not to reveal information is always respected. Many of the residents are workers from

neighboring countries—with or without work permits--- whose primary goal is to send

money to family back home. People are asked to share happy moments, to discuss violent

incidents which they have seen and/or experienced. They are asked how they feel in the

face of violent events, and how they respond to these events. We talk about fear, rage,

sadness and the diverse emotions which come up during these discussions. CDBH staff

fulfill our promise to people that their identity and confidentiality will be respected at all

times. At the end of the pre-intervention sessions we ask people ―If you could ‗write your

life,‘ how would you want it to be from here on into the future?‖

When Violence is a way of life: Insights from the preliminary study

Data collected at the pre-intervention stage reveals a very challenging socio-cultural

picture, where Star Heights residents risk being mugged each time they step out of their

homes. Women are favored prey; pairs of men on motorcycles snatch handbags from their

victims—with the pillion rider doing the actual snatching and the driver in charge of

making the escape. Many victims have been killed when resisting an assault. Some are

dragged to their death if the purse strap is placed around their body; others have been run

over by passing cars as they fall down. Nearly all the snatch thefts end in cuts, abrasions,

broken bones, or death by being run over, dragged, or slashed with a machete carried by the

robbers. Thieves come into people‘s dwellings by day or by night, sometimes taking tiles

off the roofs and entering from there, forcing open the gates, etc. Whatever the means used 2 Women and child prostitutes are often ‘invisible,’ as may be drug addicts, transsexuals, and AIDS-infected

individuals.




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to gain entry, people found inside their homes during a robbery may be slashed with a

machete, sometimes raped, often killed. Car thefts and vandalism are everyday

occurrences. Young men are seen loitering on the streets-- sniffing glue, drinking, selling

or consuming drugs, often harassing females as they go by. Unemployment is rampant.

Domestic abuse, sexual violence, drug and alcohol addiction, and the marked neglect of

children are ‗just the way things are‘ for many of those living in Star Heights.

How do we begin untangling the violence and dysfunction found in the locality? The

concrete problem to be addressed is the intercommunal conflict; yet the work must be

carried out against the backdrop of normativized violence permeating everyday interactions

in the community. We begin by studying the dynamics of intercommunal interactions gone

drastically wrong, assessing the broader questions through the I-SA Macrotheory, which

begins by looking at cultural communities.

. Theoretical Constructs. I-SA Macrotheory: From the skin outward

Cultural communities are essentially common ways of thinking and doing which develop

historically because of somewhat isolated in-group communication (Littlejohn, in López,

2004). These communities may trace their roots to a certain linguistic, ethnic or religious

tradition. Particularistic modes of dress, and generalized physical features may be present,

making community members identifiable among themselves and to outsiders. In reference

to the Star Heights conflict, each group can easily identify ‗the other‘ based on any number

of the aforementioned characteristics, which allows for the targeting of one group by the

other with great ease.

. Shared goals

A CDBH workshop to help mitigate the conflict may begin with separate caucuses where

each group can express its rage, pain, fears and other negative psychoaffect before actually

sitting in the presence of the ‗others.‘3 Once anger has been has vented and people are able

to see what is to be gained through peaceful relations, they are asked to brainstorm and

collectively envision an ideal future for themselves and their families. When the groups are

ready, we bring them together to see the convergence in goals which each has created in

their separate caucuses. If they are not ready to be together, the mediator will share the

convergent goals without the antagonistic groups being present to each other. Whether or

not the two groups are together, the technique is to write the two envisioned ‗ideal futures‘

side-by-side, one on each half of the whiteboard.4 Participants take turns reading aloud

their side‘s collective ‗ideal future.‘ They are then asked to read the ‗ideal future‘ of the

3 Participants come to the workshops voluntarily, as there is no compulsion for community members to

attend. This constitutes a sort of self-selection process, where people who desire a return to peace are those most likely to attend. 4 In some situations, large sheets of paper, or Power Point presentations may be used instead of a

whiteboard to conduct this exercise.




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other group. While some of the goals may vary, participants are invariably surprised by

how much they share with their antagonists in terms of their goals and their vision of a

peaceful future. Participants are selected go forward and to draw a line connecting each

goal which they share with members of the other group. The act of ‗connecting‘ our goals

with those of the ‗enemy‘ using a simple marker on a whiteboard is often the beginning of

the turning point for the groups. At this point we are simply laying the foundation from

which the antagonists can begin seeing how much they converge with each other. As

psychoaffect becomes more benign, we ask groups how they would operationalize, or

implement an actual plan toward the ideal future. The groups may or may not yet be

working together, depending on their readiness or lack thereof to meet with ‗the other.‘

The idea is to build healthy relationships based on shared goals. We must address historical

injury between the two sides. However, this occurs once people have understood the

common ground and are able to once again ‗see the human face of the other.‘

Sociolinguistic competence. Early on, we discuss basic communication techniques with

workshop participants. Sociolinguistic competence refers to the implicit norms of propriety

in communication, concerning what can be said and how it may or may not be said. It also

includes voice tone, body language and awareness of the context within which the

communication takes place. Sociolinguistic norms vary among communities and, to a

degree, within them as well. The sociolinguistics of one community may allow discussion

of certain issues which another community finds taboo, or out-of-bounds. In one

community, direct critique, and emotional locutions may be expressed, while another may

find such expressions completely inappropriate and unacceptable. Violations of

sociolinguistic norms are often found underlying conflict situations—exacerbating the

anger and misunderstanding existing between the groups in conflict. We teach participants

to pay attention to their bodies, their facial expressions, tone of voice and gesticulation,

asking them to be mindful of their non-spoken demeanor while engaged in conversation

with others. Active listening skills are also taught; people are taught to speak in the ‗I‘

form in order to avoid accusing language which gives rise to defensiveness and anger.

They are instructed to let the interlocutor ‗tell them who they are,‘ instead of one person

casting their stereotypical assumptions on the ‗other,‘ which also gives rise to great offense

and misunderstanding. A key to reestablishing shattered communication is for all sides to

allow the other to speak for him/herself, since the tendency to project our negative notions

on others underlies nearly all broken and violent communication. Participants are put in

groups of three in order to practice the aforementioned communications skills, with two

interlocutors and an observer who will give feedback to the others. All three rotate until

each has been in the observer and the interlocutor roles.

A further construct of the I-SA Macro-theory is civilizational paradigm, which refers to the

historical belief system to which a cultural community traces its roots. The paradigm may

be tied to a particular spiritual heritage, which is foundational to the collective ways of

knowing, interpreting and valuing shared within the community. It may be tied to a

rationalist belief system, such as Western Enlightenment thinking, among others.

Civilizational paradigms found in the country exemplified in the present article stem from




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Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Christianity, Islam and others.

Day-to-day living within each community follows unspoken norms and codes, which

members consider to be the normal way of living and interacting with others. Such norms

are held largely below the level of consciousness and tend to keep people's behavior within

the normative parameters as they interact within their own community.

When groups in conflict belong to different religious traditions—as in the Star Heights

incident-- each may assert a truth claim concerning the Divine, seeing themselves-- their

ingroup, as virtuous, while the outgroup—the collective other, is viewed as evil, on its way

to perdition, destined for rebirth in a lower form, or whatever metaphor the community uses

to refer to the ultimate consequences of bad behavior . ‗Virtuous selves‘ and ‗evil others‘

couched in religious terms are particularly delicate to work with, since religions‘ claims of

‗right and wrong‘ are easily absolutized. Angry groups cast the personification of virtue on

the ingroup-- worthy of defending at all costs, and the personification of evil on ‗the other.‘

Once we have an ‗evil other‘ in the collective psyche, violence may be unleashed in a

perceived defense of the sacred truth and of virtue. Forgetting that their religion teaches the

sanctity of life, believers from all traditions have committed great violence toward ‗the

other,‘ often feeling themselves heroes for having ‗protected good and slain or combatted

evil.‘

. Shared values

When CDBH intervenes in this sort of situation, we clearly state that we will not discuss

theologies, since this is a source of deep disagreement among members of different groups.

We will leave theologies to the theologians and get down to the business of uncovering

values and concerns shared by the conflicting communities. Initial work may be done in

separate caucuses; however, the groups will come together as they are able to work from

the foundation of shared values. Here again, the whiteboard is divided in half, with the

values of the two groups listed on either side. Groups read their own values brainstorm;

they then read the collective values of ‗the other,‘ take colored markers and draw lines

connecting the common values that emerge. We don‘t have to tell people what to think.

As they proceed through this process, they see for themselves the core values held in

common with the perceived ‗enemy.‘ By this second exercise, even the angriest

participants have begun to soften.

. Difference

Having seen the vast common ground between themselves and ‗the others,‘ groups begin to

look at beliefs and issues where they differ from the other side. This divergence often

arises from the level of deep-seated ‗ideology.‘ As understood by the I-SA, ideologies are




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not tangible structures, yet they have the power to set parameters around people‘s

understanding and interpretation of phenomena encountered in day-to-day experiences. For

our purpose, the term ―ideology‖ refers to the basic thought system underpinning the beliefs

shared by a historical collective. In analyzing a conflict, CDBH staff often find that basic

systems of thought and ‗logic‘ vary on important issues between the groups. Unearthing

deeply-embedded divergence in core interpretive filters helps us assist the sides in

reframing problems and challenges so as to better understand each other‘s position. At this

stage, anger may initially resurface; if it does, we allow for its expression in non-accusing

ways, teaching participants to express difficult psychoaffect as ‗the way they feel‘ instead

of projecting accusations on others.5

An exercise used here begins by reviewing the convergent goals and values identified in

previous exercises. Since these are areas of convergence, we rewrite the shared goals and

values as a group, leaving one set of goals and values which has emerged from both groups

working together. There are no longer two sides to connect on the whiteboard; instead,

there is one common foundation from which to work, which has been created by all of us

together. We then identify and write areas where divergence remains on two sides of the

board. Participants are asked to read their own side‘s and the other side‘s views on the

divergent issues. They are then asked to reword the divergent goals and issues using

language that draws them closer to the other side. They shall do the reframing only as far

as they feel comfortable, since we do not want to force convergence between the sides. At

this point, the groups are no longer strictly juxtaposed. Many have begun to loosen from

the communal mentality and are now thinking about the issues at hand and how to solve

them. While areas of disagreement with the ‗other‘ will continue, by the end of this

exercise, the groups see that both sides desire and value essentially the same things. This

disarms a lot of the remaining anger and allows the two groups to go forward together.6

For remaining areas of divergence, we help participants to feel reasonably comfortable with

the still unresolved pains, angers and issues-- to be addressed at more depth in the micro-

theory section of the workshop.

Structures found in the external environment have a strong bearing on how people will

interact with one another, on norms of propriety, on delimiting power relations and,

therefore, on what are considered ‗appropriate‘ behaviors among people within a society.

5 If a participant is exceedingly upset, we take him/her aside to talk individually with one of the facilitators.

At CDBH we like to facilitate in teams of three. One takes the primary role and the other two assist. If, at any time, there is a need for individualized attention, one facilitator will step aside with the person, leaving the primary facilitator and an assistant to continue with the larger group. 6 Specific historical injuries are yet to be addressed. We do that in the Micro-theory section of the workshop

where each individual has opened him/herself up to deep introspection, and is able to address the hurt, the anger, and the free decision that each person has to give and receive genuine forgiveness which—once granted-- emotionally frees both victims and perpetrators.




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Institutions such as marriage, the family unit, government offices, schools, and places of

worship are some examples of the external structuring mechanisms, both held by the

collective and holding the collective together in a particular set of relationships. The I-SA

posits that these social structures are carried around within individuals as a reflection of

external norms which have become imprinted and normativized in a person‘s memory

stores, forming a set of interpretive filters through which we will ‗understand‘ and interact

with the world around us. In discussing societal structures, we ask participants to explore

how power impacts on the nature of relationships within a community. Exercises focusing

on internalized ideological structures are taken up in the Micro-theory component of the

workshop.

I-SA Microtheory: A journey from the skin inward

The aforementioned exercises are guided by I-SA Macrotheory constructs- which examine

the world ‗from the skin outward.‘ They are meant to go beyond the primary catalyzing

event which has kept the cycle of violence going in the external social milieu. From here,

the Micro-theory component of the intervention begins by inviting participants to embark

on a journey of introspection and self-exploration, becoming aware of their own

internalized structures and how these impact on the way we perceive, interpret, feel about,

and respond in everyday situations.

A Micro-theory Workshop for the Star Heights Community

. The Critical Juncture: A symbiosis between

the external environment and the person within

The Microtheory component of a Star Heights workshop begins with a discussion of the

critical juncture, where two or more agents meet and the interaction between them turns

violent. The I-SA aims to detect what these actors bring to the critical juncture of

interaction inherent within themselves-- in terms of values, understandings, world

knowledge, as well as the prototypical and the stereotypical mis/information held by actors

concerning the cultural and/or religious community with which they are in conflict. It asks

how these internal filtering mechanisms impact on the conflict in question. Experience has

shown us that people‘s increased awareness of their internal cognitive and psychoaffective

processes increases understanding among the groups, thereby reducing violent conflict

among the people involved.

In the Star Heights incident, pre-intervention discussions with the boys‘ communities

revealed a composite mis/understanding of the collective ‗other‘ looking something like the

illustration below:




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Figure 1: The Critical Juncture. The outer circle with the dotted lines represents the external context within

which the conflict occurs. The Critical Juncture in the center of the diagram represents the catalyzing event

which sparked the ongoing spiral of violence. Portions labeled ‗Boy A‘s Community‘ and ‗Boy B‘s

Community‘ illustrate what is carried around inside community members-- the top part referring to collective

identity markers, and the lower part summarizing internalized mis/understanding concerning the ‗other‘

community.

From the earlier Macrotheory-based exercises, participants now see the goals and values

shared with each other,‘ which the whole group has written as the foundation for a full

transformation from conflict to peace. Although tensions still arise, the groups are able to

sit together in the workshop with a reasonable degree of comfort. Many of them no longer

see an ‗us‘ and an ‗other.‘ Instead, they see diverse members of the Star Heights

community wanting essentially the same things. At this point, some are still locked into

intercommunal conflict mode; however, the balance is shifting, and the Micro-theory

segments of our workshops are quite effective in helping the process along.

. Psychoaffect

When introducing the concept of Critical Juncture, we discuss the role of fear, anger and

other emotions, which awaken negative stereotypical assumptions held within the actors,

and are cast upon the individual and collective ‗others.‘ In a negative emotional state,

people do not see ‗the others‘ as they are; instead, they see the negative stereotypes and

negative human traits which they, through the eyes of fear, anger, etc., have projected on

the other group. In this state, people no longer interact with the person/people in front of

them, but with the affect-driven images which they project on the other. In conflict

situations, this often leads to violent behaviors justified through the tainted lenses of

negative psychoaffect. When we are able to help groups mitigate the blinding rage, etc. and

Boy A’s Community

° Muslims

° Working class

° Living in an ethnically-

mixed neighborhood

Concerning other community:

* Relations were essentially peaceful

Negative images caused by:

-Politicization of ethno-religious

identities

- Intergenerational prejudice

-Truth claims concerning God

-Not understanding religion nor

culture of the ‘other’

-Stereotypical images of the other

-Negative media portrayals

-etc.

Boy B’s Community

° Hindus

° Working class

° Living in an ethnically-

mixed neighborhood

Concerning other community:

* Relations were essentially peaceful

Negative images caused by:

-Perceived governmental

favoring of the ‘other’

-Politicization of ethno-religious

identities

- Intergenerational prejudice

-Not understanding religion nor

culture of the ‘other’

-Stereotypical images of the other

-Negative media portrayals

- etc.

Critical Juncture

The boys have an

accident when playing with

Boy A’s bicycle.

Boy A blames Boy B

for his injuries

Both children return home

angry and upset with

their friend.




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‗see the human face of the other‘-- virtues, imperfections and all-- they will be able to break

the cycle of violence and co-exist peacefully among themselves. The macro-theory

exercises discussed above have already done a great deal to ensure that this happens.

Here we offer an ‗identity construction exercise‘ where we place photos of two people from

different cultural communities— not related to the groups in conflict— on the whiteboard7

and invite participants to create a fictitious identity for each person. Photos are chosen of

people whose mode of dress and physical characteristics are not common to the locality

where we are working. In a lighthearted tone, we ask participants to give a name and

assign attributes and characteristics to the two individuals whose picture they are seeing on

the board. Names, occupation, hobbies, family status, etc.-- all that the participants invent

about the images is written on the board below each picture. The exercise is conducted in a

playful manner, and the invented identities end up reflecting stereotypes commonly held

about the cultural communities represented in the pictures. Once the ‗identities have been

constructed, as ‗bad guys‘, ‗good guys,‘ ‗fanatics,‘ or whatever the participants have cast

upon the pictures, we then write the true names and identities of the people whose pictures

we have used. Nearly all are our colleagues from around the world—academics, activists,

local leaders, whose lives have been devoted to working for the good of the human

community. Seeing the difference between the caricatured identities and who the people

truly are catches participants‘ attention. Here we ask them, ―How did we manage to come

up with such assumptions about the people in the pictures? How do we form stereotypes

and cast our assumptions on strangers? How does this impact on the way we

mis/understand and interact with each other?‖

. Stereotypes

Here we discuss stereotypes-— caricatures of sorts, which often cast negative aspects of

humanity on the person or the cultural community being stereotyped. We obtain

stereotypical information from sources such as the media, institutions, our elders and peers

passing their prejudices on to us, etc. Stereotypes are second-hand information received,

not from the person or the community with whom we are interacting, but from sources

which purport to ‗tell us how these people are.‘ When we unconsciously respond to

stereotypical information activated within us by our interlocutor‘s presence, we often

awaken negative expectations and judgments about the person and the outcome of our

interaction with him/her, thereby increasing the probability for misjudgment and

misunderstanding among interlocutors. Since stereotypes cast, at best, inaccurate

information on the interlocutor, and often, negative notions of who the person is, they get in

the way of us knowing each other. Anger felt toward others awakens negative stereotypical

7 Pictures are used with prior permission.




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assumptions we hold inside ourselves and cast on others, seriously hindering genuine and

accurate interactions with each other.

Next we discuss interconnected memory stores with the group. The illustration below

provides a simplification of information stored in hypothetical Actor A‘s long-term

memory concerning ‗men.‘8 Examination of the information stored in each of the

categories (ethnicity, modes of dress, religion, employment, etc.) reflects a plurality

common to the country where Star Heights is located.

Figure 2: Hypothetical memory store

Examination of the hypothetical memory store reveals information about human males

which Actor A has acquired over his lifetime. His semantic stores concerning ‗man‘ hold a

great deal of variation, such as in the types of clothing men may wear, their ethnicities,

places of employment and worship, etc. Along with information acquired through first-

hand experience, humans hold all manner of narratives stored in our memories concerning

ourselves and others-- both pleasant and unpleasant. Many of the narratives and images

have been acquired through second-hand sources, such as media depictions, our ingroup‘s

general conceptions of the ‗others,‘ etc. It is important to be aware that when negative

8 The illustration is not meant to imply a particular grouping or localization of memory stores in the brain;

instead, it aims to illustrate interconnections and the multiple possibilities and variations concerning ‘men’ which are stored in long-term memory.




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psychoaffect has been activated concerning the ‘other,’ we tend to attribute the bad

behavior to faulty cultural norms. Yet when a member of our ingroup behaves negatively,

we generally attribute the behavior to a flaw in the individual or, even more generously, we

say that the bad behavior was situational, and thus the individual him or herself is not

responsible for it. This ingroup-outgroup bias leads humans to judge an outgroup‘s

behaviors much more harshly than our own—thereby magnifying negative judgments of

the ‗others.‘ This tendency exacerbates bad feelings and, often, violent conflict among

mutually stereotyped ‗others.‘ The next section looks more deeply into memory stores

through the lenses of the prototype theory.

Prototypes and markedness. Imagine you have a circle with a smaller circle inside it.

Prototype Theory says that we have at the center of our prototype, for example—of

‗man‘—a composite of the many men similar to those to whom we‘ve been exposed

frequently since we were born. Our prototype of ‗man,‘ then, has great flexibility, in terms

of what men may look like, what they wear, how they may behave, etc. Men resembling

our prototypical norm of ‗man,‘ are placed at the center of our prototype. They are

‗unmarked,‘ meaning that they are quite similar to the men who we commonly encounter in

our external environment. The outer circle of our prototype, also accepts ‗men‘ as human

males. But the men who fit toward the outer limits of our prototypes are ‗marked,‘ to the

perceiver—meaning that they are different from the person‘s composite prototypical norm.

For example, a Malay Muslim man wearing a baju melayu in Kuala Lumpur fits well into

the unmarked prototypical norm of most Malay Muslims. His physical appearance will not

likely cause undue attention, since he is part of the prototypical norm for ‗man‘ in that

particular locality. This very same man walking in Mérida, Yucatán in México, however,

while still being understood by the locals as a man, would fit into the outer parameters of

the prototype of ‗man‘ for that particular locality. The differences between him and the

local prototype would likely catch the attention of the locals, which is a function of his

‗markedness‘ vis-á-vis the local prototype.

Since we tend to have had less first-hand experience with people who are ‗marked,‘ and fit

within the outer parameters of our prototype, we often fill the gaps in world knowledge

concerning ‗someone like him‘ with second hand information—from sources such as the

media, stories elders have told us about ‗people like him,‘ etc. This gives rise to

stereotypical judgments, assumptions and expectations concerning the individual in front of

us—who we do not know. Naturally, this can cause deep offense and misunderstanding as

we cast our stereotypical judgments on the person, failing to see and come to know who is

actually in front of us. Part of our work is to provide spaces for people to explore and

become aware of our prototypes and the stereotypes we hold about ‗others,‘ and how these

stereotypes affect our judgments, expectations and, ultimately, our actions toward




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individuals and communities.9 The aim of exercises provided here is to help participants go

beyond stereotypes and come to truly ‗see the other,‘ allowing him/her to tell us who s/he

is. In this way, we are able to know people as they are, allowing genuine relationships to

develop between interlocutors.

Figure 3: The scale of markedness: The plus sign toward the outside of the prototype indicates a

‗markedness‘ or a difference between the individual and the perceiver‘s normative prototype of ‗man.‘ The

minus sign in the center shows how men fitting into the composite prototypical center are ‗unmarked‘ or

normative to the observer. Usually those at the center would be men who are members of the perceivers‘

ingroup. The more ‗marked‘ men are often perceived to be part of an outgroup, or an ‗other;‘ thus, their

presence may awaken stereotypical mis/interpretations concerning the individual.

At this point, we ask participants to draw the Scale of Markedness above on a piece of

paper; then we show pictures of various people, i.e. men, and ask them where each person

fits with the scale of markedness for them. This helps people be consciously aware of what

we tend to do in the presence a person ‗marked‘ to the perceiver. We then ask them to

reflect on the thoughts, assumptions and feelings awakened within them when presented

with each of the images. Here we discuss how our cognition and psychoaffect—thoughts

and emotions—interact with each other inside us, often unconsciously, and how the

interplay of thoughts and feelings manifests itself from our micro-person to the macro-

environment, through actions, word and attitudes toward the people with whom we interact.

Gaining awareness of our cognition and psychoaffect in relation to ‘others’ gives us the

power to consciously choose what we think, how we feel and, therefore, how we act toward

and interact with others. As a homework exercise, we ask people to observe their thoughts

9 Although our prototypes are highly flexible, there are boundaries beyond which we can no longer accept ‗x‘

within the prototype—such as a ‗bearded woman,‘ who we might place in our prototype of woman, of man.

We probably wouldn‘t be sure where to place her, awakening within us a degree of uncertainty about how we

should interact with this person who doesn‘t fit easily within our internal structuring mechanisms.




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and feelings, write them in a journal, and reflect on how their cognition and psychoaffect

impact on what they think, how they feel and, therefore, how they interact with those

around them. They then create a plan to consciously modify their inner processes in order

to achieve the outcomes they desire in their interactions with others. Reflections emerging

through the homework are discussed with the group at the following session. Here again,

people see that they share with others the desire to improve their interactions with fellow

human beings. At this point barriers have usually broken down and participants learn a

great deal from each other as they brainstorm and share toward the common goal of

learning how to interact more peacefully.

Schema and Scripts as normative expectations. Like with prototypes, schema activated in

our long-term memory create normative expectations concerning places, or the contexts in

which our interaction with the ‗other‘ occurs. Take, for example, our notion of a doctor‘s

office. In different countries where CDBH staff have worked, people hold in common a

general agreement about the context and the ‗ingredients‘ to be found in a doctor‘s office.

We have, for example, a nurse, a receptionist, stethoscopes, white hospital scrubs,

thermometers, etc. We also have a waiting area, where people may be sitting; they may be

reading a magazine or chatting while waiting for their turn to see the doctor. Concerning

the aforementioned aspects of a doctor’s office, people around the world seem to share

common contextual schema, although they have never been in the same doctor’s office as

others from different places. However, if we were to see, for example, a cow, sitting in the

waiting area, calmly leafing through a magazine, this abrupt break with the normative

expectation for doctor‘s offices would immediately catch our attention, as it jumps the outer

boundaries of our schema for doctors‘ offices. In our memory stores, we hold schema, or

contextual information concerning all manner of things. Upon seeing the cow, our schema

for ‗veterinary clinic,‘ or for ‗farm‘ might be awakened—moving away from the doctor‘s

office schema into some context where the cow ‗fits‘ more comfortably within our memory

stores. How does this relate to people and conflicts? Just as we wouldn‘t expect to see a

person wearing a bikini in a mosque, we have schematic expectations about the places

where our interactions with others take place. When schema violations occur--such as

seeing someone in a scared place dressed and/or behaving ‗inappropriately,‘ people

experience an alarm response, which calls conscious attention to the violation. This gives

rise to feelings of anger, shock, indignation, etc. Once the negative psychoaffect has

awakened, we begin to view the ‗other‘ through negative internal lenses, In unearthing

the roots causes of conflict, we nearly always find that schema violations have occurred

between the parts in conflict, causing great indignation and fanning the flames of

misunderstanding.

If the schema concerns the context and sets up normative expectations, scripts are those

actions and behaviors expected to occur and deemed appropriate for a particular schematic




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context. For example, in our doctor‘s office schema, we would find it appropriate for the

nurse to take someone‘s temperature—not calling undue attention to the action. However,

if that same nurse stood on the receptionist‘s desk and started dancing, this action would be

a violation of our script for appropriate behaviors within the schema for doctor‘s offices.

We would notice the behavior which is beyond the normative expectation for that particular

context; we would probably experience an alarm response and likely, we would feel shock,

confusion, and possibly indignation at the violation of our implicit expectations. Once

again, in pre-intervention analyses, we nearly always unearth script violations perceived by

the conflicting sides toward each other. Just as with schema, scripts violations awaken the

alarm response, calling attention to the ‗inappropriate‘ action, giving rise to great

consternation, anger and possibly violence toward the perceived violator of the schema.

Taboos constitute a category of behaviors which are considered out of bounds, not to be

done, nor discussed. Violation of taboo provokes extreme negative affective reactions

toward actors believed to have caused the violation, leading to deep anger and—many

times— to violence directed at the person or community perceived to have violated the

taboo. In trigger events which have unleashed tit-for-tat violent conflict, taboos may have

been inadvertently violated by one or both sides toward the other—giving rise to great rage

and insult. As the conflict deepens, taboo violations are often done very intentionally in

order to insult and provoke the ‗enemy.‘ We‘ve seen such things as pig carcasses placed in

or near mosques, severed cows heads placed at Hindu temples, etc. Often, when working

with the segments of a community who want peace, others may reject our efforts at

reconciliation. Those who refuse our interventions may be the people carrying out the

intentional violations of taboo, hoping to keep the flames of hatred alive. We work with the

people committed to peace-- those who come willingly to us. It is humbling to see such

things as Muslim NGOs patrolling Hindu temples to keep the Hindus safe from attack as

they worship. People of the diverse communities may write in newspapers repudiating the

use of insult and injury toward members of ‗the other‘ community. Although the media

says otherwise, it appears that most ordinary people want peace, and many will take a stand

in favor of the ‗other,‘ challenging the extremist behaviors of fringe members of their own

community, in order to give peace a chance to emerge from the violence.

Values are one of the foundational structures around which human societies are built. The

existence of values within social groupings takes as its point of departure a dichotomized

notion of ‗good‘ and ‗bad,‘ serving as an evaluative filter which functions largely below the

level of consciousness. When people‘s values—held within themselves—are violated by

an ‗other‘s‘ actions, words, etc., alarm response, anger and—at times—violence are

awakened toward the violator of the values. Groups in ongoing conflict tend to perceive

their values as being constantly violated by ‗those bad people;‘ this sets in motion a shared

sense of affront to ‗what is right and good,‘ facilitating the casting of human virtue on one‘s

own community, and of ‗evil‘ on the other community. The perception of a collective ‗evil

other‘ allows communities to un/consciously justify all sorts of violent and heinous actions

toward the other, which is often cast in terms of ‗good‘ (the ingroup) struggling to




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overcome evil—personified in the outgroup. In reality, all human communities hold the

potential for great good and for engaging in harmful actions as well. This needs to be

brought to participants‘ conscious attention.

Figure 4: The internalized values continuum

10

Here we offer an exercise designed to help people see how values are held in common

between the communities in conflict, and how they may diverge as well. Participants are

asked to draw the values continuum above on a piece of paper. We then narrate several

situations and ask them to place each one where they feel it belongs-- somewhere between

the poles of ‗good‘ and ‗bad‘ on the values continuum. Initial scenarios include topics

about which people‘s opinions may vary widely. Participants are paired with members of

their own community to compare how they evaluated the scenarios given, explaining why

they placed each scenario where they did on the values continuum. They see and discuss

points of convergence and divergence between how they and their fellow in-group member

evaluated the events. In a second round, we use scenarios where people‘s evaluations tend

toward convergence, i.e. ‗earning an honest living‘, ‗raising children you can be proud of‘,

‗killing another human being,‘ ‗destroying the place where you live,‘ etc. This time,

participants are paired with someone from the other community to compare their placement

of narrated events on the values continuum, explaining why they placed each scenario

where they did. Participants are often pleased to discover the convergence they hold with

the ‗other‘. When people‘s evaluation of a scenario differs greatly, we ask them to hear

each other‘s explanation, and remind them to simply ‗agree to disagree.‘

Trust and good faith. When working with people committed to moving their community

out of violence into peaceful coexistence, the I-SA considers Trust and Good Faith an

essential ingredient for rebuilding shattered relationships among community members.

Trust in the other and the belief that both are acting out of good faith go a long way in

helping all sides tolerate differences among them which may challenge their particular

sociocultural norms. It is in trust that people go forward and ‗re-see,‘ hopefully ‗re-

embracing,‘ someone or some community with which previous involvement has brought

great pain and anger. Rebuilding trust is not always easy when lives have been lost and

communities have been shattered. However, we work slowly and gently to rebuild trust

and good faith through any number of exercises. One such activity involves putting people

in pairs, with the person behind facing the back of the one in front. If necessary, people are

initially paired with members of their own community. The person in front is asked to let

10

George Kelly‘s Personal Construct Psychology can be seen as a precursor to Constructivism, in that it

posits that we humans construct our own realities. Like the I-SA‘s notion of the values continuum, Kelly

viewed constructs as bipolar categories which people use to interpret and construct meaning in the world

around them. How we see and value the world has a strong bearing on how we interact with the people

around us.




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his/her body fall backwards, trusting that the person behind with catch him/her-- stopping

the fall. People change partners, repeating the exercise until it is easier to relax and simply

trust that the other person will catch you. When relaxation sets in, as we can detect when

people begin to laugh and joke, we make sure that participants pair up with members of the

‗other‘ community. They soon discover that they can count on the ‗other‘ to break their

fall-- trusting them-- just as they had earlier trusted their own community members.

By now, the prevailing spirit is usually peaceful and lighthearted-- full of creative energy

and newfound friendships. This is often the point where we introduce the ‗levels of being.‘

concept, for which we ask participants to imagine a circle with another circle drawn inside

it and, inside that middle circle, there is a still smaller circle drawn at the center, as

illustrated below:

Figure 5: Levels of Being Diagram

The first level—represented by the outer circle-- is the Outward Physical Self. It is the part

of the person with which we first come into contact upon meeting in the critical juncture of

dialogue. It has to do with his/her physical characteristics, mode of dress, the accent we

hear when the person speaks, etc. This is the level of ourselves which other people see and

to which they initially respond upon coming into contact with us. Input—usually visual

and auditory, activates mis/information stored in long term memory, creating expectations

and setting a tone for how we will interpret and interact with the person in front of us. It is

here where we make instantaneous judgments, often even before interaction has begun.

The more marked the person is for us, the more second-hand stereotyped mis/information




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and mis/expectations about the ‗other‘ will tend to awaken, often leading us to interact in

response—not to the person, but to the mis/information awakened within us by the person‘s

outward physical self.

The middle circle represents the Cognitive and the Psychoaffective Self, meaning our mind

and our emotions. It is the locus of our thought processes, our interpretations, and the

feelings arising from them concerning our interlocutor. I-SA Microtheory focuses precisely

on this level of the human person, exploring how cognition and psychoaffect come into

play in conflict situations, and how these levels of the self can be consciously transformed

in favor of peaceful and collaborative interactions among the groups formerly in violent

conflict with one another.

The third level of being-- represented by the inner circle of our diagram-- is called the Life

Essence. Beyond our mind and our emotions, all humans and other sentient beings are

embued with life—referred to here as the Life Essence.

We invite people to an awareness of their own life essence with an exercise that goes

something like this: ―Please place your finger beneath your nose. Do you feel your breath

going in and out? What is its source?‖ People will say that the breath comes from the

lungs, which are controlled by the central system, which is controlled by the brain, etc.

When the group arrives at the end of their physiological explanations, the staff then asks

how this breathing—a symbol of the life within us—was called into action upon our birth.

How did you come to be? How did life come to be embodied and sustained in you? It does

not matter if a person answers ―Allah,‖ ―Cosmos,‖ ―Brahman,‖ ―Energy,‖ ―God,‖ or

whatever. It matters not if participants are people of religion or non-believers.11

Regardless of differences in ideology, worldview and belief systems, all living humans

have this life essence, which sustains them over the course of their lifetimes. When a

person discovers his/her own life essence, s/he is able to see the very same essence residing

11 The work of Gregory and Mary Bateson reveals many areas of convergence with the

Ideological–Structural Analysis. For example, the Bateson‘s view the individual, larger

society and the ecosystem as part of one supreme system. They refer to this system,

beyond the self and human society, as ‗mind‘—which others might call God. A related I-

SA construct is ‗Life Essence‘— common to all living beings, human and non-human.

Please note that the I-SA does not automatically equate Life Essence with God; instead, it

simply refers to an energy or life force which sustains us all over the course of our

lifetimes. While some people may refer to it as God, Allah, Brahman, or whatever

transcending power, others may simply view it as energy, cosmos, etc. How an individual

or a society chooses to construe the Life Essence is not of concern for the I-SA. What does

concern us is that people in conflict be able to transcend their differences, pains and

historical injuries, coming together at the very deepest level of our life source. Once people

have recognized shared life as the primary commonality, they begin to build ‗from the

inside outward,‘ sorting out old injuries and conflicts between them, and coming back to

the external social world with a new understanding of ourselves among others as members

of one human community.




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at the deepest level of all people, both of one‘s own community and of the ‗others.‘ The

moment when participants discover their life essence and that of all others, is often deeply

transformative.

A further exercise is offered where we each acknowledge the life essence within each other.

This means that I—who have discovered my own essence—will receive a greeting from

others which salutes and honors the life within me.12

People are stunned and humbled at

the discovery of a life essence within themselves. Participants are then asked to observe

and to salute that same essence within other participants. This is often the beginning of

people‘s discovery of themselves as sacred beings. From here, participants begin to see

that those around them are imbued with this life essence as well, whether they are members

of our community, or of those perceived until now as ‗others.‘ From here on, the starting

point for convergence toward a non-violent future lies at the very center of each

participant‘s being. It becomes difficult to continue hating, maiming and killing people

with whom we have made such a profound ‗discovery‘ together. Convergences built in the

macro-theory exercises so people could tolerate being in a room together now seem so

obvious to participants. Collaborating toward a shared future now seems the most logical

thing in the world. This doesn‘t mean that historical injuries and pain are gone. Instead, it

means that people have come to convergence at the very deepest level, and we can now

gently address historical injury, coming to forgive ourselves and others. This is also the

foundation for understanding ‗the anatomy‘ of our violent patterns of behavior, so we can

consciously choose to replace them with life-giving perceptions, thoughts, emotions and

ways of interacting with the world.

A new beginning is born. We began in the Macro-theory section by weaving points of

convergence from the outside—based on shared goals and values. Now we will address

shattered lives and violent habits, building from the inside back toward the external socio-

cultural milieu. It is from here onward that groups sit together in the critical juncture and

respectfully sort through the traumas, the painful memories, and the historical injury which

has arisen between the communities over the course of the conflict. This work requires

great gentleness and wisdom; people‘s inner selves are in a process of transformation.

Participants want to be friends with others who have shared in this process; however, pain

is inevitable, and interlocutors are reminded to make careful use of the sociolinguistic skills

taught at the beginning of the workshop. We begin by using Leonard Swidler‘s ‗Seven

Stages of Dialogue,‘13

which leads participants to genuinely see and hear the other-- as

Swidler says, ‗to cross over and view the world through the eyes of our interlocutor.‘

People listen to each other‘s interpretations of events, their pain, their fears, and their hope

for the future. All sides take care not to cast accusations on each other, but to listen and to

12

Here an inner circle of participants faces outward. The outer circle faces inward with each participant standing in front of someone in the inner circle. With hands palm-to-palm over our chests, the Hindu ‘namaste’ greeting (I honor the life I see within you) is given by the person in the outer circle to the one in the inner circle, who simply receives this honoring of his/her life essence or sacred self. The outer circle moves around, greeting inner circle members until returning to their original partner. Places are switched; the process is repeated until all participants have both given and received the respectful acknowledgement of their life source, common to all present. 13

Please visit http://institute.jesdialogue.org/resources/tools/sevenstages/




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feel what the ‗other‘ is living through his or her words. After examining the memories,

people mourn, each as they prefer to do so. Some will cry with their former enemies;

others will write; still others sit stoically, not able or not willing to fully open up. We don‘t

push anyone to anything, nor to any particular way of dealing with painful memories. We

let things flow as they will within the limits of peacefulness and respect. Here we try not to

adhere to a time table; psychoaffect will eventually ebb. When it does, we take a break of

one sort or another. Mathes-Cane (2002) suggests having the group walk a labyrinth

together in silence. The exercise is designed to re-establish balance within and among

community members. When creating a labyrinth is not possible, we simply provide

refreshments for participants to enjoy with quiet music playing in the background.

After 20 minutes to half an hour, we move into a session on forgiveness, sometimes using a

program developed by Borris-Dunchunstang (2006), which begins with people‘s self-

reflection, and does not require victims and perpetrators to confront each other. Borris-

Dunchunstang teaches that forgiveness is an inner process which liberates us from pain,

anger, and the reproach which we have held, often against ourselves as well as others. The

‗healing‘ part of the workshop ends with a memorializing of the losses and the painful

memories we‘ve just explored. This may be done through art, through writing, dance,

psychodrama, or whatever the group prefers. Some groups want to symbolically ‗let go‘ of

the past, possibly by writing down old memories and burning them, setting them afloat on

tiny boats—in imitation of the Chinese Lantern Festival, or any sort of ritualizing which is

meaningful to the participants.

From here, we take the group back to the macro-environment—from the skin outward, as

the I-SA views it. Participants revise the goals and values created at the beginning of the

workshop. The tone at this point is light, and collaboration seems like the most logical

thing in the world. The next step is to create a plan for carrying out the proposal, creating a

loose timetable for implementation and deciding who is to carry out what parts of the plan.

We then discuss the tendency toward relapse, where conflict and possibly violence may re-

emerge. The group is asked to create a plan for dealing with relapse in the event that the

conflict were to re-emerge. Our own staff will go home and write policy recommendations

to be given to local authorities.14

The goals of this work is to suggest structural changes

14

Volkan (1999) ‗Tree Model‘ yields several similarities with the processes followed in CDBH workshops.

The ‗roots‘ of Volkan‘s ‗tree‘ parallel the Situational Analysis phase of CDBH interventions. The ‗trunk‘

refers to the actual process of dialogue. Volkan‘s work reminds us to help the groups preserve their unique

sense of identity as they move closer to their former ‗enemy,‘ since group identity has been closely tied to a

juxtaposition of ingroup as good and outgroup as unvirtuous, casting unwanted human traits on the perceived

collective evil other. The drawing near to the former enemy can threaten the myth of virtuous ingroup

identity construction. Volkan‘s reminder of this delicate issue will serve us well, as we often observe the

‗approach-avoidance‘ process, which Volkan calls the ‗accordion effect,‘ where groups draw near, then

withdraw, then draw near, etc. in the process of reframing their relationship with the ‗other.‘ The ‗branches‘

of Volkan‘s tree are the NGOs and civil society groupings which he hopes will emerge from the dialogue

process, aiding in the implementation of plans for peaceful co-existence of the groups formerly in conflict.

To date, CDBH work has not focused on creating new NGOs; instead, it concludes by helping participants

create an implementation plan, delineate how to operationalize it, and how to handle relapse if and when it

occurs. If new civil society groupings arise in the planning and implementation stages, that‘s fine. However,




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aimed at enhancing the probability for lasting peace in the locality. We make ourselves

reachable by phone, e-mail, Skype. CDBH/CDT staff may be called back to do a follow-up

session, or maybe not. The goal is not to be needed, but to be available in the event that we

are.

In the post-intervention period, tit-for-tat violence in Star Heights has stopped; yet the

community is not without tensions. A perfectly safe neighborhood has not been achieved,

and anger about the incident still flairs on occasion. However, many community members

are committed to peace, and they use their self-care and relapse-prevention strategies when

needed. Follow up contact with groups formerly in conflict reveals that relapse and

slippage do occur on occasion. What seems to save communities from reverting back to

entrenched conflict is 1) the commitment to peace they have made and, 2) the relapse

prevention training received.

There is, however, a worrying statistic which has moved us to delve into available

literatures, seeking greater effectiveness in dealing with violence as a way of life.

Aggregate data for communities like Star Heights reveals that habitual violence and crime

don‘t tend to fall significantly in terms of muggings, assaults, sexual crimes, etc. We have

chosen to look at Cognitive Restructuring (CRT) literature, sensing that the theory and its

applications—such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), can help lessen levels of

aggregate violence in localities where CDBH/CDT staff may work in the future.

Review of the Relevant Literature:

Cognitive Science, Cognitive Restructuring and Related Theories

The present section reviews primary literature on Cognitive Science, Cognitive

Restructuring and related areas in search of insights aimed at de-normativizing violence in

former conflict zones. The review is guided by a set of questions with which we attempt to

‗mine‘ the literature for new knowledge in order to improve our work. First, what does the

literature tell us about the nature of the brain? …of memory stores? What can we learn

about the brain, memory, interpretation and affective responses to input entering from a

violent external milieu? How can the mind/brain change itself, or be restructured, in order

to offer alternatives to ‗hard wired,‘ habitual violent responses to specific inputs? How do

Cognitive Restructuring Theory and Cognitive Behavioral Therapies suggest we work with

people wishing to break out of cycles of normativized violence? How can the theories be

applied to modify memory, cognition, perception, psycho-affective responses and,

therefore, behaviors? How can they be applied in healing historical memories and trauma

related to the conflict at hand? What techniques, if any, can be derived from Cognitive

we don‘t push groups to do so, preferring instead to allow the direction and the shape of implementation to

emerge as the participants prefer. A further difference is that CDBH seeks to offer policy recommendations

aimed at enhancing existing institutions‘ role in, and capacity to ensure that peaceful and collaborative

relations will remain on into the future.




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Behavioral Therapy for conflict resolution and reconciliation training? How can facilitators

help people reconceptualize individuals and groups with whom they have had violent and

conflictual relations?

In his book Brain and Culture: Neurobiology, Ideology, and Social Change, Wexler (2008)

speaks of a ‗neurobiology of ideology,‘ saying that input from our sociocultural

environment helps shape our brain, values, interpretations, etc. In turn, we as cultural

communities shape the environment, which helps shape who we are and so on in a

dialectical fashion. From birth through early adulthood, the human brain develops

physically due to sensory stimulation, or input which will shape connections among

neurons and create the neural networks utilized in thinking, interpreting, (feeling) and

behavioral outputs. The cultural environment in which the person is immersed during

his/her early years has a primary impact on shaping the brain. Normative life experiences

for one community may make it difficult to deal with unfamiliar situations arising from

interactions with other groups or individuals where norms and cultural practices are

different from one‘s internalized normativity. Discrepancies between the already

developed/formatted brain and the external environment cause difficulties in adjustment, at

times leading to violence among cultural communities as people struggle against the

mismatch between the reality of the external milieu and expectations arising from what has

been internalized and imprinted in memory stores. As adults, people try to make the

environment conform to the structures formatted in our mind/brain, instead of adapting to

the environment, as we see more readily in childhood. Due partly to established norms

stored in the mature brain, adults have a harder time maintaining a fit between their internal

structuring mechanisms and the external environment. This has profound implications in

terms of interethnic violence, since adults‘ ‗truth constructions‘ may make it difficult to

adapt to the disjunction between one community‘s way of doing things and that of their

own community, which has been internalized as the norm or the way things ‗should be

done.‘ In intercommunal conflict, either or both sides are, to some extent, trying to make

the external reality fit their internalized norms, reality constructions, values interpretations,

etc.

Fred Gage (1998) posits that the human brain can produce new neurons and others cells

throughout our lifetimes in a process called neurogenesis. His work suggests that violent

behaviors might be changed through cognitive restructuring, creating new imprints,

modifying memory stores, and shifting expectations, all of which leave their mark on the

brain‘s storage mechanisms. According to Gage, the brain is the organ of the body that

controls human behavior. What humans think and do in response to input from the external

environment results from how the brain processes incoming information, and directs

responses through behavioral outputs or concrete action. Individual brain cells

communicate among themselves through electro-chemical processes. Neurons in the brain

calculate and interpret incoming information, sending the interpreted message on to other

neurons in a circuit. The sum of information passing through neural networks results in

how we think, feel and behave. Activities and learning designed to change or restructure

our brain should theoretically change our behaviors. Gage‘s writings provide hope that

habitual violent behaviors can be changed, given the proper ‗treatment‘—in this case,




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exercises and activities designed to offer alternative interpretations, affective responses and

behavioral options to stimuli which had previously provoked habitual violent responses.

In the 2003 article, ―Brain repair yourself,‖ Gage suggests that exercise, a healthy diet, and

adequate sleep—in addition to reducing stress, can assist in new cell growth in the

hippocampus—which is important for memory. These are simple, inexpensive lifestyle

changes which we can suggest to workshop participants as they go forward in their

commitment to non-violent living.

In the article titled ―Transforming the Emotional Mind: Perspectives from Affective

Neuroscience,‖ Davidson (2004) offers hope that psychoaffective transformations can help

actors move away from patterns of habitual violence. He explores the possibility of

facilitating emotional transformation in light of brain neuroplasticity, positing that positive

affective style and habitual responses to input from the environment are trainable skills. In

cases where violent responses have become normativized, Davidson‘s work indicates that

people can learn emotional regulation through training. He further shows that Emotional

Regulation Training produces demonstrable effects on the brain resulting from what he

calls ‗affective plasticity.‘ Studies conducted with conflict mediators show that individuals

trained in emotional regulation can voluntarily alter brain functions using mental practices.

CDBH and CDT Staff wish to provide emotional regulation training for ourselves as

mediators, and for actors directly involved in the conflict, so that they may consciously

regulate their affect, interpretations, and behavioral responses to situations that present

themselves. Davidson suggests that mental training—which changes the brain through

cognitive restructuring-- produces positive behavioral outputs, making it more effective

than classical behavior modification training for working with conflict, since behavioral

approaches essentially ‗treat the symptoms‘ instead of getting to the root causes of violent

and conflictual behaviors.

In their work titled "Neuroplasticity as a Paradigm for Peace," Carney and Holsopple

(2002) begin with a quote from Isaac Asimov, saying that people who work with conflict

and violence would do well to “understand the various aspects of the brain and to learn how

to encourage those that are constructive and to correct those that are destructive‖ (Asimov,

1986 in Carney & Holsopple, 2002, p. 1). The authors‘ summary of brain organization and

cognition reveals a very similar analysis to that offered by Ideological-Structural Analysis

Micro-theory discussed above.

Carney and Holsopple write about neurons as the basic electrical units of the brain. As

memory stores are formatted, neurons send out axons to related structures and other

neurons in the brain. A neuron receives impulses from other neurons, sent across a

complex wiring system of filaments called dendrites, which are connected with each other

across structures called synapses. Each brain has around ten billion neurons, linked by

thousands and thousands of interconnections. As information enters the brain from the

outside world through sensory input, existing connections are accessed and activated,

leading to particular ways of interpreting, feeling about and, eventually, responding to the

input. As humans learn-- through direct experience or otherwise, new connections are

established among the brain‘s neurons. Research has shown that the brain is capable of




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learning, or reshaping itself throughout a person‘s lifetime due to the phenomenon of

neuroplasticity. In conflict transformation, cognitive restructuring can help us move out of

patterns of violence, through a ‗re-wiring‘ of the brain which offers new perceptual-

interpretive options, new affective responses and, thus, new non-violent behavioral

responses to situations that had once systematically contributed to existing cycles of

violence.15

Through specifically-designed activities, trainings, etc. the anatomy and the function of the

brain can be altered, developing new dendrites and new inter-connections. Resulting

neurophysiological changes required for desired behavioral adaptations include the

strengthening of existing synapses, the formation of new synapses, as well as the

recruitment of different parts of the cortex in the process of neurophysiological and

cognitive restructuring. Researchers are currently working to combine the findings

of Behavioral Science with Neuroscience in order to improve cognitive, affective,

interpretive and behavioral capabilities within individuals. With this in mind, future

CDBH and CDT work with communities in conflict has great potential to reduce or

eliminate violent behavioral responses to inputs which previously ignited and re-ignited

cycles of tit-for-tat violence among the groups in conflict.

Carney and Holsopple also discuss the impact and fear or anxiety on human memory and

on behaviors. This is important, since fear and other negative psychoaffect are constantly

present in situations of ongoing violence. Fear hinders long-term memory by releasing

neurotransmitters which impede the potential of long-term memory, thus affecting learned

behaviors. An insight to be gathered here concerns the importance of creating as safe an

environment as possible when working with communities immersed in violence.16

The

more we can help reduce levels of fear and anxiety in workshop participants, the more they

should be able to retain and to output behaviorally from the new ways of perceiving,

interpreting, feeling and responding offered through training and activities offered.

Carney and Holsopple examine the effects of exposure to violence on psychoaffective

development in both children and adults. In situations where violence is the norm, ongoing

exposure allows for the implicit acceptance of violence as a means of problem solving and

15 Moser, Cahill & Foa‘s 2010 study compared the effectiveness of exposure only treatments for trauma

patients to exposure/CBT-combined treatments to test for the effectiveness of both approaches. Surprisingly,

results showed that exposure-only patients fared better in post-treatment tests than did those who had received

both exposure and CBT patients. These findings challenge the notion that CBT should be part of the ‗front

line‘ approaches for dealing with trauma. Further studies should be conducted to see whether or not these

findings are replicable and, if so, under what conditions. 16 Dan Hoffman tests the effectiveness of Exposure Therapy using virtual technologies for treating anxiety

disorders. Ralph Lamson‘s work with Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy reveals about a 90% level of

effectiveness! The high success rate of virtual therapy may be due to its ability to give fear-causing exposures

from what the patient knows is the safety of a cyber-reality. One of the first things we must do when working

with trauma and violence is to provide a safe space for patients and participants, and virtual therapies can do

this in a way we are unable to completely guarantee in CDBH interventions.




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of reaching one‘s goals. In these contexts, violence becomes increasingly accepted as a

means for gaining power, wealth, status, and so on. The authors offer concrete suggestions

for reducing the damaging effects of violence on communities and the norms it creates.

They suggest that efforts be made to avoid ‗glamorizing‘ violence, the carrying of weapons,

etc. Furthermore unnecessary portrayals of interpersonal violence, misogyny, racism and

hatefulness should be eliminated, unless they are to be used in dramatizations explicitly

designed to convey how destructive such behaviors can be. If dramas of this sort are used,

they should show the loss and the pain suffered by the victims and by the perpetrators

themselves. A distinction is made between what the authors call ‗passive peace‘—where

individuals are removed from the violent environment, and ‗active peace, in which

communities create a harmonious environment where individuals‘ resources and talents are

utilized for the greater good of the community. The authors suggest that we create

exercises and training which stimulate the brain’s capacity to develop patterns of cortical

activity which do not use violence or anger as normal daily responses to conflict situations.

This is crucial in the process of denormativizing violence in former conflict zones.

Here we are reminded by the principle of neuroplasticity that external inputs specifically

designed to address the situation at hand can change the cortical organization of the brain

and, by doing so, change its neural functioning in such ways as to normativize patterns of

peaceful responses to situations that once brought ongoing violent responses among diverse

members of the community. While normativized violence in the external milieu makes

people ever more ready to use violence as means of resolving conflicts, developing neural

pathways within the brain dedicated to consciously choosing peace and peaceful actions

allows communities to overcome the violence in which they have been immersed.

In the piece titled ―Social Cognitive Mechanisms in Reconciliation,‖ Ifat Maoz (2004)

states that ―people in conflict hold preconceptions, schemas, assumptions, and categories

that affect how they process and understand information related to conflict and its

management‖ (Maoz in Bar-Siman-Tov, 2004: 227). It is precisely these preconceptions,

schema, assumptions and stereotypical categories held among actors in conflict which

Microtheory workshops bring to the level of consciousness, so participants are 1) able to

see the internal processes leading to their own interpretations, feelings and behaviors and,

2) have the conscious option of modifying these internal processes and the resulting

behaviors in ways that enhance peace, instead of remaining locked into violent relations

among individuals and communities.

Like the I-SA Microtheory, Maoz‘ seeks to identify major ‗biases and construals of

information‘ that can become barriers to understanding and reconciliation. The author

suggests that ―cognitive debiasing techniques‖ be offered in training sessions in order to

overcome such barriers and achieve reconciliation. Some of the biases underlying conflict

include the ingroup favorability bias, where people regard the ingroup, or ‗their own side,‘

in a conflict as the most favorable. The incompatibility bias is the perception of the conflict

in terms of win-lose, where the interests, motivations or claims of the conflicting parties are

viewed as mutually exclusive or completely contrary. When actors are locked into a

‗winner takes all‘ mentality, where one side must win everything while the other side loses

all, conflict transformation becomes highly problematic. As such, it is important to help




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shift perceptions so that win-win situations can be conceptualized, negotiated, and

eventually accepted by both sides.

Maoz suggestions a ‗frame of reconciliation‘ where the win-lose frame is replaced with a

win-win mentality. This cognitive technique represents an altering of the way people see

and interpret the conflict. Second, like the I-SA, he offers a segment for the mutual

disclosure of the views of both sides. This helps participants approach the ‗other‘s‘ point of

view, in an effort to relate to their motives. The exploration and articulation the other

side‘s point of view helps break down what is known as the false polarization bias, as both

parties begin to see that there is, in fact, a lot of common ground between them. The shared

interests and concerns which each side discovers can form the foundation from which to

build toward shared objectives and goals, which actors will articulate as they go forward in

transforming their situation from one of conflict to one of collaboration.

In the book Culture and Conflict Resolution, Avruch (1998) presents culture as a

determining factor in conflict and its resolution due to the effects of internalized cultural

norms on people‘s perceptions, and the effects this has on relations between communities

and nations. He further emphasizes the importance of understanding the role of resource

scarcity, power, material interests, etc. which are often found underlying situations of

conflict and violence. The author then addresses a focal area of I-SA Micro-theory,

concerning cognition, perceptions and beliefs held by communities in conflict. Avruch

argues that conflict has a lot to do with the social construction of ideas, and how different

communities may see and value the same concepts quite differently. His work offers an

implicit critique of the Realist-based interstate conflict literature with its focus on material

issues. He then reminds us that ―Robert Jervis proposed two decades ago that international

politics was often driven by actor-centered cognitive processes involving systematic mutual

misperceptions of, among other things, other actors‘ motives, intentions, autonomy, and

degree of rationality‖ ( Jervis in Avruch, 1998: 35).

In agreement with the Ideological-Structural Analysis, Avruch points to the role that

schema—internalized by individuals and their communities-- play in creating conflict as

well as their potential applications for conflict transformation. He warns that different

communities‘ variations on schema as networked cognitive structures serve as differing

models for understanding particular situations. He also points to the potential for altering

schema through a cognitive restructuring process—in order to bring parties in conflict

closer to each other so that they may engage in peaceful dialogue concerning issues of

interest to both sides.

In the 1991 piece titled ―Social Cognitive Theory of Moral Thought and Action,‖ Albert

Bandura examines the constructs of moral thought and action through the lenses of Social

Cognitive Theory (SCT), which posits that people learn by watching what other people do,

with the community where one grows up having a particularly strong impact on the

person‘s underlying morality constructions. The development of an individual‘s moral

competence stems from cognitive-sensory processes which shape our understanding of

what is considered right and wrong. Social Cognitive Theory appears to assume that the

concepts of morality don‘t vary much from culture to culture, i.e. concerning theft, murder




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and the use of violence against others. This begs the question of why people can commit

acts of violence against others when their basic morality has taught them against such

actions. Through a process of ‗moral exclusion,‘ the enemy is seen as an ‗other‘ to whom

the basic rules of morality need not apply. Through cognitive and psychoaffective

processes, the enemy is ‗dehumanized,‘ cast out of the realm of those to whom one‘s moral

codes of conduct need to apply. Mediators and others working with violence must ask how

it is that people can justify to themselves acts of heinous violence unleashed against the

‗other‘ community. Bandura speaks of ‗self-regulation, where people exercise a sort of

control over their own motivations, thought processes, emotions and therefore behaviors.

He studies the cognitive and psychoaffective processes that allow people to exonerate

themselves from the guilt of having committed otherwise heinous behaviors. One of the

modes of self-exoneration is to attribute behaviors, not to oneself, but to the environment

which ‗forced them to do it.‘

―Imputing blame to one‘s antagonists or to environmental circumstances is still

another expedient that can serve self-exonerative purposes. In this process, people

view themselves as faultless victims and their detrimental conduct as compelled by

forcible provocation…Self-exoneration is similarly achievable by viewing one‘s

destructive conduct as forced by circumstances rather than as a personal decision.‖

(Bandura, 1991: 34)

The author notes that the process of self-influence is very important in determining how

people will act as individuals and as members of collectivities. When individuals and

groups commit violence against ‗others,‘ the ‗moral justifications‘ for the actions allow for

the disengagement of moral self-sanctions. Bandura writes that ―moral restructuring not

only eliminates self-deterrents but engages self-approval in the service of destructive

exploits. What was once morally condemnable becomes a source of self-valuation‖

(Bandura, 1991: 28). We see the results of this self-influence and moral justification when

people herald themselves as heroes for killing, raping or directing other violent actions

against an ‗other.‘17

As a remedy, Bandura speaks of the power of ‗humanization‘ as a means of arresting cycles

of violent actions against perceived ‗others.‘ At CDBH, we call this process ‗seeing the

human face of the other.‘ Bandura notes that it is difficult for people to continue behaving

cruelly toward others once they are re-humanized, or they become known and possibly

esteemed entities.

Tammie Ronen‘s (1997) piece on Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) offers insights

which corroborate several basic premises of I-SA micro-theory and practice. Her work

leads us to consider adapting CBT techniques utilized in one-on-one counseling to the

17

In his Theory of Thought Reform, Robert Lifton speaks of ‗atrocity-producing situations,‘ which provoke

extreme behaviors in contexts like wartime environments. When analyzing the ‗anatomy of conflict‘ he found

that the fear of death is often channeled against scapegoat groups which are collectively construed as a threat

to survival. A further factor can be the reactionary fear of social change which, at times, underlies acts of

violence against those perceived as catalysts for undesired change.




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context of intercommunal violence. She defines the goal of CBT as ‗helping people change

undesired behaviors,‘ which can be best achieved by combining emerging theoretical

knowledge with empirically-tested intervention techniques which aid in moving away from

destructive and violent behaviors. In the effort to denormativize violence, workshop

facilitators may impart self-control skills helping people decrease their violent behaviors.

We can help participants—first of all—to identify their thoughts. Once thoughts are

brought to conscious awareness, participants should identify the emotions arising from

those thoughts, thereby uncovering the link between thoughts and emotions. Participants

are asked how they would normally react in situations evoking the thoughts and emotions

brought about by the workshop exercise. They are then asked what consequences might

arise from their habitual behavioral responses. What consequences or outcomes would they

prefer in response to their behaviors? In order to reach these preferred outcomes, how

might they change their perceptions and behavioral responses? Here, participants are again

invited to trace their thoughts and emotions, and the interpretations they have given to

events. They are asked how they might reframe their thoughts/interpretations, shifting their

feelings about the events, then consciously choosing to respond in ways which help

transform the relationship with their former antagonist from violence and conflict to

understanding and collaboration.

While Foa and Olaslov (2001) focus specifically on the trauma related to rape, their book

can also serve as a guide for utilizing CBT for treating Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

(PTSD) derived from any number of situations. This is potentially useful to CDBH staff,

since there is a great deal of trauma, both hidden and overt, present in situations where

violence has become normativized. While Foa and Olaslov propose having clients re-live

the traumatic situations through controlled exposure, CDBH staff generally deal with

trauma through kinesthetic practices, artistic expression and, at times, dramatization—

preferring to let the silence be. Those participants choosing to articulate traumatic

experiences may do so; however, we tend not to utilize the Stress Innoculation or the

Desensitization-through-Exposure types of technique with workshop participants. In spite

of this clear difference in approach, the authors provide useful insights as far as helping

participants see the relationship between facts, beliefs, and emotions which, particularly in

cases where trauma is present, people‘s cognition and perceptions of trigger inputs have

been highly altered and often hyper-sensitized. A primary objective of workshops aimed at

dealing with the trauma of violent conflicts is to help participants evaluate their thoughts

and beliefs about the world and about the traumatic events and the actors involved. People

are asked to identify the thoughts which are useful in helping overcome fear and trauma, as

well as those thoughts and beliefs which tend to exacerbate conflict and worsen the

symptoms of trauma manifested by the community.

In their edited chapter titled ―Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and the Treatment of Post-

Traumatic Stress Disorder,‖ Foa and Jowcox (1999) examine insights offered by Learning

Theory and Cognitive Theory for working with victims of trauma. Learning Theory uses

classical behavioral conditioning principles, where clients exhibit avoidance behaviors

when faced with certain stimuli. Cognitive Theory, on the other hand, assumes that a

person‘s interpretation of an event, rather than the event itself, is responsible for evoking

psychoaffective responses. Logic says, then, that if stimuli and events are interpreted




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differently, different psychoaffective responses will arise, leading to different behavioral

outputs. Cognitive Theory further assumes that each emotion is associated with a particular

type of thought which, in the case of trauma, can be prejudicial. CBT aims to make clients

conscious of how they are interpreting stimuli, how their interpretation influences their

feelings about events, and how the combination of thought, interpretation and emotion

comes to bear on the behavioral outputs the person will emit. CDBH exercises aimed at de-

normativizing violent responses to stimuli are designed to bring to participants‘ full

awareness just how they are processing stimuli, and how their internalized cognitive-

psychoaffective processes influence their behavioral responses. Consciousness gained

through these exercises gives people the choice to react in a constructive fashion to

incoming stimuli.

In their work on Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy, (REBT), Ellis and Dryden (2007)

start with the assumption that behaviors result from cognitive processes. As such, when

working to denormativize violence in conflict situations, it is possible for people to modify

their cognitive processes in order to interpret, feel about situations, and behave in non-

violent ways. REBT forms a basis for helping communities change how they think about

trigger events, how they emote concerning them and, therefore, how they behave in

response to them. Ellis and Dryden note that individuals improve their behaviors when

they change their way of thinking about phenomena that have previously triggered

destructive behaviors. They suggest that instead of treating destructive behavioral outputs,

mediators focus directly on people‘s beliefs about the situation at hand. REBT proposes a

‗biopsychosocial‘ set of causes for destructive human behaviors, stating that nearly all

emotions and behaviors result from what people think—consciously or unconsciously

about themselves and the world around them. It is what people think about situations that

makes them act violently, not the situation itself. The obvious implication is that we should

focus on shifting people‘s perceptions in such a way as to decrease violent outputs. For

dealing with groups in conflict, Ellis proposes the ABC Therapy Model where, ‗A‘

represents the actual trigger event and people‘s inferences/interpretations of it. ‗B‘ stands

for the people‘s evaluative beliefs that arise from the inferences, and ‗C‘ represents the

emotions and ensuing behaviors that follow the evaluative beliefs. The authors suggest that

we invite individuals to examine their core beliefs—which are rules, held largely below the

level of consciousness, about how the world ‗should‘ be. Exercises should allow

participants to uncover their core beliefs and bring them to full consciousness. REBT then

suggests that participants modify destructive aspects of their core beliefs, while leaving the

non-destructive aspects intact. In conflict situations, this means we need to consciously

modify negative stereotypes concerning the group with which we are in conflict. Becoming

aware of our destructive core mis/representations allows people to achieve lasting change.

REBT posits that what we think about what we perceive determines what we feel. The

authors warn about groups being trapped in irrational thoughts about the ‗other,‘ since this

causes extreme emotions which can lead to behaviors harmful to self and others. They

further caution that absolutist truth claims and assumptions are often projected onto, and

demanded of, the community with which a group is in conflict. Absolutism, then, leads

communities to think certain things absolutely should or must happen, leading them to

demand that their unerring ‗laws of the universe‘ be adhered to. Naturally, people from a




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different cultural community may not adhere to the other groups ‗absolutes,‘ leading to a

sense of imposition on the part of the second community and of moral indignation on the

part of the first. Both of these sentiments hold the seeds for violent conflict.

Ellis and Dryden believe that humans think at three different levels, which are inference,

evaluation and core beliefs. This forms an internalized set of rules which people apply in

order to interpret an event. When beginning to unravel a conflict, facilitators ask

participants to express what they feel is wrong with the situation, and how they feel about

it. They are then asked what would make the situation acceptable to them. Points of

convergence are sought on all sides. Common goals are set, and a program is created from

which to begin working collaboratively toward those goals.

REBT suggests that facilitators help people become aware of their internalized rules and

interpretive mechanisms, giving them the freedom to consciously choose how to understand

and respond to an event. After an eruption of violence, once psychoaffect is under control

and it is possible to reason, participants are asked to examine 1) what they were telling

themselves about the event, 2) what they felt in response to their interpretation of the event,

and 3) how their thoughts and emotions affected the way they behaved toward the event.

As participants are more able to see their internal processes, they are asked to examine the

beliefs which caused them to behave violently, so they may choose more peaceful beliefs

and behaviors with which to substitute the earlier violent responses. In short, they are

invited to choose new ways of thinking, feeling and behaving.

The authors warn facilitators to be aware of fears underlying attitudes and behaviors of

participants. Care should be taken to reduce fear by creating an atmosphere of trust and

acceptance in the workshops. When groups are able to talk to each other from a position of

collaborating toward shared goals, facilitators should warn the group that relapse may occur

and old tensions may flare up again. Groups should be told that relapse into negative

patterns is not a sign of failure in the newfound peace process. Instead, all sides should

think about possible relapse situations and decide what steps to take in the event of relapse

on any or all sides, so that peace will not break down. A ‗relapse contingency plan‘ may

involve examining what happened, what inferences individuals and community members

had about the ‗relapse event,‘ what beliefs came into play, what behavioral responses they

wish to have, and what type of behaviors they wish to avoid in order to ensure that peace

continues among the communities. Participants should be reminded that the unwanted

behaviors came from unwanted thoughts. They should prepare a desired non-violent

response should the relapse situation occur. Individuals and communities are reminded to

practice their new desired behaviors until they are able to internalize them, creating habits

of peaceful responses to situations that once unleashed and exacerbated the cycle of

violence.

Doidge (2007) provides hopeful evidence for individuals working to denormativize

violence, saying that the human brain is remarkably flexible and is able to restructure itself

in response to particular input. Under carefully-designed training sessions, brain maps

leading to systematic negative interpretations of events, dark emotions, and violent

behavioral responses can change in a matter of minutes. Yet, for cognitive restructuring to




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become permanent, desired behaviors must be reinforced by practice over a period of

months. Doidge‘s insight about the need for practice in order to instill habitual peaceful

responses ties in with Ellis and Dryden‘s exercises, which invite participants to consciously

choose constructive interpretations, emotions and responses to events. Doidge believes that

committed exercises practiced over several months can replace the former entrenched

conflict with a new peaceful normativity, which allows for ongoing collaboration toward

shared goals, ever more consolidating the new normativity of peace.

The World Health Organization‘s (2002) World Report on Violence and Health (WRVH)

addresses violence at the individual, the relational, the community, and the societal levels.

Work at the individual levels aims to instill healthy beliefs and behaviors in young people

as they grow up. It also offers suggestions for working with people who have already

become violent. It works with intimate partner violence, providing support, and training

people to ‗de-normative habitually violent reactions to interpartner stress, replacing them

with non-violent responses. Its community-based approaches aim to create support systems

for victims of violence, to raise public awareness, and to train people at all levels of society

to work toward a non-violent future for the community. Work at the societal level focuses

on cultural and socioeconomic factors underlying violence. It emphasizes changes in

legislation and policies aimed at shifting sociocultural norms away from gender, racial and

ethnic violence toward more equitable visions and behaviors. This falls firmly into line

with the I-SA‘s focus on policy studies and policy recommendations aimed at adjusting

institutional structures in ways that enhance non-violent coexistence. The WRVH exhorts

us to rigorously evaluate the effectiveness of our interventions—signaling that many

organizations have failed to do this. Follow-up evaluations at CDBH have been somewhat

lax, so the exhortation will be taken to heart and acted upon. As the new Centre for

Dialogue and Transformation begins its work, we will take care to conduct ongoing

evaluations of the work as well. The authors find the WRVH an excellent source for

guidance and suggestions. It will now serve as a handbook for both of our Centers.

Conclusion

Literature reviewed gives hope that I-SA applications for denormativizing violence are on

the right track, and that practice can be improved by adopting a number of the suggestions

discussed above. The fact that neuroplasticity is retained throughout a person‘s lifetime

suggests that deeply-engrained dysfunctional behaviors—as in the case of normativized

violence—can be substituted with alternative cognitive and psychoaffective interpretations,

leading to non-violent behavioral outputs, as we seek to normativize peace in places where

violence has previously been the norm. Neuroimaging techniques show actual physical

evidence of re-structuring processes occurring as the brain ‗learns‘ alternative conceptions

and psychoaffective responses to stimuli which previously evoked violent responses.

Cognitive Restructuring Theory suggests that workshop activities should raise participants‘

awareness of their internal cognitive, interpretive and psychoaffective processes, instead of




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focusing on classical behavior modification. When participants are able to self-observe,

seeing how they think, feel about and respond to stimuli, ensuing exercises should help

them reconceptualize inputs in ways leading to non-violent behavioral responses. This

approach is highly different from common Skinnerian-Pavlovian behavior modification

exercises, since it addresses the source of violent behaviors, instead of the behaviors

themselves. This will lead to a deeper, more permanent shift from violent interactions to

spaces where violence has ceased and collaboration toward common goals is sustained.

Throughout the intervention process, the sequence of activities is by no means hard and

fast. However, we do try to work from the macro—the concrete situation in the external

environment, to the micro— offering an inner journey, exploring our thoughts, emotions,

behaviors; coming to terms with pain inflicted by both ourselves and others. We work

toward identifying our own role in the conflict situation-- discovering our free will to

modify our thoughts, feelings and behaviors. We learn to forgive and honor ourselves as

the basis for forgiving and honoring others. Once participants have reached this stage of

their inner journey, we take them back to the macro—which we hope is a transformed

reality, where they will see things with new eyes, since their inner selves have changed. It

is here that the community devises common goals and creates a plan for operationalizing

them. We train participants for dealing with relapse, in the event that the conflict were to

reemerge. Here, we part company, checking back with the group within a few months; or

they may contact us, requesting a follow up session. This depends on the community‘s

preference. We make ourselves contactable, hoping to no longer be needed, as the

community has gained the skills to go forward ‗being peace,‘ living a commitment to

peace, and sowing peace in the community which, albeit imperfect, has been able to break

the cycle of violence.




México Malaysia

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de-normativizing violence: applications of cognitive restructuring theory through the ideological-st

Documents

civilizational dialogue

monterrey university

rivera ruiz

conflict transformation

present article

instrument of peace

violent conflict

cdbh staff