Perspectives

Rather than being about right or wrong, situations and events usually have numbers of perspectives. However, conflict often arises when people advocate for what they believe to the right or wrong from one perspective only.

Opening up to more perspectives

I have always loved the old story about the six blind men and the elephant, and it can be found here: http://www.jainworld.com/literature/story25.htm .

Basically six blind men, who have never seen an elephant before, go to "see" one when it comes to their village. However they each feel a different part e.g. one feels the ears and says the elephant is like a fan, one feels a tusk and says it is like a solid pipe, another feels the trunk and says it is like a tree branch, and so on. They then argue with each other about what an elephant is like. Interestingly, none are wrong, but the morale of the story is that they need to put all their descriptions together to gain a more complete picture of the elephant.

We too can actively seek more parts to stories, situations and events so that we can gain a broader perspective of what is really going on.

Some useful tools

1. The Conflict Resolution Network lists broadening perspectives as one of its conflict resolving strategies and encourages people to ask "Am I seeing the whole picture, not just my own point of view?"  For more information of this go to :
http://www.crnhq.org/pages.php?pID=12#skill_12

It also has another strategy called "Mapping the conflict", where the needs and fears of all the parties involved in an issue can be documented, shared and discussed.

This can be found at:

http://www.crnhq.org/pages.php?pID=12#skill_8

2. De Bono's Thinking Hats can be used to consider a number of aspects around the resolution of an issue (either individually or in groups). The aspects include information (known or needed), feelings,hunches and intuition, judgement and creativity (possibilities, alternatives and new ideas), and finally putting all these together (thinking about thinking). An outline is available at:
http://www.debonothinkingsystems.com/tools/6hats.htm

3. Using Narrative Therapy. This is a complex technique based on the notion that different narratives can be woven through client's stories (but this is an extremely simplistic description). More information can be accessed from the Dulwich Centre at:
 http://www.dulwichcentre.com.au/what-is-narrative-therapy.html

Working with the client's perspective

In respectfully listening to the client's story (an essential beginning to any therapeutic intervention) we are hearing their perspective on their life and its events, and this is what we need to work with 

(even if we are feeling sceptical about it). We can work with it in various ways, but not until it has been fully heard and they have felt understood.