Toward Healing Destructive Conflict

Marc Gopin

Healing the heart of conflict: 8 crucial steps to making peace with yourself and others. Emmaus, PA/New York, NY: Rodale Books. Hardcover. (xix + 300 pp.). $24.95. ISBN 1-57954-793-1.

Reviewed by MYRON R. CHARTIER

Marc Gopin serves as the James H Laue Professor of World Religions, Diplomacy, and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University’s Institute of Conflict Analysis and Resolution and the Director of the Institute’s Center for World Religions, Diplomacy, and Conflict Resolution. Gopin, an ordained rabbi, has worked with several governments and numerous organizations on peace efforts worldwide, including the Middle East, Northern Ireland, and Africa. He has appeared on CNN and NPR, and in the international press as an expert in the art of conflict resolution. He is the author of two previous books: Between Eden and Armageddon and Holy War, Holy Peace and numerous articles.

Rabbi Marc Gopin, who holds a Ph.D. in religious ethics from Brandeis University, has a rich background in the field of international conflict resolution. He has spent much of his professional career (twenty plus years) teaching, negotiating, and traveling to trouble spots throughout the world. He has been involved in some of the world’s most difficult geopolitical situations. Through his experiences he has discerned there is a fundamental similarity between the intractable conflicts among rival nations that cause so much strife in the world and the destructive personal and family struggles that impact us so deeply as persons. While the scale and the stakes are obviously quite different, the underlying process, the drama, is the same.

Gopin is primarily concerned about the type of conflict that is the complicated, ingrained style of fighting that drains us of our energy and serves no useful end. He draws a distinction between constructive conflict and destructive conflict. Some conflicts are quite healthy. A diversity of viewpoints often prods us to make creative decisions. Such are constructive conflicts. On the other hand, destructive conflicts are those feuds that harm us on an ongoing basis and seemingly resist solution at every turn. Destructive conflicts are rooted in primal emotions and cannot be settled by rational discussion and negotiation. Gopin believes that the only path toward a durable solution for destructive conflict lies in a process of self-analysis and spiritual growth. He sees this way to true healing as demanding, but one that generates hope, freedom, and new energy.

Healing the heart of conflict is a self-help book for a general audience. The author’s focus is on healing conflict at the deepest level rather than on “resolving” conflict. The book introduces his eight-step method to conflict resolution and applies it to work relations, family relationships, and community dynamics. To this task Gopin brings a wealth of knowledge from his experiences as a father, son, rabbi, and an international conflict mediator, from his Jewish heritage, from his knowledge of other religious traditions (Christian and Buddhist in particular), from philosophy, literature, psychology, the social sciences, and from the most current techniques being used in international negotiation. The result is a book that is highly accessible to a variety of interested readers. Although it is designed primarily for a general audience lacking the usual endnotes, bibliography, and indexes of a scholarly work, conflict scholars and teachers unfamiliar with his approach are likely to benefit from it.

The book is divided into two parts. In part one Gopin focuses on eight steps for healing the heart of conflict. The eight steps can be summarized in eight simple words: be, feel, understand, hear, see, imagine, do, and speak. Gopin presents these eight steps as sequential and interlocking in nature. Following the first step each is dependent on the previous one and carefully leads to the next.

Step one, “be,” focuses upon looking at the deepest roots of conflict within ourselves and transforming our personalities into an essential aid for healing conflicts. Step two, “feel,” involves identifying and confronting the emotions at the core of our conflicts, both positive and negative ones, and then turn them into vehicles for growth and healing. Step three, “understand,” requires escaping the boundaries of our problems by knowing other conflicts and taking from that knowledge the universal lessons of what dynamics wound and heal. Step four, “hear,” calls for skillfully listening to every clue that may help us enter into the sphere of those around us, especially those with whom we are in conflict. Step five, “see,” necessitates skillfully observing every cue that may help us enter into the world of those around us, particularly those with whom we experience conflict. Step six, “imagine,” requires stepping back from the web of conflict and envision ways that will utterly transform our lives and relationships. Step seven, “do,” involves taking action that flows naturally from the wisdom acquired in the previous steps. Step eight, “speak,” calls for incorporating the lessons learned in the previous steps into every word used, with a goal of communicating and healing conflict.

In part two Gopin applies the eight steps to making a living, home life, and the community. Again simple words highlight each of the three chapters: work, love, and harmonize. The goal of these final chapters is to help the reader integrate the eight steps into day-to-day work, family, and community relationships in a way that prevents conflict and minimizes or heals old ones.

Gopin views his eight-step process as a valuable tool to be embodied in oneself for dealing with conflict in life. To learn these eight steps is a demanding process that requires coming to terms with ones identity and character, care and love of self and others, deep empathy, honesty with self and others, and much more. From every conflict we encounter, an opportunity to grow is present. In handling life’s conflicts each of us is a work in progress.

Rabbi Gopin has provided a valuable, practical tool for coming to terms with conflict, especially destructive conflict. Several books within recent years about church conflict provide a bleak picture for dealing with destructive conflict. Examples are works by Haugk (1988) and Rediger (1997). Shawchuck and Heuser (1996) in their discussion of conflict and dysfunctional systems point to the Twelve Step Recovery Program as a way of dealing with such conflictive systems. Gopin provides a different path from Haugk and Rediger, demanding, but hopeful. There is some compatibility between the Twelve Step method and Gopin’s eight steps; however, the latter seems much more demanding in practice.

Readers interested in integrating the human sciences and spirituality may be interested in examining this book. As pointed out earlier, Rabbi Gopin teaches in the area of world religions and conflict resolution. His book is an example of what Gorsuch (2002) labels integration as joint problem solving, especially at a very practical level.

Other readers that may benefit from Gopin’s insights are therapists and counselors, pastors engaged in pastoral care, and pastors involved with conflict. Therapists and counselors may find real value in Gopin’s eight-step approach; given their educational backgrounds and experiences, they are likely to make good use of it. Pastors involved in pastoral care will find useful ways of working with individuals who are personally conflicted, experiencing conflict at work and at home, and dealing with conflict in community settings. Pastors, who are personally involved with conflict in the family, in the church, and in the community, are likely to find much of practical value in this book.

Readers who specialize in conflict resolution may want to take a look at the Center for World Religions, Diplomacy, and Conflict Resolution’s web site for information related to Rabbi Gopin’s and his staff’s work. The address is: www.gmu.edu/departments/crdc.

References

Gorsuch, R. L. (2002). Integrating psychology and spirituality? Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.

Haugk, K. C. (1988). Antagonists in the church: How to identify and deal with destructive conflict. Minneapolis: Augsburg.

Rediger, G. L. (1997). Clergy killers: Guidance for pastors and congregations under attack. Inver Grove Heights, MN.

Shawchuck, N., & Heuser, R. (1996). Managing the congregation: Building effective systems to serve people. Nashville: Abingdon.

CHARTIER, MYRON R., PH.D. is retired. He has served in a variety of positions in his years of active ministry: campus ministry, theological education, regional denomination work, and local church ministry. For thirteen years he was on the faculty of Palmer Theological Seminary (formerly Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary) in Wynnewood, PA, and served as its Director of Doctoral Programs. He serves as a contributing editor to Journal of Psychology and Theology. He received his B.A. (University of Colorado) and M.A. (Fort Hays Kansas University) in history, his B.Div. from the American Baptist Seminary of the West, and his Ph.D. in human communication studies from the University of Denver.