De-normativizing Violence: Applications of Cognitive Restructuring Theory through the Ideological-St

Civilizational Dialogue as an Instrument of Peace

López, Rivera & Ruiz (2014)

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 HumanityEnvironment- 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 Centro de Diálogo y Bienestar Humano Tecnológico de Monterrey Campus Chihuahua México

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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, selfcare 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

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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 Centro de Diálogo y Bienestar Humano Tecnológico de Monterrey Campus Chihuahua México

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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 Centro de Diálogo y Bienestar Humano Tecnológico de Monterrey Campus Chihuahua México

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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 microtheory 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.

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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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Boy B’s Community Boy A’s Community ° Hindus ° Muslims ° Working class ° Working class ° Living in an ethnically° Living in an ethnicallyCritical Juncture mixed neighborhood mixed neighborhood The boys have an Concerning other community: Concerning other community: accident when playing with * Relations were essentially peaceful * Relations were essentially peaceful Boy A’s bicycle.

Negative images caused by: Negative images caused by: -Perceived governmental Boy A blames Boy B -Politicization of ethno-religious favoring of the ‘other’ for his injuries identities -Politicization of ethno-religious - Intergenerational prejudice Both children return home identities -Truth claims concerning God angry and upset with - Intergenerational prejudice -Not understanding religion nor their friend.

-Not understanding religion nor culture of the ‘other’ culture of the ‘other’ -Stereotypical images of the other -Stereotypical images of the other -Negative media portrayals -Negative media portrayals -etc.

- etc.

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 Centro de Diálogo y Bienestar Humano Tecnológico de Monterrey Campus Chihuahua México

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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 firsthand 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 macroenvironment, 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 Centro de Diálogo y Bienestar Humano Tecnológico de Monterrey Campus Chihuahua México

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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 Centro de Diálogo y Bienestar Humano Tecnológico de Monterrey Campus Chihuahua México

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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 continuum10 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 ‗reembracing,‘ 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.

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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 ISA 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 sociocultural 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.

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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 selfreflection, and does not require victims and perpetrators to confront each other. BorrisDunchunstang 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 reemerge. 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, 22 Centro de Diálogo y Bienestar Humano Centre for Dialogue & Transformation Tecnológico de Monterrey Campus Chihuahua University of Malaya México Malaysia

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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 Centro de Diálogo y Bienestar Humano Tecnológico de Monterrey Campus Chihuahua México

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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 perceptualinterpretive 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.

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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 Centro de Diálogo y Bienestar Humano Tecnológico de Monterrey Campus Chihuahua México

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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 Centro de Diálogo y Bienestar Humano Tecnológico de Monterrey Campus Chihuahua México

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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 PostTraumatic 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 Centro de Diálogo y Bienestar Humano Tecnológico de Monterrey Campus Chihuahua México

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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 denormativizing violent responses to stimuli are designed to bring to participants‘ full awareness just how they are processing stimuli, and how their internalized cognitivepsychoaffective 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 nonviolent 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 Centro de Diálogo y Bienestar Humano Tecnológico de Monterrey Campus Chihuahua México

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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 Centro de Diálogo y Bienestar Humano Tecnológico de Monterrey Campus Chihuahua México

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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 Centro de Diálogo y Bienestar Humano Tecnológico de Monterrey Campus Chihuahua México

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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.

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