Originally from Dispute Resolution Journal

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Explicit and implicit biases about mental health can impede impartiality.  This article will share evidence of biases about mental health in dispute resolution practice, make a case for why dispute resolvers should address these biases, and shed light on the prevalence and relevance of mental health conditions.  It will also provide an overview of tools practitioners can use to counteract biases related to mental health, including resources developed for a groundbreaking AAA-ICDR Foundation-funded initiative spear-headed by the CUNY Dispute Resolution Center and MH Mediate.

I. MENTAL HEALTH BIAS IN DISPUTE RESOLUTION

The genesis of our work on mental health in the dispute resolution context began with one of the authors, Dan Berstein’s firsthand experience as a mediator living with bipolar disorder.  Once trained as a mediator, Dan noticed biases affecting how practitioners responded to parties with disclosed or suspected mental illness histories.  He found that both basic and advanced mediation trainings noted that the mere presence of a mental illness diagnosis or substance use history has been used as a basis to end a mediation due to widely cited thinking that these parties lacked capacity to engage in the process. Additionally, he experienced both structural and procedural challenges as well as face-to-face insensitivities. For instance, some mediation programs listed mental illness as a criterion to screen out prospective cases. Some mediation trainings that focused on “difficult” clients presented a taxonomy of personality-disorder-inspired categories and recommended surreptitiously placing people into these categories and adjusting practices so that these labeled people received differential treatment.  Some mediators made comments questioning if parties in their sessions might have mental illness and judging them for potentially being “off their medications.”  Some practitioners were openly paternalistic to Dan upon learning that he lives with a mental health condition.