Manousso Mediation

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by Patricia Bertschler and Thomas O ’Reilly All situations are extracted from real mediation or counseling cases. Names and a few details have been changed to protect client anonymity. "All my kids want is to take my car keys away, ” complains 82-year old Catherine. Meanwhile, Catherine ’s eldest, Nancy, is tired of getting calls from the police for her mother ’s driving over the lines or getting lost. “My daughter wants to put me in a nursing home. I ’d rather die first, ” emphasizes 78-year old Rose. Rose ’s daughter, Melissa, who found her mother several times this last month having left the stove on with smoke singes on the kitchen wallpaper, agonizes over Rose ’s safety and dreads getting into another shouting match over the need for help. “My family thinks I ’m going to come live with them so they can control all my money, ” fears John. “Ever since I turned 85, they think I don ’t know what they ’re up to. ” Jim worries that his father, John, will fall again with no one around to help him. With John ’s diabetes, Jim can ’t afford to let his father be alone much longer. Caregiving Role Reversal Almost daily in our mediation and counseling practice, Thomas and I receive calls from caregivers with these and similar stories. Adult children with best intentions, lovingly try to balance careers, family needs (pack lunches, drop kids off at ballet lessons one night, rotate attending track meets and baseball games on other nights), AND care for the growing list of needs of their aging parents. Somewhere in between, they are encouraged to exercise, practice yoga for stress relief and maintain healthy self-care! If only … Caregiving, meant to be an act of love and family dedication, can become at the least stressful; at the worst, a path to burnout and even elder abuse. Sadly, caregivers often remain unaware of conflict solutions that would reduce stress, provide extra services, and assist middle-agers as they juggle family, professional, and personal demands. Elder-Mediation: Proactive Solution One such solution is mediation: a process in which a neutral third party (mediator) helps two or more parties participate in a respectful decision-making session (can last a few hours to several sessions depending on the complexity, stubbornness, or concerns of parties involved). Mediation can be utilized for step-families, business conflicts, divorce dissolution, and neighborhood disputes to name some. The process is often chosen because people are helped to communicate respectfully, save time, and avoid costly court battles. Elder-Mediation For decisions involving Elders, a specialized type of mediation has emerged within the last decade known as Elder- Mediation (EM). Some mediators simply use the term Family Mediation; EM distinguishes it as a specialty and elder-mediation is becoming quite helpful. The process is the same, though it is helpful if the mediator has experience in senior care and good knowledge of accessing community resources. Since 1994, EM Projects have emerged as well as research studies both in the U.S.

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