What I’ve Been Reading

Anyone who has had a pet will know that they become part of the family.  However, many legal systems across the world still consider pets to be “property” to be distributed when relationships break down. While some jurisdictions treat pets as sentient beings, not just an item of property, this doesn’t necessarily make the decision […]

“[T]oo many of us have grown up in a world where we have forgotten, never learned, or were not even exposed to the skills needed to talk about hard topics in a productive way.” Steven Collis is a law professor who specialises in the First Amendment. He explains that this means that he gets paid

This book describes a process of questioning that revolves around the human tendency to think and talk in metaphors. It’s based on the work of David Grove, a psychotherapist from New Zealand, who developed the process to support his work with clients who had experienced trauma. Clean language is a method that aims to minimise

Author Solon Simmons is the director of The Narrative Transformation Lab at George Mason University’s Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution.  His latest book is a fascinating explanation of how the way we tell stories about conflict can create opportunities for political struggle, reconciliation or self-realization. Simmons suggests that there are four main prototypes

This book focuses on coaching neurodivergent individuals about their experiences at work. The introduction states that the book supports existing coaching practitioners, managers and community leaders to understand the essentials of neurodivergence, a term that encompasses ADHD, autism, dyslexia, dyspraxia and Tourette’s syndrome, and how these diagnoses require specific coaching approaches to support individuals to

This New York Times bestseller is not new – it was first published in 1997 and updated in 2012.  But this short and to the point book on marketing services is essential reading for anyone working on developing a conflict-related services practice.   It provides a clear distinction between approaches to marketing a product, and what

To be clear at the outset, this isn’t a book about conflict, at least not in the sense that I am usually discussing. However, it is a book about conflict about language and how we use it.  And as language is one of our primary tools in conflict and how we manage it, you could

I don’t usually review PhD theses, but this one caught my attention and has some really interesting ideas.  In her thesis, Emily comes up with some persuasive arguments to explain the conundrum that there is a high social need for conflict resolution services, but low market demand. She identifies practitioners’ assumptions, expectations and knowledge about

I first came across the concept of liminal spaces when I was doing my Narrative Coach training with Dr David Drake. He talks about liminal spaces and thresholds between stages in his coaching model. These are “in between” spaces in which the client has the opportunity to make a choice to move into a new

In this book, Professor Michael Norton merges his expertise in social psychology and behavioural economics to explore rituals, and how people use and experience rituals in their day-to-day lives. This includes everyday rituals far beyond the kinds of religious rituals that might first come to mind.  The book asks what rituals do, for ourselves, our