From Counselling to Mediation

One of the most meaningful engagements in my life was to have joined the Samaritans of Singapore ("SOS") back in the mid 90's.

After a long training which lasted for a year with interim assessments, I finally landed in the phone room, answering the SOS hotline. The people who called in were mostly emotionally or psychologically troubled. There were unmarried mothers, mental patients and those who were suffering from depression or entertaining suicidal thoughts. These conversations can be emotionally draining on those who do not have emotional temerity to cope with what counsellors term as "transferences", leaving them feeling down and out.

SOS gave me a steep learning curve and I drew valuable lessons from the unhappy experiences of the callers that shaped my outlook in life. It was also a tough period that strengthened my resolve to make time for those who need help. Running my legal practice in the day and attending to the hotlines at SOS was a big challenge. After the birth of my third child, I left SOS but the skills I acquired never left me. I consistently used them to influence the people around me to think and act positively. I found myself counselling clients and friends in relational issues. Once, I even spent nights on end counselling a couple who had young children studying in the same school as my children. They were at the verge of breaking up and days later patched up, keeping their family intact until this day.

Mediation in the courts began some 20 years ago. It started as a judge-dominated process and improved over time with the setting up of the Singapore Mediation Centre. There were training courses and accreditation was given to those who passed the relevant tests. By the time I decided to be accredited as a mediator, I was already armed with qualifications in psychology and clinical hypnotherapy. All these knowledge about the human mind gave me great advantage in mediation which I saw as another form of counselling.

I mediated at different venues for different types of disputes. From sibling disputes over parental care, neighbour disputes over noise, leakage, corridor obstructions and land encroachments to landlord-tenant issues, consumer disputes over slimming packages, time resorts, second-hand car purchases, renovation contracts, etc., mediation has expanded my insights into human interactions under various circumstances.

Everyone has a personality and how that personality is formed has many theories. Whatever those grand theories may be, no two persons are completely alike and we need to appreciate that there are differences between individuals. Understanding those differences is the key to understanding personal conflicts and how they can be resolved, minimised or avoided.