The Art of Managing Everyday Conflict: Understanding Emotions and Power Struggles

Power struggles are a common occurrence in everyday life, affecting individuals in every stage of life. Those involved in conflicts often have no idea how to resolve them. This book discusses the hows and whys of conflict and provides easy-to-use solutions for most situations, and its focus is on the role of emotion. According to the authors, conflict results from the way in which one views one's personal power, views largely influenced by personal emotions. The authors, therefore, begin by a close consideration of personal emotions. They offer ways to pinpoint emotions and understand how they bring about the classic roles of the conflict scenario: Victim, Persecutor, Instigator, and Rescuer. The authors examine how emotions can serve productive purposes and how they can be used to minimize and eliminate serious conflict. The text includes vignettes, anecdotes, personal inventories, illustrations, and concrete exercises.

We all have power struggles affecting each of us in every stage of our life, nearly every day. We all get wrapped up in conflicts, but often have no idea how to resolve them. This book dicusses the hows and whys of conflict and provides easy-to-use solutions for most situations. The focus is on the role of emotion. Conflict results from the way in which we view our own power, and our views on power are largely influenced by our emotions. So we must begin by looking closely at our emotions. Fisher and Sharp guide us to pinpoint those and see how emotions move us into playing one of the classic roles in conflict - Victim, Persecutor, Instigator or Rescuer. And we learn how emotions can play productive purposes; how they can be used to minimize and remove serious conflict in our lives. The text includes vignettes, anecdotes, personal inventories, illustrations and concrete exercises.

While general readers will find this text of interest, it will also provide valuable information for students of psychology, sociology, business management, human resources and family studies.