Overview
The analysis of this conflict can happen through different theories and models. Using Dudley Weeks’ Conflict Partnership Pathway Model, the focus is on practical, learnable skills, which conflicting parties can adopt if they have the will. It aims at building relationships, resolving conflicts and peace building. The first aspect in conflict resolution focuses on the health of the relationship. It is worth focusing on the broad context of the conflict. The conflict is just a mall aspect within the relationships one has in life. In my case, the drug issue was just an infringement into the relationship I had with my parents and girlfriends. I had a good time with my parents and friends that I should have not allowed the drug issue to come in between my relationship. As a whole person, drugs were making be to behave differently, and I had a changed attitude. My friends noticed that and wanted to restore me to my former self regardless of the extent to which they took the matter.
Looking at my relationship with my parents, I knew that we would always be family. That was a connection that none of us could ignore. I was not ready to lose my family because I fully depended on their support for my livelihood. On the other hand, my parents wanted the best for my life and that is why they tried threatening me. Following the realization that I would not be party to their threats, my parents went ahead to conspire with my friends for them to have proof for getting me into rehabilitation for help. On my friends’ case, I could not understand why they had to betray me by telling my parents about my apparent addiction to cocaine. I knew they still needed our friendship, but still felt that it was not reason worthy of the betrayal they made.
The conflict resolution in this process was inadequate of equality of power. My parent had all that I needed. The only alternative they gave me for negotiation was still under the influence of their manipulation. I had no chance for making an option of my own and that made me very furious and verbal. If they had given me a chance for negotiating through the process, I believe I would be more collaborative than through the tricks they used all through the process. I was feeling so trapped in the process and eventually I had no choice at all. Throughout the whole process, there was no mutual understanding between the parties as party number one felt they had the solution to the conflict, while party number two only saw their efforts as an attack.
1. Invitation of Partnership Atmosphere
This is a step, which transforms the focus on the ‘I vs. ‘You’ to appoint when conflicting parties start focusing on a ‘We’ atmosphere. It creates the realization of the need for each other. It is an incentive for working together instead of against each other. I greatly faced this situation during this conflict because in the whole process, I felt that my parents and friends had lost all hope in me. This made me to be furious and adamant to what they needed me to do to get off drugs. In fact, I never understood why they made it to be a very crucial issue. I fought to maintain my position and developed resentment during the entire process. I felt all alone against all of them and that drained my relationship with everyone.
2. Clarification of perceptions
My perception of the situation was that my friends did not want me to continue schooling. I felt that they hated me. This was worse when my parents sided with them without believing in me. On the contrary, my parents and friends had a completely different perception of the event. On realizing my addiction to cocaine, my friends got worried of my change in behavior and attitude. They only reached out to my parents because they felt that I seriously needed help. Out of concern that my parents had for my life, my parent took the chance to enquire what my situation was like, looking for a chance to help me. I seriously needed help according to the perception of my parents and friends. On the contrary, I never saw any reason for concern and that stringed us further. However, my parents made their intentions clear, to the extent of promising that they would not withdraw their support if I took the drug assessment. That is a point that I agreed with because I believed that I manipulate the process by talking with Daisy in private to have her support.
3. Focusing on individual and shared needs
In the resolution of the conflict, my parents and friends knew how much I needed their financial support. They then used that as a shared need for engaging my cooperation in the process. Since I wanted to keep their trust in me through the assurance that my drugs situation was not as serious as my friends had made, I concurred with the suggestion of going for drugs assessment. I needed their trust in me and that left me with no option. The situation left with the choice of having to trust even my friends whom I resented so much at that moment. All I needed was to keep my present situation as it was, while my parents and friends needed to get me out of drugs. The need, which united us, was trust on each other and my parents felt that going for a drugs test could lead them to trust me and by accepting to take the chance, I hoped that I would trust them not to withdraw their support.
4. Developing power with
My parents and friends threatened my identity. In my mind, it was clear that all respect my family and friends had for me had been lost because of my drug use. This over drained my confidence and power in the conflict resolution process. I had no power to use against them and I could not influence the process in anyway because of my druggy situation. I lost all my identity needs and the outcome favored my family and friends. However, my parents did not want to exercise express power over me. That is why they gave me the option making a choice of proving my authenticity through the drug test. They wanted me to believe that we are working on the issue together and that we needed a favorable solution to all of us.
5. Present and future focus and lessons from the past
It was obviously necessary to deal with past communication problems. In the entire interpersonal conflict, I was too verbal just like it had always been routing in our family. My feeling of attack generated anger in me and I spoke very rudely to my parents and friends. On the contrary, they did not bark back at me. They returned my aggressiveness in a calm manner. My tantrums bore no fruit because they were firm in their decisions and stood clearly focused in making a difference in my life. Their emotions during the process were true and real as much as they deeply hurt me. I needed to know why my friends called my parents about my drugs situation. It is the period when I should have stopped blaming my friends and family for their actions. Learning from the past, yelling never solved any of my family interpersonal conflicts.
6. Generation of options
The best option at this point of conflict resolution would be to have a serious talk with my parents in a calm manner. As much as I needed to get off drugs, I believe that I did not deserve all the conditions my parents and friends imposed on me. It is valuable talking about issues in a rational manner because we must respect the decisions of each other. As we looked at the options available for the resolution of this conflict, it was obvious that both parties held to what they wanted without relenting. Party one wanted things to remain as they were without the said withdrawal of parental help. On the part of party two, there was no option better than having party one getting help to stop abusing Cocaine. That made my parents to have the only alternative as withdrawal of their support from me unless I agreed to drugs treatment. My friends on the other hand, were ready to take any step in supporting my parents to have me off drugs. Being alone on the issue, I had the option of agreeing to what they needed to keep their support or refusing the offers they made and losing everything.
7. Developing of deable
The relationship I had with my parents and friends kept deteriorating with every effort they made to change my life. At this point, the only person I could work with was Daisy. I needed her support and when I agreed on taking the drugs test, I felt that I could finally accomplish my efforts of convincing my parents that I had no addiction to cocaine, as my friends had made them to believe. On the same, my parents really wanted me to go to rehabilitation and could not find any possible means of getting me there without having the tests done on me to prove their worries right. Since the tests were all that could be done to resolve the conflict between us, for the good of my life, my friends and parents took it upon themselves to conspire with Daisy. They wanted the best for me and Daisy was the only one who could help them through the process. Daisy took it upon herself to convince both parties regarding her support for each of us. By finally having a discussion with her and my friends, I had it all in my mind that things would turn out to my favor. However, her position required her to produce the best in an integrity manner and that gave her the challenge of telling the truth. The big issue was to prove that I was out of drug influence, or to get me into rehabilitation for the resolution of the drugs problem. This made me to lose because through the tests run on me, the party number two got their way and I ended up in the rehabilitation center.
Challenge of the conflict resolution
In this interpersonal conflict, the major challenge I had was convincing my parents that I was not addicted to drugs. The resentment I felt for my friends made it look like they no longer loved me because of their betrayal of the confidence I had on them. Because of these reasons, it was very hard for me to understand that all they needed was for my life to change. Through the assessment of my friends, they saw my behavior changing and knew that drugs lead me to serious suffering. That made them to call my parents, who took up the responsibility of getting my life back on track. My friends’ assessment and my parents’ assumption became very hard for me to understand. As much as my parents had the best interest for my life, wanting to help me in dealing with my cocaine problem, their confrontation only made me to defend myself strongly and deny their allegations. I resisted every effort they made negotiating each claim they presented. In the end, the only option for resolving the conflict was that of getting professional input to the issue. My parents and friends then took the first step to convincing me that the only option left for me to keep my gains from them was to take drugs assessment. At this point, I lost all power in the process. I did not want to lose anything and I realized that the only thing that could help me was to accept the drug tests thinking that if I talked to Daisy, she would favor me. However, that was my point of loss because Daisy produced the real results regarding my condition and I had to go to rehabilitation.
