Roundtable Breakfast - Effective Ways to Deal with Stress

Effective Ways of Dealing with Stress:

Somatic Skills for Conflict Resolvers

 Based upon soma, the Greek word for ‘the body,’ somatic skills focuse on developing the physical skills necessary to manage more effectively the physiological stress experienced during conflict situations. Conflict resolvers are taught verbal de-escalation skills to manage the emotional responses of the disputants, but they are not taught how to effectively manage their own physiological responses to the stress and emotions they experience as conflict resolvers.  This experiential presentation will address this fundamental gap in training by introducing somatic skills focused on breath, posture and vision that help mitigate the stress of resolving conflict.

Stephen Kotev is a conflict resolution consultant offering mediation, negotiation, conflict analysis, facilitation training and somatic education to private and government clients. He holds a masters degree from George Mason University's Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution and a black belt in the Japanese martial art of Aikido. He is a former employee of the Association for Conflict Resolution and the American Bar Association Section of Dispute Resolution. Most recently he served as an ADR Specialist for the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency. He can be reached at stephen@stephenkotev.com. For more information about Stephen, listen to a two-part interview about his work on the Texas Conflict Coach, Patti Porter's  Show at:

http://www.texasconflictcoach.com/2010/somatic-skills-for-conflict-resolvers-foundation/

http://www.texasconflictcoach.com/2010/somatic-skills-for-conflict-resolvers-practice/