Interpersonal Communication and Conflict

When I find myself in a conflict situation I often use the empathy approach to resolve it. This approach says that you put yourself in the shoes of the other person. I find that when I have a conflict, it often arises from the fact that the other person and I do not see eye to eye about something. If I can put myself in the other person’s shoes and understand where they are coming from, I can better understand why they feel the way they feel. This helps me to figure out how to resolve the conflict. I usually use thought empathy, which shows that you understand what the other person is trying to say. Other times, I use the “I” statements. This shows the other person that I am taking responsibility for what I did wrong and I apologize.
I do not use the defusing technique because I feel that it is the same thing as ignoring the problem. If you just tell the other person that they are right, then the conflict is not resolved and you cannot get your point across. I do not use exploration because I know if I was upset I would not want the other person asking me a lot of questions. It would only make me more upset. I also do not use stroking because if I am angry, the last thing I want to do is compliment the other person. This would just make me more upset.
I know that there have also been many times that I have failed to use healthy methods and have resorted to unhealthy conflict resolution. My favorite method to use is blaming the other person. I do this all the time when I fight with my sister or boyfriend. I do not want to admit that I am wrong, so I just blame everything on them. I also tend to get very mad and take offense to a lot of things other people say.
I think that using the healthy methods can be very useful in resolving conflicts, however the hardest part is staying calm and clear headed enough to enforce them. These techniques definitely have the potential to work, but when you are in a very heated discussion, people often forget these techniques and wind up using unhealthy techniques.