Simone Weil wrote in 1942: “Those who are unhappy have no need for anything in this world but people capable of giving them their attention. The capacity to give one’s attention to a sufferer is a very rare and difficult thing; it is almost a miracle. Nearly all those who think they have this capacity do not possess it. Warmth of heart, impulsiveness, pity are not enough.”
Weil was not writing about mediation. But it would be difficult to find a more precise description of what a mediator is called to do at the table: not to judge, not to fix, not to carry. Simply to be genuinely present.
In a 2015 piece published on Mediate.com, Tammy Lenski opened this capacity to examination. Her questions were straightforward: What do we do with the pain that lies beneath conflict? Is pain our concern, or is it not? And if it is, how do we stay beside it without taking it on?
What Lies Beneath the Dispute
Every dispute has a surface story. A monetary claim, a shareholding percentage, a contractual term, a damages demand. These are visible across the table. Beneath them, something else tends to lie: disappointment, a sense of betrayal, the need for acknowledgement, loss.
A 2024 study published in the Journal of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers documents that the majority of parties entering mediation do so carrying some form of traumatic experience. Divorce, the collapse of a business partnership, job loss, a malpractice claim. Even the mandatory pre-litigation mediation process itself can become a retraumatising experience, forcing parties to revisit what they have been through.
The same research shows that trauma directly shapes how parties behave at the table. Once the amygdala is activated beyond a certain threshold, a person loses access to regulated thinking. At that point, telling someone to “calm down” or “be rational” does not work. The person is not fully present in the current moment; the body is responding as though the threat is still ongoing.
When a mediator overlooks this, the process can still move forward. Numbers can shift. A settlement may even be reached. But it becomes harder to say that what the parties experienced was genuinely resolved.
Trauma-Informed Mediation
Trauma-informed mediation has emerged from the intersection of psychology and legal practice over many years. Its core principle is this: a mediator learns to read parties’ behaviour not as dysfunction, but as a natural response to what they have been through.
The central question changes. Not “What did you do wrong?” but “What happened to you?” A small shift in framing. In practice, it changes everything.
The approach rests on five principles. Safety: physical and emotional safety is a precondition; a party who does not feel safe will not open up. Transparency: providing clear information about the process, explaining what to expect, helps parties feel that they retain some measure of control. Choice: people who have experienced trauma often feel that control has been taken from them; even small choices can be restorative. Collaboration: moving from “I know best, follow my lead” to “let us find a way forward together.” Empowerment: reminding parties of their own capacity to make decisions, and of their strengths.
None of these principles originated in mediation. They have been applied in healthcare, education and social work for years. Mediation has been relatively late in bringing this body of knowledge into practice.
What It Means to Bear Witness
There is a meaningful distinction between what Weil calls “genuine attention” and professional empathy.
Empathy is the effort to understand what another person is feeling. Bearing witness goes further: it means accepting the reality of another person’s experience without attempting to change or correct it.
At the mediation table, this distinction takes a concrete form. A party is describing how a long business partnership fell apart, how they felt betrayed. The mediator’s instinctive response tends to be one of two things: to close down that line of conversation in order to move the process forward, or to respond with sympathy.
Bearing witness requires neither. It requires a third thing: to remain present in the middle of that moment, without judgement and without agenda. As Lenski put it, relief from pain often comes from moving closer to it, not away from it.
This does not mean the mediator takes on a therapeutic role. The boundary matters greatly. But that boundary sits somewhere between “this is not my concern” and “I am here.” The second position is not therapeutic. It is human.
The Mediator’s Own Weight
What does bearing witness to pain do to the mediator?
The concept of secondary traumatic stress, defined by Figley in 1995, established that helping professionals who are exposed to another person’s trauma can develop similar symptoms themselves: intrusive thoughts relating to the other person’s experience, avoidance, emotional exhaustion. This has been observed in therapists, social workers, emergency medical practitioners and legal professionals. Mediators remain an under-researched group within this body of literature.
Compassion fatigue, as Stamm’s framework describes it, consists of two components: secondary traumatic stress and professional burnout. The two frequently intertwine and each deepens the other.
An important finding, though, is this: exposure to another person’s pain does not by itself produce compassion fatigue. What matters is how the professional processes that exposure. Higher levels of self-criticism are associated with greater risk. Supervision, peer support and healthy boundaries consistently emerge as protective factors.
Developing the capacity to bear witness must go hand in hand with developing the means to protect oneself.
What Changes in Practice
Before the first session: Parties can be given more than procedural information about how mediation works. A brief framing, normalising the fact that strong emotions may arise during the process, can help parties manage their own physical and psychological responses when they do.
Emotional moments: A party stops mid-sentence, takes a breath, their eyes fill. This is not a detour from the path toward resolution. It is the path. Making room for the moment, rather than closing it down, often unlocks a negotiation that has stalled.
Acknowledgement and recognition: Research shows that parties in mediation frequently seek some form of recognition, even when they do not name it. Sometimes what is needed is not a figure but the words “I understand what this has cost you.” When a mediator can recognise that need, both the process and the durability of any settlement tend to shift.
Boundary awareness: Holding a moment and managing a process are different things. The balance between them is a skill each mediator develops within their own practice. Supervision and peer support are not optional extras in this context. They are necessary.
Not a Miracle. A Skill.
What Weil described as “almost a miracle” is, in fact, a skill. It is rare not because of its nature but because it is rarely taught.
Mediation training tends to focus on process management, negotiation technique and legal frameworks. All of this is necessary. But seeing what the person across the table is carrying, and remaining beside that weight without taking it on, is also a skill. One that can be learned, developed and protected.
References
- Lenski, T. (2015). Bearing Witness to Suffering: Mediating in the Shadow of Pain. Mediate.com
- Trauma-Informed Mediation: A Path Forward. Journal of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, Vol. 37, 2024
- Trauma-Informed Care in Mediation. Mediate.com, 2023
- Trauma-Informed Mediation: 6 Key Strategies for Attorneys and Mediators. Miles Mediation Blog, 2024
- Figley, C.R. (1995). Compassion Fatigue: Coping with Secondary Traumatic Stress Disorder in Those Who Treat the Traumatized. Brunner/Mazel
- Stamm, B.H. (2010). The Concise ProQOL Manual. ProQOL.org
- Ondrejková, N. et al. (2022). Prevalence of compassion fatigue among helping professions. Health & Social Care in the Community
- Weil, S. (1942). Waiting for God.
