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Copyright 2002 Carrying Council in the Wilderness Why Council Works There are, to be sure, bad councils. Stubborn participants, inattentive facilitators, situational discomfort, hidden agendas, interpersonal stresses, or just sheer damn bad luck can make a council turn sour. Yet council does work, and – especially in the wilderness setting – can lead to more consensual decisionmaking, greater team cohesion, better problem solving, more efficient resolution of interpersonal conflict, and remarkable personal growth in both courage and compassion. It does all this, I believe, through a very simple mechanism: it provides a safe and supportive space – a sacred space – within which a simple set of rules allows the participants to recognize their mutual humanity, learn from each other, get their own thoughts and feelings in order, and behave like the autonomous problem-solvers the council process envisions them to be. There has been an increasing amount of research on what Duncan & Miller (2000) call the heroic client – the recognition that people seeking therapy are themselves the primary agents of change, and should be treated as having the strengths and resources necessary to solve their problems. As documented in Bohart & Tallman (1999), there are indeed good reasons to believe that people are autonomous problem-solving self-healers, “who invest interventions with life, create the effects interventions are supposed to produce, and actively use these interventions in their own unique, creative ways” (p. 15). Indeed, unproductive or apparently harmful behavior can often be seen as problem-solving behaviors that happen to be unsuccessful, and the unsuccessful problem-solving in turn may be the result of insufficient information, outside pressure, or simply the lack of a safe space within which to work out better solutions. As participants speak of their beliefs, opinions, fears, and struggles, others gain confidence that what they say in council will not be used against them. Participants speak of the bravery of those who open themselves, and emphasize that effective teambuilding and decisionmaking benefit from the input of everyone in the group; participants are honored by the openness of other participants. The way council operates teaches, by the way participants deal with each other, that it is possible to have relationships built on respect and caring. | ||
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