星空传媒

My cat, Dylan, whom I raised from a kitten, died this month at the age of 12. It has been a very upsetting time.

While he was ill, a part of me realised that he might not make it and, as I鈥檓 not afraid of showing my emotions, I must have been quite difficult to spend time with. Most people empathised and could appreciate how distressing it is to lose a pet; others found it too much to deal with.

But it wasn鈥檛 Dylan鈥檚 plight that was the difficulty, nor was it dislike of pets in general. Their problem appeared to be purely to do with the expression of emotion.

In nearly every case that mediators deal with, emotions run high. By the time the case reaches us the emotional content is mostly driven by the nature of the dispute, but I鈥檇 guess that, usually, a lot of the emotion was there to start with and has merely become attached to the conflict as time has gone by. So often in a conflict the involved parties are unhappy or angry about something else that is going on in their life, and their inability to resolve or express that can be a major contributory factor to the dispute getting out of hand.

As well as helping them to explore the options for resolution, a lot of the work carried out by mediators focuses on acknowledging the emotions displayed by our clients. We don鈥檛 try to carry out any sort of counselling, but we understand the importance of validating the way our clients feel.

I鈥檓 sure you鈥檒l have been angry or upset by something before now, and you may have been asked to calm down or cheer up. You probably found that deeply irritating.

When we are upset or angry, and we look to somebody for comfort, often the best response we can get is just a simple acknowledgment of the emotion we are displaying. We don鈥檛 need solutions thrust on us, nor do we need to be encouraged to abandon our emotions for the comfort of others. Just having our feelings reflected and acknowledged makes us feel better.

It is increasingly accepted that people in today鈥檚 society need a greater sense of emotional literacy if our dreams of social cohesion are to be realised. But for all the training we might receive to enable us to deal with emotional clients, many of us are too bound by layers of etiquette or a lack of an emotional vocabulary to even begin to explore the subject.

So much of our interaction with others is governed by social niceties. I am aware that the expected response to 鈥済ood morning, how are you?鈥� is 鈥渇ine, how are you?鈥� but I must admit to being a little more honest than that. Some people appear to panic at this sight of a human emotion and make for the nearest exit.

In our schools project, we spend a great deal of time with children helping them to understand the emotions of others and how to identify and express their own.

Not only does this help them to become peer mediators, it also enables them to avoid arguments because they are more able to talk about how they feel. The improvements we see in their behaviour and confidence is astounding.

However, we can鈥檛 just send these emotionally literate children out into a world where a simple question such as 鈥淗ow are you?鈥� is surrounded by decades of etiquette. We need to change these rules if they are not to be discouraged the first time they try to talk about how they feel.

In the past couple of weeks, the best response I鈥檝e had to mentioning Dylan鈥檚 death was simply: 鈥淚鈥檓 sorry to hear that.

It must be absolutely heartbreaking.鈥�

Yes, it is.