Conflict is the fire in which solid relationships are forged. A fair conflict, conducted with sure knowledge of your own goals and values, and with respect and care for your opponent makes for sustainable and productive alliances and friendships. But making conflict safe, productive, and even fun requires skills and attitudes that help ward off those aspects of conflict that lead most of us to avoid it whenever possible.

We, the Befriending Conflict team, believe that a small set of simple tools, based on awareness rather than power and prescriptions, can transform any conflict, no matter how grand or insignificant, into an opportunity for personal and organizational growth and sustainable collaboration. We believe that the tools we are offering, based on the principles of Process Work, World Work, and Deep Democracy (developed by Arnold Mindell and his colleagues), can enable all of us to enter into spicy, productive relationships while avoiding escalation, violence and many of the other negative aspects of conflict which too often make us avoid, rather than explore, potential and actual conflict.