Improving Negotiation and Mediation with Internal Family Systems (IFS): It's Not What You (Probably) Think It Is 

In his distinguished career as a law professor, Leonard Riskin has pioneered and promoted the inclusion of negotiation, mediation, alternative dispute resolution, and mindfulness in legal education and practice.  Over the last decade, he added Internal Family Systems (IFS). His book—Managing Conflict Mindfully: Don't Believe Everything You Think (West Academic Publishers 2023)—integrates negotiation (including mediation), mindfulness, and IFS. 

This talk will introduce IFS and show how it can improve understanding, performance, outcomes, and well-being in negotiation and mediation. 

IFS developed as model of the mind or psyche and an approach to psychotherapy. It rests and focuses on the idea that the human mind or psyche includes two wholly different kinds of entities: many "Parts" (a.k.a., "subpersonalities") that interact as a system (much like members of actual human families), and one "Self," a deeper, wiser entity, with qualities such as compassion, caring, and clarity. "Self-Leadership," is the goal of IFS therapy; it means that the Self leads the Parts and the internal family system. 

IFS, now an evidence-based method of psychotherapy, was created by Richard C. Schwartz, Ph.D., a renowned family therapist and author, and has rapidly spread across the U.S. and around the globe. It attracted practitioners and academics in other fields. In recent years, IFS has appeared in negotiation meditation, and other courses at U.S. law schools and in training programs for lawyers, negotiators, mediators. 

About Leonard L. Riskin, J.D., LLM

Leonard L. Riskin is a visiting professor at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law; Distinguished Senior Fellow at its Center on Negotiation, Mediation, and Restorative Justice; and Chesterfield Smith Professor Emeritus at the University of Florida Levin College of Law. He previously served as Director of the Center for the Study of Dispute Resolution and Isidor Loeb Professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law.

In 1996, Leonard published the globally-influential "grid" of mediator orientations. He has trained mediators around the world, won a variety of awards, and published several books and numerous academic articles, as well as essays in popular publications including the New York Times Magazine and The Atlantic. His most recent book is Managing Conflict Mindfully: Don't Believe Everything You Think (2023).

Currently, Leonard leads efforts to integrate mindfulness and internal family systems (IFS) into the education and practices of lawyers and mediators. He practices, teaches, and writes about ADR, with particular focus on mediation and negotiation.