Too often (and increasingly as a means of mediators trying to differentiate themselves and offer “higher value propositions”), mediation it is oversold as something “deep” and “transformative”—but that is not what mediation is. It is simply a process designed to help disputing parties negotiate structured agreements in a neutral setting. Importing therapeutic components into mediation (e.g., “trauma-informed practice” or “healing-centered engagement”) doesn’t improve the process. It adds complication, confusion, and ethical risk. Worse, it distracts from mediation’s real purpose: procedural fairness and enforceable outcomes.
What Mediation Is (and Isn’t)
Utah law is clear. Under Utah Code § 81-9-403, mediation is a structured negotiation process. Its job is to create an environment where parties can voluntarily reach enforceable agreements. Courts enforce those agreements when they are clear, voluntary, and fair. Mediation is not designed to serve as counseling, therapy, or emotional rehabilitation.
Mediation isn’t about healing your relationship or processing your trauma. It’s about resolving legal disputes over child custody, child and spousal support, marital property/assets and marital debts and obligations. A mediator’s job is to provide neutrality, confidentiality, and an effective negotiation process. Expecting mediators to play amateur therapist undermines those duties. When mentally or emotionally unstable parties participate in mediation, their instability is the problem—not a justification for turning mediation into a therapy session or worse—an appeasement process.
The Rise of Therapy-Speak in Mediation
The value of mediation lies largely in ensuring it does not get diluted by unnecessary practices and procedures. But so many mediators either come from the mental health professions or have such affinity for therapeutic culture that they just cannot avoid the siren call of therapy-speak. You’ll see it marketed under slogans like: “Trauma-informed mediation,” “Healing-centered engagement,” “Restorative dialogue,” “Co-regulation sessions,” “Cultural competency, ” “Neurodivergent literacy,” “Gender differences,” and much, much more. It sounds enlightened, but it needlessly (and often counterproductively) blurs the lines between therapy and negotiation. They suggest mediation is incomplete without adopting psychological jargon. In reality, they clutter and hamper the process. This is conceit disguised as competence.
Why This Is a Problem
Dilutes fairness. Mediation already has a fairness framework: neutrality, voluntariness, and enforceability. Introducing therapeutic fads into the process risks substituting those clear standards with vague and unworkable ones.
Catering to pathology. Some parties to mediation are mentally and/or emotionally unstable. Mediation cannot fix that. Trying to “accommodate trauma” risks enabling manipulation.
Confuses roles. Mediators are not group therapy facilitators. Mediation’s value lies in settlement, not emotional healing. Advocates of therapeutic-style mediation sometimes argue, “But if emotional healing helps reach settlement, wouldn’t it be a good thing?” That confuses means with ends. Mediation is not designed to produce catharsis or personal growth; it is designed to produce clear, enforceable agreements. When therapeutic techniques creep in, the mediator risks abandoning neutrality, turning into a quasi-counselor, an advocate, and that undermines a settlement’s enforceability. If a party truly needs emotional healing, that is the job of a therapist outside the mediation room, not a mediator inside it.
The Legal Standard Already Exists
Utah mediation law already demands fairness, impartiality, and informed decision-making. Due process requires that parties know the issues, have an opportunity to be heard, and enter agreements voluntarily. Courts have long enforced those protections without importing therapy paradigms into mediation. No statute or case suggests mediation has a hidden flaw that requires “trauma-informed” or “healing-centered” practices to fix. For lay readers: the law already has your back. The fairness you need is built in. Gimmicks don’t add protection, they add confusion.
Calling Out the Emperor’s New Clothes
It is not only acceptable but necessary for professionals to say: “This is nonsense. This does not help mediation.” Therapy-speak is seductive because it sounds enlightened, compassionate, and/or transcendent. But mediation’s real value lies in clarity, impartiality, and enforceable results. Lawyers and mediators shouldn’t hesitate to call out extraneous policies or practices for what they are and for the trouble they cause. For divorcing spouses: if someone tries to meld mediation with therapy, don’t be afraid to refuse. It’s your right to simplicity, clarity, and impartiality in the settlement negotiation process. No more, no less. Expect it. Demand it.
The value of mediation lies in keeping it simple and unadulterated. Mediation is structured negotiation, not group therapy. Therapy fads detract from the effectiveness and the value of mediation. If we keep mediation grounded in law rather than muddled with therapeutic jargon, it will remain what it is meant to be: a clear, fair, efficient, comparatively inexpensive, and effective way to resolve family disputes.
Utah Family Law, LC | divorceutah.com | 801-466-9277