Emotions Welcome!: Deep Democracy’s Approach to Conflict Resolution

Presented by: Maya Townsend; Ipek Utun

Many conflict resolution methods assume that people are logical, rational human beings. We are. But we’re also emotional, irrational, and sometimes unpredictable. The Lewis Deep Democracy technique is designed to engage the entire human being — their logic and their emotion, their rationality, and their irrationality — in the conflict resolution process. The Lewis Method of Deep Democracy was created by Myrna and Greg Lewis to help South African companies and individuals recover and heal from the traumatic legacy of apartheid. The Lewis Method of Deep Democracy offers concrete, proven methods that support effective decision-making, problem-solving, and conflict resolution. The techniques surface undercurrents, engage all voices, and work through differences to find resolutions to seemingly impossible-to-solve issues.