Reducing Violence and Promoting Social Contact by TCI?

Conflicts between groups of individuals that are pitted against each other in a deprecative or even hostile way because of deeply rooted - political, cultural, religious or ethnic - resentments frequently show a typical structure in their process: Increasingly escalating aggressive resp. violent arguments are finally repacified by a kind of truce (in the literal as well as in a figurative sense). In a tacit agreement one must not touch it any longer because one has to let the proverbial grass grow over it`. The manifest conflict, in which already human beings took psychological or physical damage, is followed by passing the story over, by suppressing and by wishing to forget. However, in no phase of the conflict authentic encounter between the conflict partners happens. Thus the questions arise: (How) Can and should the involved individuals of a repacified, albeit latently continuing conflict be engaged in constructive conversation with each other? Inasmuch is such an attempt helpful to the conflict and the conflict partners or does it just open old sores again? Which possibilities of dealing with the question of guilt can be found? The model of Theme-Centered Interaction (TCI) offers - at least in theory - key notes to be taken seriously. Roughly said, the intention of the founder of the concept, Ruth C. Cohn, was to make knowledge of positive kinds of human relationship and encounter useful for society. In confrontation with the human conflict and violence potential and on the background of her intention of humanising society, Ruth C. Cohn attributes decisive importance to the development of the individuals` personalities: to their communicative competencies, to their consideration of existential themes and especially to the tension between autonomy and interdependence. The project is situated in the context of the research cluster Heiliges Land? Konfliktfeld Tiroler Raum 1 . The `society-therapeutical` potential of the TCI theory is to be investigated, the current TCI practice is to be critically analysed, and the results are to be theologically reflected in this perspective. 1 Cf. http://www2.uibk.ac.at/forschung/weltordnung/cluster1/vernetzungsrahmen.heiliges.land.pdf

Conflicts between groups of individuals that are pitted against each other in a deprecative or even hostile way because of deeply rooted - political, cultural, religious or ethnic - resentments frequently show a typical structure in their process: Increasingly escalating aggressive resp. violent arguments are finally repacified by a kind of truce (in the literal as well as in a figurative sense). In a tacit agreement one must not touch it any longer because one has to let the proverbial `grass grow over it`. The manifest conflict, in which already human beings took psychological or physical damage, is followed by passing the story over, by suppressing and by wishing to forget. However, in no phase of the conflict authentic encounter between the conflict partners happens. Thus the questions arise: (How) Can and should the involved individuals of a repacified, albeit latently continuing conflict be engaged in constructive conversation with each other? Inasmuch is such an attempt helpful to the conflict and the conflict partners or does it just open old sores again? Which possibilities of dealing with the question of guilt can be found? The model of Theme-Centered Interaction (TCI) offers - at least in theory - key notes to be taken seriously. Roughly said, the intention of the founder of the concept, Ruth C. Cohn, was to make knowledge of positive kinds of human relationship and encounter useful for society. In confrontation with the human conflict and violence potential and on the background of her intention of humanising society, Ruth C. Cohn attributes decisive importance to the development of the individuals` personalities: to their communicative competencies, to their consideration of existential themes and especially to the tension between autonomy and interdependence. The project is situated in the context of the research cluster Heiliges Land? Konfliktfeld Tiroler Raum 1 . The `society-therapeutical` potential of the TCI theory is to be investigated, the current TCI practice is to be critically analysed, and the results are to be theologically reflected in this perspective.