About 2 years ago, I chanced upon a book on psychology and mediation. I read it and agreed that beyond strategic negotiators and hard-core problem solvers, mediators needed to understand world-views of parties, listen, empathize and help them help themselves by finding resolutions they can live with. (After all, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.)

I took the costly step of attending the author's course on Psychology and Mediation in London (Dec 2012) and found myself to be the only Singaporean alumni.

It was a bold decision to bring this course to Singapore and I have my HMG colleagues (Tat, Salim, Audrey, Eng Wah) to thank for encouraging me to go through with this. They and a majority of the course participants took me at my word, and paid a large sum of money to attend this course. I am also deeply appreciative of SMC for going above and beyond to help with marketing and logistics. I am overwhelmed by the amount of goodwill everyone has shown me.

Today I am joined by 13 other psychologically-informed mediators, who through their energy and enthusiasm, have inspired me to keep pressing on in this area of work (that can be sometimes so frustratingly unrewarding...it's true). Excited to see how this will lead to a more vibrant amicable dispute resolution culture in Singapore and beyond.

Linda Heng - 4th June 2014