By Rachael Hirstein
NSU Associate Professor of Conflict Resolution and Communication Alexia Georgakopoulos recently helped edit and publish “The Handbook of Mediation: Theory, Research and Practice” in Feb. 2017 along with over 60 other professionals in the field.
The professionals hail from universities, organizations and government agencies including Johns Hopkins University, Harvard University, the Canadian International Institute of Applied Negotiation, the U.S. military and others. This book describes not only what mediation is but also how it relates to many other subjects, such as conflict resolution and the different social sciences.
This is not the first book Georgakopoulos has published, but she said she has never published this type of book before.
“I’ve published three mediation training manuals that were improved by the Florida Supreme Court,” she said. “This was the first official handbook.”
According to Georgakopoulos, mediation has become a very popular method in the court system recently.
“[Mediation] goes back to ancient times and cultures, but our application of mediation and our ability to popularly use it is relatively new,” Georgakopoulos said. “I can say in Florida, in the Supreme Court system, we were one of the pioneers to implement mediation.”
She also explained that mediation is becoming popular in certain areas, such as healthcare, politics and environmental issues.
Georgakopoulos worked with Charles Goesel, a doctoral student in conflict analysis and resolution at NSU, on the more technical parts of the book.
“I managed the chapter submissions and assured them for accuracy, content, format and language usage,” Goesel explained. “[Georgakopoulos] and I went back and forth a lot in the process, and once we had the final chapters reviewed by the publisher to get them back to us, I did one last check, and her and I did edits on our own.”
He described the challenges time brought to the table when it came to publishing this book.
“I worked there with over 50 professionals in the mediation field on about 42 chapters,” Goesel said. “Any type of project of this magnitude takes time because there was a lot of back-and-forth with the authors, asking for clarification and to make changes that had to be checked with them. We can’t just go in and change their work.”
Goesel said that the book has a lot of potential to make an impact.
“Mediation brings in aspects of so many different disciplines, like communication, psychology, sociology, social work, international relations, law and biology,” he said.
Georgakopoulos also said that this book will help to bring new light to the mediation field.
To purchase a copy of this book, visit bit.ly/TheHandbookofMediation.
