NADP Special Event | The Anatomy of Peace

THIS IS A MEMBERS ONLY EVENT

EVENT DETAILS:

Date: Thursday, June 19, 2025
Time: 6:00 PM (Eastern Time)

Join Zoom Meeting: 🔗 Click to Join

Meeting ID: 847 2652 1477
Passcode: 909885

This event has been thoughtfully designed for NADP professionals including legal, financial, mental health, and mediation experts—who regularly navigate high-stakes interpersonal conflict. The session will offer both conceptual frameworks and practical tools to support NADP members in managing the emotional and relational complexities that often arise in divorce-related work.

Session Overview:

Our session will begin with a brief presentation from Mike introducing the key themes of The Anatomy of Peace, with an emphasis on:

• Conflict resolution strategies
• Mindset and perspective shifts
• Emotional self-regulation for professionals and clients

This foundational content will set the stage for an interactive, guided discussion, allowing participants to explore how these concepts apply in real-world divorce cases.

About the Book:

The Anatomy of Peace (by the Arbinger Institute) draws from the stories of once-bitter enemies to reveal how lasting peace—whether personal, professional, or global—can only come from addressing conflict at its root. It urges us to examine not just what we’re doing, but how we’re being in our relationships with others.

Rather than offering surface-level techniques, the book challenges readers to undergo a profound mindset shift: from defensiveness and judgment to curiosity, empathy, and accountability. This inner transformation is the catalyst for lasting, outward change.

What to Expect from This Meeting:

Mike will guide us through powerful questions such as:

• What if, in our conflicts, we’re seeking something deeper than solutions?
• What if we misunderstand the true causes of conflict and, in doing so, unintentionally keep them alive?
• What is the root cause of conflict in families and interpersonal relationships?
• What internal and external shifts are necessary to resolve conflict meaningfully?
• What frameworks can we use to guide clients and ourselves through intense emotional dynamics?

The discussion will focus on how these insights apply directly to the divorce process—both in terms of how professionals can approach client conflict with greater empathy and how they can help clients reduce emotional reactivity, improve communication, and make decisions from a more centered place.

This session will be especially valuable for those who work in high-conflict divorce cases or with emotionally vulnerable clients, and for professionals who want to enhance their ability to de-escalate tension, foster collaboration, and support healthier outcomes for families.

Speaker Bio: 

Mike Merchant is a senior consultant for the Arbinger Institute. Since 1993, Mike has facilitated workshops and keynote addresses for organizations internationally on the topics of leadership, performance improvement, strategic planning, and interpersonal relationships. Michael is also the president of ANASAZI Foundation, a non-profit and nationally accredited behavioral healthcare provider for youth, young adults, and their families (anasazi.org). He has chaired numerous councils and committees on best practices for the treatment of the adolescents in the care of behavioral healthcare providers. In 2004, Mike developed the communication component at the heart of the Emmy-nominated “Take the Time to Talk” substance-abuse awareness and prevention campaign. He is the founder of the Outdoor Behavioral Healthcare Industry Council (obhic.org) and currently serves as presidentelect for the National Association of Therapeutic Schools and Programs (natsap.org). Mike is a past president of the Arizona Management Society and a graduate of Brigham Young University’s School of Management.

For those interested in learning more, Arbinger offers additional resources and short videos at Arbinger.com.

For those who wish to read the book that this talk will be covering, you can dowload the PDF version here: