A case Study

Case :
Michelle quarreled with Nancy 6 years ago. Michelle and Nancy thus ended their 15 years friendship. Today, after 6 years, Michelle is still haunted with this incident and still find it difficult to forgive Nancy.

Task :
To help Michelle to revisit the incident and look at the incident from a different perspective.

Solutions :
First we ask Michelle to picture Nancy is in front of her. At this point, Michelle has to ‘tell’ Michelle what she has in her mind and what she is not happy with Nancy. We need to guide Michelle to say out all that she wants to tell Nancy and explains why she was angry with her.

Second, we ask Michelle to put herself in the role of Nancy. This time, in the role of Nancy, she has to tell ‘Michelle’ why she wanted to argue with her, all the things she was unhappy with ‘Michelle’.

Third, we get Michelle to play the role of a ‘judge’. In the role of the ‘judge’, after listening to the arguments by 2 parties, he needs to judge and advice both parties.

Forth, Michelle puts her herself in the role of a GOD. GOD gives advice to the judge and advice the judge to be fair when doing the judgment. Then GOD give advice to Nancy and follow by advice to Michele.

Fifth, the judge, equipped with the wisdom of the GOD, will advice Nancy and Michelle respectively.

Sixth, Nancy, with the wisdom of GOD and judge, will now ‘tell and forgive’ Michelle.

Seventh, now back to herself Michelle, after going through these series of role-plays and revisiting the issue from different perspective. Now she understands Nancy better and understands why and how this issue had happened. Michelle at this point will know how to tell Nancy that we sometimes can :

1) Agree to disagree
2) Respect each other point of views
3) There are always more then 3 solutions to all issues
4) Be flexible to accept different suggestions
5) All disagreement is feedbacks
6) Can break the issues into smaller parts so to solve the problem easier

Result :
Finally, Michelle should be able to tell Nancy that nothing is more important than their long friendship and no opportunity should be contained to pull their friendship apart. Let’s forgive and forgets and let the friendship move on to a higher height.