Book Review

Getting To Yes is the title of an easily readable paperback by Roger Fisher and William Ury.  The concepts are simple but valuable, and the book is an excellent one to recommend to clients.  It provides a framework for resolving personal conflicts at home, work, and in the community by searching for the interests or needs of each person, and working together to fill both of those needs.

For example, in a therapy session, a husband may discuss a seemingly irresolvable conflict. He wants to move to the countryside but his wife wants to remain in the city near her aging parents. From Fisher and Ury’s book, clients can learn how to explore in order to define each others’ needs,  and be encouraged to think creatively searching for solutions that meet both needs, a “win-win”. 

In the example mentioned, how could the couple meet both the wife’s need to care for her elderly parents and his need for a more spacious environment?  One possible solution might be moving to a rural area but visiting frequently on weekends. It might be moving and bringing the parents with them, or staying in town but vacationing more in the country.  Once the client has read the book, client and therapist can use the framework together for problem solving.  The method discourages defining the problem as part of a personality conflict or as personal pathology, neither of which lead to solutions.

*Getting to Yes was published by Penguin Books in1991. Both Ury and Fisher have written many other books on conflict resolution.