In addition to creating your identity illustration, address the following prompts:
Introduction
What are the 4-5 most important (core) elements of your identity?
Where and how were each of these aspects of your identity formed?
Think of the last time that one or more of these identities were threatened. (The focus here should be on a threat that came through the words or actions of another person or other people, not internal battles you might have experienced within yourself.)
How did you respond?
Northrup (1989) believes that conflicts that threaten or are perceived as threatening to our core concepts of self very often result in intractable conflicts. How does your example support or refute this belief?
In your opinion, why does identity have such a major impact on a person’s response to conflict? Support your view with information from the course, the textbooks, or other academic material.
In your opinion, how does your identity impact your personal conflict style that you discovered in Module 1?
Think about your personal reaction to conflict in light of what Shapiro called the repetition compulsion. Respond to the following questions adapted from p. 65:
What recurrently dysfunctional pattern(s) do you exhibit in conflict? (We all have them!)
At the moment when this pattern occurs, what is threatening your identity? Be specific and intro
spective in your explanation.
Which of the common issues listed on p. 66 lure you into the repetition compulsion? Is it something else? Why do you think these things pull you in?
Conflict is almost never one-sided, and the ability and willingness to own your own contribution to a conflict is indicative of an increasing level of emotional intelligence (which we will discuss in the next module). With that in mind, think back to a recent conflict in which you were personally involved. How did your own words and actions contribute to the escalation of this conflict? Provide specific evidence of words that you said and/or actions that you took that made the conflict more difficult for everyone involved.
Consider a long-standing conflict with which you are personally familiar. It should be one in which you are personally involved if possible, or at least one with which you are very familiar with the parties and the details. Synthesizing the material from Northrup and Shapiro’s section on the sacred and any other academic material you find appropriate, analyze the conflict in terms of its intractability and the sacred.
What do each of the parties hold sacred that is threatened by this conflict?
Is it possible for the parties to disentangle the sacred from the secular (Shapiro, pp. 105-107)? Explain.
Is this conflict intractable? Explain.
Conclusion