Centre for the Study of Conflict and Reconciliation
The Centre for the Study of Conflict and Reconciliation (CSCR) is a research centre at the University of Sheffield, based in the Mental Health Section of the School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR), and is a collaboration between the University of Sheffield and Dilemma consultancy Ltd.
We in the Centre consider that conflict is inevitable in close relationships, that successful conflict resolution can increase relationship quality, but that the avoidance or suppression of conflict may substantially impair it.
The Centre´s mission is to use research to inform practice in the prevention and management of conflict. Dissemination of research findings and of good practice are therefore priorities.
The Centre is concerned with the personal perspective on conflicts between individuals, within groups and organisations, and between larger groups, nations, and cultures. We consider that the personal perspective is applicable to all of these levels of conflict because are maintained or resolved by individuals. Our research orientation is therefore to consider what conflicts mean to individuals, how individual´s actions, emotions, and objectives contribute to the maintenance or resolution of conflicts, and why and under what circumstances individuals seek out conflict.
SEPTIMUS and DEEP
We have developed a ten week course, entirely available over the internet, on conflict management. From this seed has developed five further units, and the possibility of obtaining a Masters degree in psychotherapy studies entirely by distance learning over the net.
Well-being
We have an active research programme into well-being, focussing on means of capturing changes in well-being by means that make comparisons between interventions and between individuals possible. We are working with the Centre for Well-being and Policy in the School, and also with a network of academic counselling departments to develop this.
Deliberate self harm in women
In a series of papers, and in a forthcoming book, we have shown that there are two routes to repeated self-harm in women: the final outcome of a 'spring' of increasingly urgent thoughts of self-harm which needs to be 'triggered' into an act of self-harm, and a 'switch'. Switching occurs in women who have become addicted to self-harming as a recourse to the relief of tension, is associated with dissociation, and means that self-harm can occur unexpectedly in response to a sudden, overwhelming craving which may be induced by a cue of no intrinsic emotional significance.
Asperger syndrome
We have conducted studies on many aspects of Asperger syndrome, focussing on the mental health, social, and emotional problems of adolescents and adults. Current projects include the development and evaluation of a method of empathy training; a community study of needs for care; a study of the determinants of aggression in people with Asperger syndrome; examinting the rhetorical abilities of people with Asperger syndrome; and a study on bullying and social exclusion.
Bullying
We are conducting a number of studies of bullying. See the link to the Sheffield Bullying Observatory for more details.