As facilitators and conflict resolution practitioners we often find ourselves challenged by the behaviour of a person whom others describe as a bully. The term bully has provided us with terminology that helps define a certain type of behaviour, but it has also become a label that sometimes creates the “us-them” mentality. When facilitating a group process, or interpersonal conflict, what types of approaches can we use to uncover a deeper understanding of the "bully" and what may be driving their actions, both for us as the facilitator and for those in conflict with the “bully”? How does the use of the term assist us, and challenge us, in bringing about resolution? When is the term bully appropriate, and when is it simply used as a catch-all phrase to describe unwelcome behaviour?

Chris A. Freeman. Chris began mediating as a volunteer in a community-based parent-teen mediation program in 1992. He has since worked both for the non-profit and government sectors coaching and mediating Victim-Offender, Community-Referred and Workplace conflicts. He loves training for the energy and learning that a room of motivated people can create. He has been a guest lecturer at the University of Winnipeg, the University of Manitoba, and the Canadian Mennonite University, and has presented at several conferences across North America. He believes in an active, collaborative learning process, and a highlight and privilege for him was to develop an interactive, paperless, oral conflict resolution training for Community Justice Councils in various locations in Nunavut. Chris currently works for the Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.