I'm on a personal campaign to remove the word "venting" from mediators' vocabularies because it suggests an eruption on the part of one party that I experience as a diminishment of the true joint session process taking place in a safe environment in which both parties are permitted to "take their part" in the injury causing event or miscommunications that too often lead to business litigation.

Too often the attorneys tell their client that it's good to allow the other side to "vent" they're sending a message that they must put up a false front, tolerate the other side's "venting" and be unmoved by it when the goal - in addition to settlement - is to move toward accountability amends, forgiveness and reconciliation.

Lofty goals for the settlement of civil litigation, I know, but I have seen this transformative process work in commercial litigation too many times not to have hope if the parties are willing.