Dialogue Across Cultures: Interview with Claude Durand-Viel

Claude Durand-Viel is a French clinical psychologist who has practiced in France and Switzerland, and has lived in Luxembourg for nearly five decades. She has extensive experience in supporting children, adolescents, and families within specialized settings.

In this interview, she shares her analysis of conflicts, communication, and human dynamics in multicultural societies.

⸻

Question 1 – Psychology of Conflict

In many personal, family, or professional situations, conflicts can sometimes escalate even when the initial problem seems relatively minor. From a psychological perspective, emotions, perceptions, and communication styles can play a significant role in how conflicts unfold.

Based on your experience as a psychologist, what are the main psychological factors that lead to the escalation of conflicts between individuals?

Answer :

Escalation is about "always higher, always stronger," an escalation that can be fueled by many sources: feelings of being disregarded, humiliated, unjustly dispossessed, jealousy, pride, desire for power, emotional fragility, rigidity of thought, deficiency of analytical skills… There are also people who only feel they exist when they are fighting against an enemy and who do not want conflicts to stop at all.

⸻

Question 2 – Communication and emotional awareness

Many conflicts are not necessarily caused by a genuine conflict of interest, but rather by misunderstandings in communication or by emotional reactions.

In your opinion, to what extent can emotional awareness and communication skills help prevent conflicts before they become more serious?

Answer :

If we seek to prevent a conflict, it is so that it does not take root. If we seek to prevent it from becoming more serious, it is because it has already taken root.

To prevent a conflict (if indeed one can imagine on what ground it might arise, since the pitfall of conflicts is often to appear where they are not expected), I think that after having explained one's way of appreciating the situation and listened to the points of view of the other participants, one must know how to "show one's hand," that is to say, know one's limits, state them clearly and indicate one's threshold of tolerance, the margin within which negotiations are conceivable.

To prevent a conflict from becoming more serious, it seems to me that before communication skills, analytical skills must be implemented: the most detailed analysis possible of the origins of the conflict, the protagonists present, the stakes for the various parties involved, i.e., work on the file, prior to all exchanges which will require communication skills and emotional control.

⸻

Question 3 – Cultural differences in multicultural societies

Luxembourg is a multicultural and multilingual society where people from diverse cultural backgrounds interact daily. Differences in cultural norms, communication styles, and expectations can sometimes lead to misunderstandings.

In your opinion, how important is intercultural understanding in reducing conflicts in diverse societies like Luxembourg?

Answer :

I'm not sure that we can achieve "intercultural understanding," but I am convinced that we should at best take an interest in, or at the very least learn about, the main aspects of our interlocutor's culture (societal structure, belief system, importance of traditions, lifestyles, etc.) in order to better understand how they view relationships with others, how they experience social interactions, how they consider the respective roles of orality and writing, how they manage money, how they value time, and so on.

Getting to know someone better also means discovering in order to welcome them better, and getting to know someone better means being less afraid of the strange foreigner, therefore approaching them without fear or mistrust.

⸻

Question 4 – The role of mediation

In recent years, mediation has increasingly been recognized as a constructive method for resolving disputes outside of traditional legal procedures.

From a psychological perspective, what role can mediation play in helping individuals or families resolve their conflicts more effectively?

Answer :

Mediation seems to allow us to hear the voice of a third party, not involved in the problem, who will help to decipher the communication methods of the people present and their involvement.

By reformulating the statements made by the protagonists in his own way, the mediator can help them discover the ambiguities in their words, the implications of their discourse, the expectations they did not dare admit to themselves.

Acting as a kind of mirror, the mediator presents participants with their own perception of the situation, offering a distanced perspective that sheds new light on it. This shift, this gap, this step aside, fosters a more lucid view of events, of each person's stance, and of their consequences.

⸻

Question 5 – Advice for people facing conflict

Many people facing conflict, whether in their personal or professional lives, often feel overwhelmed and do not always know how to approach the situation constructively.

What advice would you give to people facing a conflict and looking for a constructive way to resolve it?

Answer :

Sit down, get something to write with, jot down everything that comes to mind about the topic to be addressed, then prioritize the problems and concerns related to this topic, from the most important to the most secondary.

If possible, talk to someone you trust, not so much to get their opinion as to force yourself to put these worries into a communicable form.

The idea is that naming allows us to situate, to exert a certain control over what previously remained threatening because it was formless, outside the realm of thought. And thus, it allows us to revitalize reasoning, otherwise stifled by anxiety in the face of the unknown, and then to move forward, step by step, towards a feasible solution.

⸻

Question 6 – The qualities of a mediator

In your opinion, what are the essential qualities that a good mediator should possess?

Answer :

Kindness, calmness, patience, open-mindedness, analytical and synthesis skills, intellectual honesty, lucidity about one's limits and zone of tolerance, sense of observation, linguistic skills, sensitivity to the subtleties of language, emotional control… at least that is what I would expect from such a professional if I had to deal with him.

Would that make it any good? I don't know!

⸻

✍️ Claude Durand-Viel

March 17, 2026