Name : David Mitchell. Director of Mitchell Mediate. Home | MITCHELL MEDIATECareer Journey and Accomplishments.
- I have a passion for life, love, healing, teaching. Beware, it is contagious.
- 43 years as a GP practicing Integrative Medicine within a person-centered, problem-solving, solution focused framework, helping, managing and championing chronically disabled/mentally and physically unwell, patients, who had fallen through the cracks in the pavement of medical science. The curious questions of "why are you unwell?" and "what is happening in your body, mind, soul and genes?" and "how can we achieve positive changes?"
- Fellow of Australian Medical Acupuncture College and teacher, mentor, examiner and writer on acupuncture for doctors studying or using acupuncture.
- 1977-1987 Owned a winery in McLaren Vales producing red wines and ports. Inventor of Dr David's Plasma Port.
- Weekly hour long talk-back radio show as doctor and health expert.
- 1998 Co-author of No.1 best selling book on the four stages leading up to diabetes and the Metabolic Syndrome Taming the Dinosaur Gene) and co-author of the companion cookbook (Feeding the Dinosaur Gene). Travelled with my wife co- speaking (and cooking on stage) at conferences and seminars throughout Australia and New Zealand
- 2015 Publication of a book of my poems: "Conversations with the Heart-Mind"
- Age 71 -72 in one year overloaded and achieved a Masters in Health Management and became a mediator. Fell in love with Aristotle's virtue ethics, collaboration and writing as an educator.
- 2018-present: Active Pro-Bono mediator Adelaide Magistrates Courts, unofficial tutor of law students during their mediation unit elective
- 2020- present: monthly researched article in Resolution Institute's Pulse e-zine.
Career Advice.
- Develop a habit of self-reflection, compassion, care and curiosity, read widely and well–outside your usual genre(s).
- Find a mentor or supervisor whom you aspire to be like (not a life-coach please!)
- From the above grow (mature) into a state of Practical Wisdom where you, your skills and your knowledge will allow you to make the right decision, for the right person, at the right time for a greater good.
- Accept that mediation is not the process, it is you and the application and extension of your persona, charism/presence and your use of listening, questioning, practical, psychological and philosophical skills that allow you to enter a triadic equidistance discourse and affect (without bias or influence) a positive outcome.
What do you enjoy doing outside of work.
- Daytime: Woodwork . I love machines and gadgets and I've worked out if a want a tool I invent a job (e.g. a deck or renovations or a table or cupboards or racks) so I can justify its purpose/purchase to my wife.
- Night time: Reading in Sci-Fi, philosophy, psychology and neuro-science, and weekend newspapers. Then curious researching of a topic to write about in Pulse e-zine. So far these articles have included topics on Aristotle and Practical Wisdom; Reflective learning; Paul Ricoeur's concept of 'self as another'; meditation; passion in mediation; curious questioning; the mediator as a conductor and his/her repertoire (that which is appropriate and useable by a mediator such as NLP, TA, Emotional Intelligence, compassion); and greater freedom for a mediator within the bounds of impartiality
- Anytime: A good red wine from SA (especially Barossa and Coonawarra), Italy, Spain or Cotes du Rhone.
Community questionIf you could ask other mediators in the room one question, what would it be?
- How are you travelling? The answers can tell me where you have come from, where you are now and hint at the future (aspirations and ambition). The answers can reveal a narrative that is congruent, haphazard, blocked lost or successful. This is a powerful curious question (as outlined in my April Pulse article). Curious questions are a mediator's best friend. Coming out of left field, they can disturb a person's persona (Paul Ricoeur's 'self as another') and open up a different line of thought, even an unconscious reframing without influence.
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David Chin
Membership Manager
Resolution Institute
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