Participants will be challenged to look at conflict, not only on the resolution side, but the build ups and triggers that are the root of it.

Amanda Ripley is a New York Times bestselling author and an investigative journalist who writes about human behavior and change for the Atlantic, the Washington Post and other outlets. She is the author ofHigh Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out,TheSmartest Kids in the World--and How They Got That Way andThe Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes, and Why, and she is the host of the Slate podcast, How To!

In communities like Mansfield, it often feels like there are two sides and you have to pick one, which shouldn’t be the case. In Ripley’s book, High Conflict (2021) it describes what happens when regular conflict distills into a good-versus-evil kind of feud, the type with an "us" and a "them." In this state, the brain behaves differently, and the normal rules do not apply. High Conflict chronicles the journey of people who were trapped in very different kinds of conflict, from the personal to the political, and then found their way out.