Further Reading — Chapter 15: Reframing

This list provides twelve annotated sources organized by theme. Annotations describe both content and how each source connects to Chapter 15's concepts. Sources range from foundational academic texts to accessible practitioner guides.

Foundational Works: Negotiation and Conflict

1. Fisher, R., & Ury, W. (1981). Getting to yes: Negotiating agreement without giving in. Houghton Mifflin. (Subsequent editions with Bruce Patton: 1991, 2011.)

The source of the position/interest distinction that anchors Section 15.2. Fisher and Ury's framework — principled negotiation — is organized around four principles: separate the people from the problem, focus on interests not positions, invent options for mutual gain, and insist on objective criteria. The position/interest distinction is the most intellectually portable of these principles, and this chapter has applied it as a reframing tool rather than merely a negotiation technique. The orange conflict example is adapted from an early edition. The 2011 edition with Patton adds substantial material on BATNA (Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement) and is the most complete version. Essential reading for anyone who will engage in any form of negotiation or mediated conflict resolution.

2. Stone, D., Patton, B., & Heen, S. (1999). Difficult conversations: How to discuss what matters most. Viking. (Revised edition: 2010.)

A Harvard Negotiation Project text that extends and applies the Fisher/Ury framework to everyday interpersonal conflicts. Stone, Patton, and Heen identify three simultaneous conversations that take place within any difficult conversation: the "what happened" conversation (facts and intentions), the "feelings" conversation (emotions), and the "identity" conversation (what the conflict means about who you are). This framework maps onto the multi-layer model of conflict introduced in Chapter 2 and directly informs the reframing work of Chapter 15. The book's treatment of "assumptions" and "contributions" is particularly relevant to the charitable interpretation technique in Section 15.4.

3. Mnookin, R., Peppet, S., & Tulumello, A. (2000). Beyond winning: Negotiating to create value in deals and disputes. Harvard University Press.

A more advanced treatment of interest-based negotiation by Harvard Law School faculty. This text is particularly valuable for its treatment of the "tension between empathy and assertiveness" — the challenge of holding genuine curiosity about the other party's interests while also clearly advocating for your own. Mnookin and colleagues provide a sophisticated framework for the kind of dual-track attention required when offering a reframe to another person (Section 15.4) while remaining present to your own interests. Appropriate for readers who work in legal, policy, or organizational conflict contexts.

Cognitive and Psychological Foundations

4. Beck, A. T. (1979). Cognitive therapy and the emotional disorders. Penguin Books.

Aaron Beck's foundational text on cognitive therapy — the tradition from which the "reframe catalog" in Section 15.3 is directly derived. Beck identifies the specific cognitive distortions (catastrophizing, personalization, all-or-nothing thinking, overgeneralization) that maintain depression and anxiety, and develops the techniques of cognitive restructuring: identifying automatic thoughts, examining their accuracy, and substituting more balanced alternatives. This book is the intellectual ancestor of every cognitive reframe in Chapter 15. Beck writes accessibly for a general audience and does not require clinical background. Highly recommended for readers who want to understand the evidence-based foundations of cognitive reframing.

5. Burns, D. D. (1980). Feeling good: The new mood therapy. Morrow.

A widely read popularization of Beck's cognitive therapy by one of Beck's students. Burns provides a comprehensive taxonomy of cognitive distortions and extensive self-help exercises for identifying and revising them. The "cognitive distortion" categories in Burns's work (which includes thought records, cost-benefit analyses, and behavioral experiments) translate readily into conflict contexts. This is the most accessible entry point into the CBT tradition for general readers. Burns's later book, The Feeling Good Handbook (1989), includes specific chapters on interpersonal conflict. Both have sold millions of copies and have been studied as bibliotherapy (reading as treatment) with documented effectiveness.

6. Epictetus. (c. 108 CE). Enchiridion. (Various modern translations.)

The philosophical ancestor of cognitive reframing. Epictetus, the Stoic philosopher who wrote in the first and second centuries CE, organized his philosophy around a single distinction: some things are "up to us" (our judgments, desires, responses) and some things are not (external events, other people's behavior, outcomes). The discipline of attention — focusing on what is within our control (our frame) rather than what is not (the other person's behavior) — is a Stoic practice. Beck acknowledged the Stoic tradition's influence on cognitive therapy: the CBT formulation that "it is not things that disturb us, but our opinions about things" is a direct translation of Epictetus. This short text (the Enchiridion is fewer than fifty pages in most editions) provides the deepest philosophical grounding for the reframing enterprise.

Narrative Therapy

7. White, M., & Epston, D. (1990). Narrative means to therapeutic ends. W. W. Norton.

The foundational text of narrative therapy, which Case Study 02 examines in depth. White and Epston develop the practice of externalizing conversations — separating the person from the problem — and the concept of unique outcomes as the basis for re-authoring dominant problem stories. The theoretical framework draws on Michel Foucault's analysis of power/knowledge and Gregory Bateson's cybernetics. The practical chapters, which include detailed transcripts of therapeutic conversations, demonstrate concretely how narrative reframes are introduced and developed. For conflict practitioners, the most immediately applicable material is in Chapters 1 and 3.

8. White, M. (2007). Maps of narrative practice. W. W. Norton.

A more mature and comprehensive statement of White's narrative therapy framework, written near the end of his life (he died in 2008). This text introduces the concept of "absent but implicit" — the idea that what is spoken in a conversation always implies what is not spoken, and that skillful practitioners can make the implicit explicit. For conflict contexts, this concept is particularly relevant: when someone frames a conflict as a disaster ("this always happens to me"), the absent-but-implicit counterpart might be something like "and I expected better / I deserve better / things could be different." Making the implicit explicit is a form of narrative reframing that respects both the person's experience and the fuller context of that experience.

Framing Theory and Language

9. Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. University of Chicago Press.

A landmark work in cognitive linguistics demonstrating that abstract thought is fundamentally structured by conceptual metaphors — frames built from physical and embodied experience. The Lakoff/Johnson framework is the theoretical basis for understanding why frames are not merely rhetorical choices but deep cognitive structures: they determine what "counts" as evidence, what solutions seem natural, and what options seem absurd. The chapter's discussion of "argument as war" (which produces winners, losers, attacks, defenses) versus "argument as journey" (which produces directions, paths, destinations, and companions) comes from this tradition. Essential reading for anyone interested in the linguistics of conflict and the cognitive depth of framing effects.

10. Tannen, D. (1998). The argument culture: Moving from debate to dialogue. Random House.

Linguist Deborah Tannen's examination of how American public culture's "argument frame" — the default approach of treating all disagreement as combat — shapes what is possible in both public and private discourse. Tannen argues that the pervasive war metaphor (debate as battle, positions as lines to be held, opponents as enemies) is not just a style but a cognitive frame that makes collaborative problem-solving literally harder to imagine. The book is a sustained argument for what Chapter 15 calls the "win/lose → solve together" reframe, applied at the cultural level. Particularly useful for readers who work in organizational, political, or media contexts.

Mediation and Third-Party Reframing

11. Kolb, D. M., & Williams, J. (2003). Everyday negotiation: Navigating the hidden agendas in bargaining. Jossey-Bass.

Kolb and Williams examine how reframing operates in everyday negotiation contexts — particularly in organizational settings where power dynamics complicate the formal equality assumed in most negotiation theory. The book introduces the concept of "moves and turns" — the small, often implicit conversational acts that shift the frame of a negotiation. Particularly relevant to Chapter 15's Section 15.4 (helping others reframe), this book provides concrete language for the softening-frame technique and detailed analysis of how offered reframes succeed or fail depending on timing, relationship, and power context.

12. Winslade, J., & Monk, G. (2000). Narrative mediation: A new approach to conflict resolution. Jossey-Bass.

The most direct application of narrative therapy principles to professional conflict resolution. Winslade and Monk — working in New Zealand, where narrative therapy originated — developed a mediation practice built explicitly around the externalizing conversation and re-authoring. In narrative mediation, the mediator's primary task is not to facilitate compromise between two positions but to help both parties "deconstruct" the dominant conflict story and develop a more complex, shared account that opens new possibilities. This text provides extensive practice transcripts and is particularly valuable for readers who work in formal mediation, school counseling, or restorative justice contexts. The connection to Chapter 15's narrative reframe concept is direct and explicit.

For related reading, see also the Further Reading lists for Chapter 11 (Language of Confrontation) and Chapter 14 (Asking Better Questions), which include additional sources on framing, discourse, and questioning as tools of conflict intervention.