neutral professional (the mediator or mediators) in order to analyse the situation arising from the spouses wish to be divorced and to try to reach their own agreement with regard to some or all the matters under dispute The phrase‘ divorce mediation’- in contrast to‘ famil mediation emphasises the application of this process to the crisis in which a couple finds itself when their marriage breaks down, and explicitly leaves aside mediation aimed at the resolution of other types of conflict that may arise between family members, such as maintenance among relatives, establishing links with biological parents, contact rights of grandparents with regard to their grandchildren, step-parent adoption or any other conflict between relatives However, this term is not inclusive enough since problems which are functionally similar to those arising from divorce also take place when married or unmarried couples decide to separate de facto or legally. Moreover, talking about 'divorce mediation is focusing on adults who are breaking up their marriage, whereas if we look at families as children-centred systems, regardless of whether parents marry, cohabit, divorce or separate, children always have to be fed, clothed, housed and looked after daily. Therefore, when viewed from the children' s perspective, the social context of mediation will extend more widely than the breakdown of marriage only, to cover all kinds of separation regardless of whether a couple is married or cohabiting. For this reason in this article i will not refer to ' divorce mediation’ but to‘ family mediation’, not in its widest sense, but in the stricter sense of mediation encompassing all possible disputes arising from the breakdown of a couple' s relationship Mediation may be seen as a type of ' Alternative Dispute Resolution, alongside other processes such as negotiation and arbitration which share with mediation the common characteristic of resolving disputes between spouses or among family members without a judge's order after an adversarial trial. However, by contrast with negotiation, where the parties or their representatives seek a resolution to their dispute through direct discussions, in mediation the dispute resolution process is facilitated by a neutral and impartial third party. In contrast to arbitration, where the parties, by mutual agreement, delegate the power to decide to a third party, in mediation this third party does not have the power to decide the dispute and aims at helping the parties to reach their own decision however, de ersally agree on the theneutral professional (the mediator or mediators) in order to analyse the situation arising from the spouses’ wish to be divorced and to try to reach their own agreement with regard to some or all the matters under dispute. The phrase ‘divorce mediation’ - in contrast to ‘family mediation’ - emphasises the application of this process to the crisis in which a couple finds itself when their marriage breaks down, and explicitly leaves aside mediation aimed at the resolution of other types of conflict that may arise between family members, such as maintenance among relatives, establishing links with biological parents, contact rights of grandparents with regard to their grandchildren, step-parent adoption or any other conflict between relatives. However, this term is not inclusive enough since problems which are functionally similar to those arising from divorce also take place when married or unmarried couples decide to separate de facto or legally. Moreover, talking about ‘divorce mediation’ is focusing on adults who are breaking up their marriage, whereas if we look at families as children-centred systems, regardless of whether parents marry, cohabit, divorce or separate, children always have to be fed, clothed, housed and looked after daily. Therefore, when viewed from the children’s perspective, the social context of mediation will extend more widely than the breakdown of marriage only, to cover all kinds of separation regardless of whether a couple is married or cohabiting. For this reason, in this article I will not refer to ‘divorce mediation’ but to ‘family mediation’, not in its widest sense, but in the stricter sense of mediation encompassing all possible disputes arising from the breakdown of a couple’s relationship. Mediation may be seen as a type of ‘Alternative Dispute Resolution’, alongside other processes such as negotiation and arbitration, which share with mediation the common characteristic of resolving disputes between spouses or among family members without a judge’s order after an adversarial trial. However, by contrast with negotiation, where the parties or their representatives seek a resolution to their dispute through direct discussions, in mediation the dispute resolution process is facilitated by a neutral and impartial third party. In contrast to arbitration, where the parties, by mutual agreement, delegate the power to decide to a third party, in mediation this third party does not have the power to decide the dispute and aims at helping the parties to reach their own decision. Mediators, however, do not universally agree on the theory and