Tim Hicks’ Embodied Conflict offers a compelling and timely lens into how our brains and bodies participate in, perpetuate, and potentially release us from conflict. For anyone practicing or studying the understanding-based approach to conflict resolution, this book is both illuminating and affirming—reminding us that at the heart of every conflict is not just an argument or a position, but a human being shaped by biology, experience, and connection.
Hicks begins with a bold premise: conflict is not just cognitive or behavioral—it is embodied. This means our reactions to conflict live not only in our stories and strategies, but in our nervous systems. The physiology of threat, the wiring of our brains, and the rhythms of our breath and body all contribute to how we perceive, engage in, and try to resolve conflict. For those of us who have long worked from the understanding that deep conflict is often fed by fear, pain, and unexamined assumptions, Hicks’ work offers a rich, scientific affirmation.
What is so refreshing about Embodied Conflict is the way it deepens what we already know in the understanding-based model: that people in conflict are more than the positions they take or the facts they cite. They are whole beings—thinking, feeling, reacting. Hicks helps us understand how and why those reactions arise, not in a theoretical vacuum, but in the human body’s elegant, ancient systems for survival and meaning-making.
From the understanding-based perspective, conflict is not something to fix or judge, but something to enter—with curiosity and compassion. Hicks provides a neural rationale for this approach. When we enter conflict with an intent to understand, we create the possibility for what neuroscientists call “neuroception of safety”—the felt sense that we are not under threat. This is what allows the nervous system to calm, what allows the brain to shift from defensiveness to openness, and what enables people to consider perspectives that differ from their own.
And this is exactly where the power of understanding resides. Hicks describes how stories—the narratives we hold about ourselves and others—are reinforced in the brain through repetition, especially under stress. The understanding-based model calls on us to help people recognize and reconsider those narratives by engaging directly, respectfully, and vulnerably with each other. He adds to this by explaining how such direct engagement can actually shift neural pathways and recalibrate emotional responses.
It is striking how his work aligns with the principle of “going beneath”—not merely addressing the surface-level positions, but exploring the underlying fears, needs, and longings that drive conflict. Hicks reveals that these deeper currents are not only emotional or psychological, but also physiological. This insight is both humbling and hopeful. It reminds us that our habitual patterns are not signs of failure, but natural responses—responses that, with support, can be softened and shifted.
What also resonates deeply is the author’s emphasis on presence. The understanding-based model holds presence as one of the most essential capacities for a conflict professional—to be fully with the parties, without agenda, without judgment. Hicks shows us that presence is not just a nice quality to have; it is a biological offering. When one person in the room is grounded, calm, and regulated, it creates a possibility for co-regulation—for the nervous systems of others to settle, for defenses to lower, for connection to emerge.
For mediators and conflict professionals, Hicks’ insights are an invitation to become more aware of our own embodiment. How do we respond, internally, to tension in the room? What do we notice in ourselves when a party raises their voice or shuts down? How might our own nervous systems be contributing to—or helping to de-escalate—the dynamic? In this way, Embodied Conflict is not only about “them”—it is about us, too.
Ultimately, Embodied Conflict is a generous, wise, and accessible contribution to the field. It does not propose quick fixes or rigid techniques. Rather, it calls for a grounded, respectful, deeply human way of being in conflict—one that is in complete harmony with the understanding-based model. Hicks writes with clarity and compassion, translating complex neuroscience into concepts we can feel and apply.
This book does not ask us to abandon what we know—it invites us to enrich it. To slow down. To notice. To breathe. And to remember that every conflict, no matter how entrenched, is carried by people whose bodies want to protect them and whose hearts, given the chance, just might want to connect.
For those who seek to support people in conflict through understanding, Embodied Conflict is not just informative—it is inspiring.