Conflicts are perceived by most people as something bad that interferes with life and destroys relationships. And this is true, in fact. But it is worth considering that hardly any of us will be able to live our whole lives without conflicts, so we should perceive them without hysteria and fanaticism. The best thing we could do is to learn to find something positive in every conflict in order to grow personally and develop relationships with others. To achieve this, it is worth first paying attention to how we react to conflicts. There are several basic ways to respond to conflicts. We will highlight the three most common of them: Defense. Those who use this method of reacting to a conflict are aimed mainly at protecting themselves, if not from the conflict, then at least from resentment towards the conflicting party . This method is effective only when the defending side meets the attacker with the same force with which he attacks. If the reaction is somewhat more energetic, this will encourage the aggressor to continue the conflict, increasing its efforts to escalate it. Interestingly, using less effort than the enemy used also does not stop the conflict, as a rule, but only encourages additional aggression. Seeing that you are clearly inferior in the conflict, the active side will simply “finish off” you. Avoidance. As a rule, those people who avoid conflict are those who are not particularly confident in their abilities. But avoidance should not be the only way to respond to conflict. It is good to evade in cases where the enemy is inadequate, very aggressive and unable to control himself. Especially when you understand that you really won’t be able to give a worthy rebuff and defend yourself by using force equal to the force of the one who started this conflict. If a freight train is heading towards you, then, naturally, it is better to get off the rails. It is worth avoiding conflicts with those people who regularly drag you into conflicts, but never want to discuss them in the future. Disclosure. Not many people can reveal themselves during a conflict, because this is always dangerous for the person revealing them. But those who master this method of responding to conflict situations can learn a lot about their partner (enemy) and about themselves personally. Anyone who is able to open up during a conflict is ready to take part of the responsibility for the conflict and not get involved in mutual accusations, which are so common during conflict situations. Such a person can talk about his feelings and experience not only a specific situation, but also reveal his old psychological wounds and scars. It would be best to learn how to master these three ways of responding to conflict situations in order to use any of them in each specific case. If we are talking about family relationships, about conflicts between partners, then I think the best way is disclosure, using which you can learn to be closer. Here all the protective barriers erected by our psyche begin to crumble and true intimacy begins. Thus, with the correct reaction on our part, conflict can be used to create rather than destroy relationships.