BOOKS
Vygotsky at Work and Play by Lois Holzman
“In this work, Holzman reflects on her many endeavors over recent decades – her work in therapeutic settings, in schools, in after-school programs, in performance programs for adolescents, in organizations, and more. She locates the ways in which these endeavors build upon each other, the implicit and pervasive values they exhibit, and the growth in her own theoretical views over the years. In many respects her concern in this book is with human development, and in its exposition it brilliantly demonstrates just such development in action.” Kenneth Gergen, Swarthmore College
Vygotsky at Work and Play relates the discoveries and insights of Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky to ordinary people and their communities. The author – working with her intellectual partner Fred Newman – has advanced a unique performance-based methodology of development and learning that draws upon a fresh and in some ways unconventional reading of Vygotsky. In this book, Holzman shows this methodology at work in key learning environments: psychotherapy, classrooms, out-of-school youth programs, and the workplace. (Routledge, 2008) $53.95
Psychological Investigations: A Clinician’s Guide to Social Therapy Edited by Lois Holzman and Rafael Mendez
“This collection is truly a gift… Newman performs what makes social therapy a distinct group therapy and what makes it radical. [He] provokes, stimulates, and compels us to rethink our theories and practices and keep them abreast of the global changes…” – Harlene Anderson, Houston Galveston Institute
The first comprehensive treatment of social therapeutic practice, Psychological Investigations moves social therapy to the foreground as a qualitative new way of doing therapy. Featuring over 70 dialogues between Fred Newman—the creator of social therapeutic group process—and therapists-in-training, this book explores the nature of the social therapeutic group process, the social therapeutic relationship, and applications to health care, alternative medicine, education and youth development. These dialogues, together with introductory overviews by Lois Holzman and Rafael Mendez, illuminate the core philosophical and political issues underlying the revolutionary and controversial practice of social therapy. Psychological Investigations is a provocative invitation to both new and seasoned professionals seeking alternative modes of practice and understanding. (Brunner-Routledge, 2003) $29.95
Postmodern Psychologies, Societal Practice and Political Life
Edited by Lois Holzman and John Morss
“The book opens new avenues for thinking and doing psychology and for contributing to personal, relational, and collective wellness.” – Isaac Prilleltensky, Victoria University
In this volume, developmental psychologists Lois Holzman and John Morss bring together a distinguished grouping of international scholars and practitioners to reflect upon the achievements and limitations of recent attempts to bring a postmodern orientation to psychology. They provide a rigorous assessment of postmodernism in psychology and offer provocative new possibilities for social-psychological practice. Postmodern Psychologies introduces the general reader to the flavor as well as to the substance of psychology’s key debates in the first postmodern century. (Routledge, 2000) $27.00
Performing Psychology: A Postmodern Culture of the Mind
Edited by Lois Holzman
“Extraordinary essays and plays?in an argument against the limits of the old psychology and a vocabulary for something better.” – Ian Parker, Manchester Metropolitan University
This collection of essays by and about the controversial American philosopher, therapist, and playwright Fred Newman is an important contribution to current dialogue on such issues as the nature of human subjectivity; the relationship of theatre to human development; the status of science in the postmodern world; the process of therapy and diagnosis; and the possibility of re-initiating creativity and growth. Arguing that both psychological activity and its study are essentially performance, Holzman’s Performing Psychology offers a new methodology for understanding human life. (Routledge, 1999) $28.00
The End of Knowing: A New Developmental Way of Learning
By Fred Newman and Lois Holzman
“Newman and Holzman take the postmodern discussion beyond its usual focus on words, discourses and narratives to more closely examine what it means to communicate in transformative ways.” – Tom Strong, University of Calgary
Throughout the modern era, a period of explosive growth and technological achievement, knowledge was king and understood to be the engine of human progress. But what if knowing has become an impediment to further human development? The End of Knowing addresses the practical question of how to reconstruct our world in the wake of modernism’s colossal failure to solve social problems. Newman and Holzman propose “the end of knowing,” in favor of “performed activity” and present the positive implications of this approach for social and educational policy. (Routledge, 1997) $28.00
Lev Vygotsky: Revolutionary Scientist
By Fred Newman and Lois Holzman
“Routledge’s Critical Psychology Series has produced another landmark… a provocative and accessible introduction to the early Soviet psychologist’s life and work, as well as to current Vygotskian research.” – Australian Journal of Psychology
The current debate in psychology and politics over the possibility for human development has sparked a renewed interest in the work of the brilliant Soviet psychologist Lev Vygotsky. Newman and Holzman are among the few contemporary followers of Vygotsky to explore the potential of his Marxist methodology to transform psychology and education. (Routledge, 1993) $32.00
Unscientific Psychology: A Cultural-Performatory Approach to Understanding Human Life
By Fred Newman and Lois Holzman
“A philosophical tour de force…from ancient Greece to modern science and scientific psychology.” –Theory & Psychology
Western Philosophy is dead. Yet its assumptions and presuppositions disguised as science live on in modernist psychology. Arguing that psychology is a pseudoscientific hoax, the authors deconstruct three of psychology’s most powerful myths: the myth of the individual, of mental illness, and of development. More than a critique of mainstream psychology, Newman and Holzman present a methodology for reconstructing psychology as a developmental and community-building activity. (Praeger, 1996, $65.95 hardcover; iUniverse, 2006, $19.95 paperback)
Schools for Growth: Radical Alternatives to Current Educational Models
By Lois Holzman
“A passionate manifesto calling for a new type of schooling based on revolutionary activity, relational and dialectical philosophy, and the development of performance.” – Anthropology and Education Quarterly
Developmental psychologist Lois Holzman challenges us to look at our assumptions about schooling, learning and development. She contends that our very conceptions of what it means to teach, learn and grow are obstacles to children’s learning and development. Offering a radical reading of Vygotsky, she introduces the general reader to a methodological reformulation of learning and development as relational activities and, guided by this perspective, takes the reader on an intriguing visit to three independent schools. (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1997) $24.95
Recent Comments