Please check out the latest issue of the East Side Institute’s newsletter, Reports from the Field, for news on what our friends, colleagues and alumni are up to. You’ll hear from Annalie Pistorius and her new social therapy practice in Pretoria South Africa, the synergy between Elina Lampert-Shepel and Brazilian educators at a Vygotsky research conference, and much more.

October 3, 2012

Here’s a more graphic rendition of the Performing the World invitation and call for proposals.

October 2, 2011

I’m thrilled to announce the next Performing the World (PTW) conference/festival, “Can Performance Change Save the World?” to take place in New York City October 4-7, 2012. Proposals are due March 1, 2012.

The theme of the last PTW, held in 2010 and attended by over 500 people from dozens of countries, was, “Can Performance Change the World?” The depth of the challenges facing humanity two short years later have led the conveners of Performing the World to recast the question for the 2012 conference as, “Can Performance Save the World?”

Performing the World (PTW) was born in a conversation between East Side Institute co-founder, the late Fred Newman, and me at the end of the summer of 2000. We had already “discovered” performance, and its essential role in human development and learning was key to the therapeutic, educational and community-organizing work of the East Side Institute and its broader community. At the same time, Newman and I were also having conversations with Ken and Mary Gergen, leading social-constructionist psychologists who themselves were turning toward performance, particularly by experimenting with new performatory modes of presenting research and scholarship. During the 1990s at annual meetings of the American Psychological Association, we and the Gergens did some joint performatory symposia and Newman’s original “psychology plays” were performed—all to great enthusiasm. We were encouraged, and wanted to do something bigger and of our own structure.

My international travels had introduced me to many different performatory practices initiated at both the grassroots and from within the universities. I met dozens of people and heard of hundreds more who were using performance to help people and communities grow and create positive social change. We decided to reach out to those doing this work/play—from community organizers to business people, from artists to social workers, from therapists to teachers.

The first Performing the World conference was held in October 2001, just a few weeks after 9/11. Hundreds from all over the world showed up at the beautiful ocean side village of Montauk, 120 miles from New York City, as if this kind of gathering was what they and their communities needed at such a moment.

There have been five PTWs since then. The last two—in 2008 and 2010—were held in New York City, bringing the conference to one of the most vibrant and diverse cultural centers of the world and partnering with the All Stars Project as co-sponsor. PTW has been greatly enriched by having the All Stars’ performing arts and development center on 42 Street near Times Square as the conference’s home base and by the inclusion of hundreds of young people and adults who participate in its programs. Additionally, both the Institute and the All Stars reach out to friends across New York City’s many communities to provide housing for PTW participants and broaden the “performance space.” I am inspired by the growth of the global performance movement and the role that PTW is playing in it, as not only a conference/performance festival but also a unique community event bringing people together to perform a new world.

I’m on a working vacation at the beautiful ocean community of Montauk, at the very tip of Long Island. Today, after the preparations for and actuality of Hurrican Irene (which was not too bad out here), I got to some reading. One book is Rom Harre’s Pavlov’s Dogs and Schrodinger’s Cat: Scenes from the Living Laboratory, an unusual but very accessible book about how living things have contributed to a scientific understanding of the world. It got me thinking about my friend and mentor, the late Fred Newman. How much he would have enjoyed Harre’s book (Fred was enamored of the creativity, rigor and improvisational nature of science). And how much Fred contributed to a new understanding of understanding the world (not scientific, but not unscientific either).

What do I mean by that? Here’s the brief introduction I wrote to the revised (2010) edition of Fred Newman’s book, Let’s Develop! (It’s a great book!)

1994, the year that Let’s Develop! A Guide to Continuous Personal Growth was first published, was also the year that the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) came out. The contrast couldn’t be starker. Let’s Develop!, written by philosopher and lay therapist Fred Newman with the assistance of his friend, sociologist Phyllis Goldberg, is informed by hundreds of ordinary people, the clients he saw in his social therapy practice. Its subject matter is people and their emotions, their pain, their dreams, their relationships, their therapeutic conversations, and their activity of growing. DSM-IV, written under the auspices of the American Psychiatric Association, is informed by over 200 psychiatrists and psychologists (nearly half of whom had financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry). Its subject matter is 297 classified mental disorders, which serve as prototypes for judging patients’ symptoms and behaviors. When the DSM-IV came out there was minor protest, most of it around the pharmaceutical connections of the writers. In contrast, work on new edition due out in 2013 (referred to as DSM-5) is being carried out in a flurry of controversy over the even greater proliferation of mental disorders than with prior revisions.

Fred Newman thinks the DSM (all editions) is silly. Scientifically silly. Since he loves science and is quite knowledgable, his opinion on this carries some weight. If diagnose we must (and it’s not at all clear that we must), Newman says, then we should diagnose ourselves and each other, rather than take up the diagnoses of the so-called experts, people who don’t know us. Newman is one of many, many therapists, social scientists and philosophers who have written thoughtful and often scathing critiques of the medical model and pseudoscientific diagnostic approach to mental health and illness for academic books and journals. However, Newman is not primarily interested in critiquing; he’s interested in helping. Let’s Develop! is a self-help book, written for ordinary people. It’s an exceedingly practical book, which attempts to give the everyday usefulness of Newman’s social therapy to the average Joe and Jane. And precisely because it is so practical, I think it’s perhaps Newman’s most thoughtful and scathing critique. It is, to use a term Newman and I like very much, practical-critical.

In 1994 there was not all that much receptivity for the practical-critical from scholars. The divide between theoretical critique and alternative practice was great. Newman and I were emerging voices in the intellectual dialogues taking place on the unresolvable problems that arise from forcing human life into a natural science framework, and advocating for the creating of new psychologies. With Newman’s philosophical sophistication and my grounding in human development across the life span, we more than held our own. But it was our practice, in particular Newman’s social therapy practice, that set us apart as the most practically oriented of theoretical critiques. To make that statement loud and clear, we decided that Newman should write the practical guide that is Let’s Develop!

During the sixteen years since the book first appeared, the sharp distinction between critical intellectual debate and alternative practices in psychology and psychotherapy has begun to blur. New critical practices have developed and, like Newman’s social therapy, others have grown, and this has significantly advanced the overall substance and quality of the intellectual conversation. The debate continues, but critique and practice are now closer together.

If you’re not involved in these intellectual conversations, you might be wondering why you should care about this history and debate. Well, think about where your therapist, your child’s school counselor, your uncle’s addiction counselor or your mother’s social worker got her or his training. What were these professionals taught? How many different approaches were they exposed to? What understandings of how human beings grow and learn and feel and think do they work with? Do they think you and your family can grow emotionally, or do they think that all that can be done is modifying the most dysfunctional ways you all relate? Can they help you create your life (including your emotional life) or are they only concerned to treat the symptoms of your so-called mental disorder? The more that critical practice and theoretical critique intermingle, the more likely it is that the training future counselors and therapists receive will be broad and inclusive, and the answers to these questions will be thoughtful and rich with possibility.

Newman sees and does therapy as a creative activity, not as a medical procedure. Together, therapists and clients create the therapy—that’s how it works. He relates to people as creators of their development, no matter how severe their pain, “presenting problem” or psychiatric diagnosis. He never tries to fix a problem. Rather, he supports people to grow, to create their lives. There’s always a choice. Not as a denial of how one is, but as a loving act. Ask for help. Be giving. Share the shame. When a conversation is heading toward a screaming match, start it over again. Do something completely unlike you. You’ll still be “you” but it’ll be a you who’s actively becoming. Becoming what? Becoming you.

Newman’s social therapy is unique in its focus on people’s development, but it’s not alone in being humanistic and creative. This is good news for the growing masses of adults, children and families in need of help for whom the choices have been to “tough it out” without therapy or to be pathologized. Those who engage in social therapy or another of the dozens of alternative therapies that now exist are, by their very activity, critical psychologists as much, if not more, than their academic counterparts. Their voices, and those of their therapists, are slowly being heard in the seminar rooms and clinics that train tomorrow’s therapists and counselors.

It is in this revived playing field that we reissue Let’s Develop! Some slight changes have been made throughout the text to reflect life style changes that have occurred over the years but, overall, the content remains not only intact, but equally—if not more—relevant.

As a new reader of Let’s Develop!, you’ll be joining a global grouping of tens of thousands. Unlike most books, its following wasn’t built with advertising dollars or critical reviews, but by a community that it helped to grow through viral marketing. Across the US, social therapists gave it to clients, psychology professors to students, youth workers to urban teens, teacher trainers to school personnel, business coaches and consultants to executives. Colleagues of ours in other countries xeroxed chapters from their copies and handed them out to friends and family. Chapters were translated into different languages (the ones I know about are Chinese, Portuguese, Russian, Serbian and Spanish) and used in university courses. Zdravo da Ste, a community of hundreds devoted to human development in Serbia, translated the book in its entirety, found a publisher and promotes it throughout the country to both the public and professionals.

I’ve worked with Fred Newman for most of my adult life on many social change projects. But none has been as difficult or rewarding as working to liberate psychology from its own pathology. “You don’t have to be sick to get help,” Newman insists. That’s the practical-critical message of Let’s Develop! It’s critical psychology at its best. Welcome to the “grassroots” critical psychology movement!

I’ve written before about the All Stars Project’s unique and fabulous UX, a free, open-to-all, university-style development center, but it’s worth mentioning over and over. This new project creates its curriculum from suggestions for courses from those who want to learn and ideas from those who want to teach something. Dean Lenora Fulani and Associate Dean Dan Friedman lead and coordinate this new initiative—a truly postmodern Zone of Proximal Development.

Here’s this week’s e-newsletter.

Hundreds of messages are filling my inbox—outpourings of condolences, love and respect on the passing of Fred Newman. From all corners of the world those who studied with Fred, read one of our books, heard him speak in person or on video, or “met” him through others are writing to share their appreciation for all he has built. And share their stories—what they remember from an encounter, a life-changing therapeutic or performance experience, a radically re-orienting world view provocation. Reading these messages from so many friends and colleagues, and responding to them, is very moving. It’s as if societal time has momentarily stopped and I/we are world historical.

Fred’s life and accomplishments are noted in an official New York Times obituary that appeared this past weekend. It focuses on his influence on independent politics in the US and New York City politics overall. As you’ll see, the first line comments that Fred’s influence defies easy description. Fred would be gratified to read this, as he was very sceptical of the value of description, easy and otherwise, in the human social activity of creating a new world.

July 9, 2011

Fred Newman, Writer and Political Figure, Dies at 76

By DOUGLAS MARTIN

Fred Newman’s influential role in New York life and politics defied easy description.

He founded a Marxist-Leninist party, fostered a sexually charged brand of psychotherapy, wrote controversial plays about race and managed the presidential campaign of Lenora Fulani, who was both the first woman and the first black candidate to get on the ballot in all 50 states.

He helped the Rev. Al Sharpton get on his feet as a public figure and gave Michael R. Bloomberg the support of his Independence Party in three mayoral elections, arguably providing Mr. Bloomberg’s margin of victory in 2001 and 2009.

Mr. Newman, who died at 76 in his Manhattan home on July 3, eschewed conventionality. He insisted, for instance, that there was nothing wrong with psychotherapists having sex with patients. He created an empire of nonprofit and for-profit enterprises, including arts groups and a public relations firm. He wrote books on psychology and philosophy as well as plays. One play, about the 1991 riots between blacks and Jews in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, was condemned as anti-Semitic by the Anti-Defamation League.

His greatest impact came through mobilizing his followers, sometimes called “Newmanites,” to build alliances with third parties, including that of the Texas independent H. Ross Perot.

“If it weren’t for the Independence Party, Mike Bloomberg might not have become mayor,” said Douglas Muzzio, a professor of public affairs at Baruch College.

In turn, Mr. Bloomberg supported the Independence Party’s goal of nonpartisan municipal elections and gave the party more than $650,000 of his own money. His administration arranged millions of dollars in bond financing in 2002 and 2006 for a building for Mr. Newman’s nonprofit All Stars Project, which uses the performing arts to help low-income children.

Mr. Newman began his climb to influence in New York in the 1960s, when, from his apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, he formed a Marxist collective called “If … Then.” Its members, many of them self-professed anarchists, collected money on the streets for the group. Most participated in Mr. Newman’s newly articulated “social therapy,” which encouraged patients to change themselves by seeking to change society. He encouraged collective members to sleep with one another, an activity he called “friendosexuality.” The collective published newspapers and started a dental clinic.

“It’s probably fair to say I was the dominant leader,” Mr. Newman said in an interview with The New York Observer in 1999. “I hope I wasn’t an authoritarian oppressor, but I think that’s probably accurate to say that.”

His detractors, however, said his “collective” amounted to a cult. Chip Berlet, a senior analyst with Political Research Associates, which studies unorthodox political groups, called Mr. Newman “a master at creating a myth of importance.” “He was a brilliant charlatan,” Mr. Berlet said.

Frederick Delano Newman was born in the Bronx on June 17, 1935, and grew up there. His mother chose the same middle name as that of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a hero of hers. After his father died when young Fred was 9, his mother raised her five children alone, supported by welfare checks, the rent from rooms in her house, near Yankee Stadium, and the fees she earned running poker games.

Mr. Newman hated school but tested well enough to be admitted to Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan. He worked as a toolmaker to help support his family. At 19, he joined the Army and served in Korea. He graduated from the City College of New York and earned a Ph.D. in philosophy from Stanford in 1962.

He was twice married and divorced. He is survived by his son, Donald; his daughter, Elizabeth Newman; and by Gabrielle L. Kurlander and Jacqueline Salit, his life partners in what Ms. Salit described as an “unconventional family of choice.” He died of renal failure, his spokeswoman, Christina DiChiara, said.

Mr. Newman taught at City College but was fired after giving male students A’s to help them avoid being drafted and sent to Vietnam. Other colleges hired him but fired him for the same reason. A job as a drug counselor led to his therapy career.

After forming his Upper West Side collective, Mr. Newman, in 1974, allied his group with Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr., originally a leftist leader who veered to right-wing conspiracy theories and ran for president eight times from the political fringe. Tensions between the two prompted Mr. Newman to break the alliance after less than a year, however. He then formed the International Workers Party from what he called his core collective, with a mission to advance minority rights and a leftist agenda.

The party was dissolved at the end of the 1970s. Mr. Newman then founded the New Alliance Party as a vehicle for moving beyond a narrow leftist spectrum. Around the same time, he met Ms. Fulani, a graduate student who attended one of his clinics and joined the collective. Mr. Newman helped mold her into a political professional who for many years was the face of his political ventures.

“She is one of my life’s proudest accomplishments,” he told New York Newsday in 1992.

In 1988, as her campaign manager, he helped Ms. Fulani get on the presidential ballot in all 50 states, something no black candidate or woman had done. She received more than 200,000 votes. In 1992, Ms. Fulani ran again, and raised more than $2 million from private donors.

In 1991, the New Alliance Party gave strong support to Mr. Sharpton, then a community advocate, at a time when he was struggling for broader political recognition. It provided Mr. Sharpton with income, public relations help and up to half the participants in his demonstrations, often protesting attacks against blacks.

In the early 1990s, Mr. Newman began a campaign to encourage more independent voices in politics, almost regardless of ideology. These included Mr. Perot, Ralph Nader and even the conservative stalwart Patrick J. Buchanan. Mr. Newman supported a succession of reform parties, ultimately capturing control of the New York City branch of the Independence Party.

As late as 2005, Mr. Newman wrote that he remained a Marxist, albeit what he called a postmodern one. His final cause was to end the two-party system, which he believed stifled real choice. He wanted primary elections to be open to all parties, and to have all candidates run against one another. The top two would vie in a general election.

That proposal prompted a question from Mr. Bloomberg one day in 2001 when the future mayor was seeking Mr. Newman’s support, Ms. Salit recalled. Mr. Bloomberg asked him if he would be putting himself out of business if he were to give up the ballot line he had used so effectively.

“We’re an anti-party party,” Mr. Newman answered. “We want to be put out of business.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

I share this news with deep sadness.  My dear friend, mentor and colleague Fred Newman passed away a few minutes before July 3 turned to July 4, Independence Day in the USA. Fred was nothing if not fiercely and passionately independent culturally and politically. But not psychologically or socially. He lived his life joyously collectively and helped thousands of others do the same.

Fred had a long and serious illness, but he worked and gave and led and taught until his last days. I and hundreds of others will miss him terribly. His passion and commitment live on in the global community Fred gave his life to building.

Below is Fred’s obituary placed in the New York Times by the All Stars Project , which Fred co-founded with Lenora Fulani. In addition to his work with the All Stars, Fred co-founded the East Side Institute with me as a place to develop and share social therapeutics and postmodern Marxist performance practice/theory and, in turn, be developed by those with whom it is shared, no matter their culture, class or continent. This work, and all that Fred set in motion, continues unabated.

FREDERICK D. NEWMAN

NEWMAN–Frederick Delano. The All Stars Project Board of Directors and staff are deeply saddened by the passing of the All Stars’ extraordinary and much loved co-founder, Fred Newman, Ph.D. He was 76. Dr. Newman was born in the South Bronx, grew up in the shadow of the old Yankee Stadium (becoming a lifelong Yankees fan), and served in the U.S. Army in Korea. Upon his return he completed his undergraduate studies at City College and went on to earn his Ph.D. in analytic philosophy and foundations of mathematics from Stanford University in 1962, where he was mentored by the renowned analytic philosopher Donald Davidson. All who knew him will remember him as a fierce champion for giving the best, most sophisticated, most far- reaching tools of postmodern philosophy to ordinary people. He taught at several colleges and universities in the 1960s before dedicating himself to community organizing and the creation of numerous independent education, health, mental health, cultural and political projects in New York and nationally. Dr. Newman was a practicing therapist for more than 30 years and was the founder of a new humanistic psychology known as Social Therapy. The author of numerous books and articles on postmodern, Vygotskian, and performatory psychology, he and his colleagues worked to develop and popularize their breakthrough discoveries about human development. He co-founded the All Stars Project with Lenora Fulani, Ph.D. in 1981 to bring this new science of development to the lives of inner-city young people. He was the chief designer of the All Stars Project’s performance- based development approach, which has transformed the lives of hundreds of thousands of poor, Black and Latino youth across the country and is providing a new theoretical and practical framework for eliminating poverty and underdevelopment. Dr. Newman was artistic director and playwright-in-residence of the All Stars’ Castillo Theatre from 1989 until 2005. Often a lightning rod for controversy, Fred Newman was a relentless champion for a new style of progressivism. He was also a pioneer in the development of independent politics in the United States, starting in the 1970s, and had a major hand in the creation of the Independence Party of New York, playing a key role in the party’s endorsement of Mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2001, 2005, and 2009. Despite serious illness, Dr. Newman was unflagging in his work. He will be deeply missed by the Board of Directors, staff, volunteers and countless young people and their families in our poor communities whose lives he and his work have touched. We extend our deepest condolences to Dr. Newman’s life partners Gabrielle L. Kurlander, who so ably serves as the All Stars President and CEO, and Jacqueline S. Salit, and to his children Elizabeth and Donald and granddaughter, Jane. As we mourn the passing of our founder and friend Fred Newman, his legacy of radical humanism, his commitment to community, to development and to creating ensemble performances live on through the work of the All Stars Project.

Published in The New York Times on July 5, 2011

 

 

May 31, 2011

May is one of my favorite months of the year, with light lasting into the evening hours, baby green tree buds turning into adult green leaves, and bursts of color (both flowers and people’s clothing) dotting the city streets. But this year I spent the middle of the month far far away from New York City’s spring awakening. I was in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh conducting workshops on effective education for the 21st century, which introduced university faculty and students to performatory and playful learning and development approaches. And while there was no feel of spring in the very hot and very humid city air, the human awakening to the joy and intimacy of creating together was palpable.

I was invited to Dhaka by Daffodil International University, instigated by Syed Mizanur Rahman (“Raju”), an economist and drama educator who heads up the university’s Career Development Center. As a graduate of the East Side Institute’s International Class and participant in our Performing the World conferences, Raju has embraced performance as how to live one’s life developmentally and, being in a position to breathe life into the rigid and static British-based educational system of his country, he asked to partner with the Institute to help advance his work and socialize performance broadly within the school’s community. I was happy to agree and added my workshop facilitation partner Carrie Lobman, who is the Institute’s director of pedagogy and on the faculty of Rutgers University School of Education, as co-leader of the training week.

All told, Carrie and I worked and played with about 200 students, faculty and administrative personnel in six different workshops. Our broad thematic was that the shift underway from past centuries to the 21^st century is from questions about things (What is “X”?) to questions about process (How does “X” work?). We had prepared an overall plan of discussion topics and improv exercises but needed to hear what the specific issues were that people wanted to work on so we could work off them. Students and faculty alike were unhappy with the formality and rote nature of the learning environment they felt compelled to recreate and said they wanted to change. We worked with each group offering ways they could do so as well as, perhaps more important, ways they could create together outside the formal classrooms (which would, we believed, have a big impact on what happened in the classrooms). Working with the students was pure joy! They threw themselves into doing so many things they never dreamed they could do together. The faculty was a more conflicted grouping. While many willingly went along with our invitations to create and imagine, some could not move beyond “tell us exactly what to do”—rejecting the very stance we were trying to get them to consider giving up, holding on to their own authority as experts and the institutional authority of knowing.

We also met with the high-level dignitaries of the university, had a lovely dinner with the chair of the board of the Daffodil Group (founders of the University), and watched a moving performance by the Daffodil All Stars of a play written by Raju.

Raju and his assistant, Md. Ziaul Haque Sumon (Sumon), were exceptional hosts and great organizers—gracious, relaxed, reassuring and proud of what they’re doing and our relationship. In addition to our work at Daffodil, they took us to Raju’s alma mater, Jahangimagar University, where we were treated to a great performance by the current members of the theatrical group he founded there many years ago; to the new campus site of Daffodil outside of the city, where this August Raju and Sumon will orient the 500 incoming students (performatorily) to university life; to villages and monuments and a heartbreakingly poor section of the city to meet a remarkable woman who cares for children of sex workers.

Back in New York, May’s spring is transitioning to June’s summer and I to the luxuries of American life and to the work at hand. I feel humbled and privileged that this work now includes this new relationship with Daffodil University, dozens of new friends, and the opportunity to contribute in unknowable ways to the development of the people of Bangladesh.

April 20, 2011

One evening while studying in England, a young Ugandan man named Peter Nsubuga watched a BBC documentary in the home he was staying. The program was “Children of Africa.” Peter was no stranger to the scenes he watched, having grown up in the very conditions shown on the screen. He felt deeply moved by the film, so much so that he returned home “to give my heart”—he says—to help children and youth from his home village. Peter talked to local community leaders and officials about his desire to inspire, support, and promote youth engagement and the role of young people as leaders of positive social change. In 2007, he got just enough support to found Hope for Youth-Uganda and supply food, clothing and education to a small number of children.

In 2008, Peter learned of the training opportunity in the social therapeutic approach to learning, development and community building provided by the East Side Institute. He applied, I interviewed him (on Skype), and he arrived in NYC in October to begin the program’s first residency. During 2008-2009 (and three visits to NYC for the program’s residency periods), Peter advanced his vision to include therapeutic and cultural developmental activities. He thought that social therapy would greatly help build community and give emotional support to families, most of which have been fragmented by the death of one or both parents from AIDS. He also was eager to bring the All Stars Project performance-based development approach to the young people to help them grow.

So, over the next two years, Peter began educational and therapeutic groups for women and for the grandparents and other guardians of children orphaned by AIDS as well as  “You Matter” support groups for girls. Hope for Youth-Uganda also built a school, installed a new water tank to insure safe drinking water; planted an orange grove, and acquired donated school supplies.

Last month, on the afternoon of March 26, Hope for Youth-Uganda held its first All Stars Talent Show. Peter told me that the show began in a large field, with children, many orphaned by AIDS, “telling stories—which were so emotional that many could not hold their tears back. Later we marched around the surrounding communities with the teens singing songs and ended in the sports field where they moved around to form a star.”

It thrills me that Peter and his organization are creating conditions for Ugandan youth to create their own cultural development. He joins the growing ranks of educational innovators—those who know the importance and value of in-school education in underdeveloped and developing societies but who, at the same time, recognize the transformative power of informal learning environments that engage and empower. Watch videos of Sugata Mitra and Charles Leadbeater to learn more.

Please help me publicize a unique program—The International Class. I began this seven years ago and had no idea how much it would help me and all its participants grow, or how powerful the impact would be on community organizers and talented educators and peformers, or what a continuous activity of generating hope it would be.

“The activity based-theory, the performative approach, and the emphasis in community building are the key elements of a psychology that blurs the distinctions between clinic, politics and the arts.” Murilo Moscheta, psychologist and therapist, Brazil

It’s a Global Learning Community

Since 2004, more than 60 community and university based practitioners from across the US and 16 other countries have enrolled in The International Class of the East Side Institute. Among them are psychologists from India, Brazil and Denmark; applied theatre practitioners from Kenya and Canada; educators, scientists and doctors from Pakistan, Serbia and the United States; community organizers from Uganda and Taiwan; psychotherapists from South Africa and Argentina; and youth workers from Nicaragua and Mexico.

Coming from different places and professions, they share a desire to change the world—and an eagerness to take advantage of the unique opportunity The International Class offers them to create a global support network, to engage the philosophical, political and psychological issues of their practice, and to study and train as developmentalists with the creators of social therapeutic methodology.

It’s a Zone of Development

The International Class is a course of study in postmodern and activity-theoretic approaches to human development and learning. Emphasis is on social therapeutics, a methodology utilized in diverse mental health, educational, youth development and community organizing settings in the US and internationally. A recognized approach within both the postmodern and the cultural-historical activity theory movements in psychology, psychotherapy, education and community and organizational development, social therapeutics is a philosophically informed, practically oriented method in which human beings are related to as creators of their culture and ensemble performers of their lives.

Designed and led by Institute director Lois Holzman, the program provides a unique opportunity for practitioners and scholars from the US and countries around the world to

• study together and learn the Institute’s cutting edge developmental methodology
• work directly with Holzman, social therapy’s creator Fred Newman, leading practitioners Lenora Fulani, Christine LaCerva and Carrie Lobman, and others
• participate in innovative educational, cultural and community-building programs throughout New York City,
• build ties and support for themselves and their communities.

In this creative playground/postmodern academy, participants build a dynamic zone of development in which they can engage the philosophical, political and psychological questions emerging from their practice.

Being part of a group that is intelligent, talented, diverse and committed to making a difference in their own parts of the world has revolutionized my work, my personal growth, and my way of relating with others. Introducing performance to our after school programs with kids, our work with youth groups, and our broader community work has opened new possibilities for the growth of everyone. Miguel Cortez, youth worker and psychotherapist, CASA, Juarez Mexico

The International Class has made me learn to challenge some of my old beliefs and to peel off the rigid self-image that we all try to portray in our life. The cultural and economic differences of all the countries of the student have made us get an even broader viewpoint on all the topics that were discussed. Ishita Sanyal, psychologist, Turning Point, Calcutta India

It’s different from other learning processes and institutions. It is an enjoyable, enthusiastic, academic environment where you may develop your emotions, thinking and speech. It is a zone where you may improve your human skills to help others to perform a better world. Ignacio Dalton, educational researcher, Universidad del Salvador, Buenos Aires Argentina

For the last eight years, I have studied welfare policy and have been an advocate for more humane services in New York City. I applied to The International Class out of recognition that my understanding of poverty was limited – and in some ways, provincial. My colleagues taught me about anti-poverty programs around the world, which helped to broaden my understanding. As an American and an anti-poverty advocate, this experience has been invaluable. Becca Widom, sociologist and anti-poverty advocate, New York New York

It Has a Flexible Structure and Curriculum

The ten-month program combines residencies in New York City and seminars, supervision and project development sessions conducted online. Students come together to work with Institute faculty and others in a broad development community and advance their programs and research.

Residencies. The International Class meets at the Institute three times during the academic year (in September, February and June) to work together as a group with Institute faculty and associates. Site visits, observations, participant observations and experiential learning activities supplement daily seminar activity.

At Home. In between residencies, students study the social therapeutic method in relation to socio-cultural activity theory, theories of performance, postmodernism, group process and community development. Learning formats include on-line seminars, mentoring, dialogues with guest colleagues of the Institute, supervision and conference calls with faculty and mentors.

The International Class is cross-disciplinary and open to practitioners and scholars with a broad range of educational and life experiences—and a passion for innovation. Applications for the 2011-2012 program will be accepted through May 2011. Tuition is $3400. A limited number of full and partial scholarships covering tuition are available.

For more information, including dates, applications and scholarship forms, contact: Lois Holzman, Director, East Side Institute, email lholzman@eastsideinstitute.org, tel. 212-941-8906, ext. 324. To read more about the program and its graduates, or to download an application, go to http://www.eastsideinstitute.org/IC.html