Participate in discovering/creating responses to this question by attending the sixth Performing the World conference: Performing the World 2010, September 30-October 3, 2010, New York City (hosted by All Stars Project, Inc and East Side Institute for Group and short Term Psychotherapy)

“Can Performance Change the World?”

Performing artists, community organizers, theatre workers, educators, scholars, youth workers, students, social workers, psychotherapists, psychologists, medical doctors, health workers, and business executives are coming from 31 countries to discuss/perform that question and their responses to it.  Performing the World 2010 is well underway.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll share  with you some of the nearly 100 presentations, workshops and performances that will be featured at this year’s Performing the World. Here are samplings of theatre related sessions and presentations dealing with performance, health and wellness. Future posts will highlight sessions on performance and education, performance and trauma, and performance and mental health.

Play On Stage and Off

A Day in the Life of the World – The Living Theatre has been pushing the boundaries of the theatre and working to change the world since 1947.  Founder and artistic director Judith Malina and company members will lead a workshop on Living Theatre performance techniques and a discussion on the Living Theatre’s perspective on performance and social transformation.

Performing Change – One morning a group of young people fan out through the downtown streets stopping people at random to engage them in conversations about problems in their community and what they think needs to be changed in the world.  A few days later this group of young people present a performance illustrative of the concerns raised on the streets. Members of the Street Spirits Theatre Company, based in British Columbia will share their play-creation process.

Towards a New Educational Theatre with Chinese Characteristics – Huizhu Sun, President of the Shanghai Theatre Academy, will share his efforts to introduce devised and educational theatre in China based on traditional characters derived from Chinese Opera.

Reinventing Avant-Garde Theatre – Projekt Theater Studio in Vienna has transformed itself from a classical left avant-garde theatre to a community performance space, the Butcherie, creating new performance forms with immigrants, refugees, women and the elderly.  Founder and artistic director Eva Brenner will discuss these changes and lead a workshop in the Butcherie’s performance techniques.

Bubbles on the Subway – Play in Unexpected Places – Throughout 2009 Kristen Pedemonti played with people on the subways and streets of New York City using bubbles as a means to engage.  She wanted to help people remember what it is to play and demonstrate play’s potential to help people grow.  Pedemonti will share her experience and explore how adult play can change energy, shift focus and open us up to each other.

Performance and Health

Patch Adams – the Clown Laureate of Medicine, comes to Performing the World for the first time.  He will share his work from around the world, bringing performance and hope to the sick and suffering.  In addition to his own workshop, Patch will be joining Jim Mangia, executive director of St. John’s Well Child and Family Center in Los Angeles, and other innovative doctors on a panel entitled, “What is Health?”

The Performance of Resiliency at The Johns Hopkins Hospital – Oncology nurses from John Hopkins Hospital and performance coaches from Performance of a Lifetime share how performance games and workshops helped the nurses to regain the sense of humanity that initially led them to professional nursing.

The Power of Performing Our Story – Lewis Mehl-Madrona will share her work helping people transform the stories of their illnesses into performance and discuss healing as social performance.

Clowning at Hospital Changes the World – Clownetterna, a Swedish hospital clown group, brings performance to children in hospitals, and shares the special magic of the clown/child encounter.

Housing the World

The PTW 2010 Housing Committee is busy securing free housing for the hundreds of performance activists and scholars who will be attending. They have already secured, as of this writing, 80 beds for visitors in households throughout the five boroughs of New York City.

If you want to stay in a NYC home while at PTW, you must fill out a housing form (available at www.performingtheworld.org). The deadline to apply for housing has been extended to July 24. Housing forms will not be processed until conference registration is received. Additionally, if you live in the New York metropolitan area and would like to host a performance activist or scholar from around the world, please contact Jenny or Esther at 212-941-9400 x 414, or fill out a form on the website (http://eastsideinstitute.org/page63/page63.html).

Conference Schedule

Thursday, September 30, conference begins at 5:30 PM

Registration and Opening Reception

Friday, October 1

Concurrent Sessions and Evening Performances

Saturday, October 2

Plenaries, Concurrent Sessions and Evening Performances

Sunday, October 3

Concurrent Sessions and Closing Plenary

Conference ends at 6:00 PM

Registering for the Conference

Registration for PTW 2010 can be completed online at (http://www.acteva.com/booking.cfm?bevaid=204261) or contact Melissa Meyer at 212-941-8906 x 304.

One of my weekly treats is the arrival in my inbox of Talk Talk, excerpts from a dialogue Fred Newman and Jackie Salit have after watching the political talk shows on TV.  Newman, co-founder with me of the Institute, is many other things – among them a philosopher and astute political strategist. Salit is president of the Committee for an Unified Independent Party, Inc. (CUIP) and executive editor of The Neo-Independent magazine.  I always learn something from reading their conversations, especially when they combine two seemingly disparate topics.  The February 21 column, “Brokent Government, Unscientific Psychology,” was especially fascinating. Here’s how it opens:

Salit: There was something strangely similar for me about the political discussions that we watched on Hardball, Morning Joe and CNN’s Campbell Brown and the PBS NewsHour discussion about mental illness and the DSM-V. DSM stands for the Diagnostic Statistical Manual, the diagnostic guide of the American Psychiatric Association. DSM-V is the proposed update of DSM-IV. I’m trying to think how to characterize the similarity. One word comes to mind…

Newman: Try “mythology.”

You can read the rest at Talk Talk

I just got back from six days in London where the highlight of my trip was leading a two-day training workshop for therapists and counselors at the KCC Foundation in London—entitled: Learning to Play the Philosophy Game: A Workshop on How Social Therapy is Done. KCC is a dynamic learning organization that, among other things, provides training in a systemic-social constructionist approach. I worked with 20+ women and men, about half of them experienced practitioners who had trained at KCC and half postgraduate students (also practitioners) currently training there. It was a joy!  And a tool-and-result—we all agreed! I look forward to creative collaborations in the near future and beyond.

In a few weeks, I’ll begin working (and playing) with a new International Class—grass roots community activists and scholars who will gather at the East Side Institute for their first residency. Coming from different places and professions, they share a desire to change the world—and an eagerness to take advantage of the unique opportunity that 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.

At the same time as this new grouping is forming (it’s the sixth year of the program), recent grads continue to work together and support each other. Some of them composed letters/emails sharing their experiences of the Class and its impact on their work and lives. Before sending them to colleagues, they posted them to each other. For the past week or so they’ve been discussing how people in therapy are referred to in their different cultures, and engaging in a fascinating deconstruction of various terms. I asked their permission to post some of their conversation here (they said yes!).

The catalyst was part of the letter Lisa, alum from Brooklyn, NY, wrote:

During this time I also came into social therapy as a patient. I had been in therapy before. Some of it was helpful. But for the most part it was focused on understanding myself—why I was the way I was, what was wrong with me, how to fix my problems. In social therapy the focus was on the group—on what and how I could create with other people in the process of building the group. Social therapy didn’t fix me or take away my craziness, but it helped me build relationships and create my life without being overdetermined by my craziness and my problems.

When they read Lisa’s letter (which they liked overall), some alum questioned the word “patient.”

Peter, in Uganda, commented:

Hi everyone,

Great to read from everyone. I really have enjoyed your writings, thank you.

Lisa, thank you for that piece, I think it’s great. However, I wanted to comment on the word “Patient” as used in the 2nd paragraph. ”… having been a patient for a number of years…..”

Since you have not sent it to the people you don’t know yet, I thought we could change that to another word, though I really don’t know the best word to use, probably “Client”, but I am not sure. Maybe I can invite the group/Lois to comment on it. Otherwise, it’s great.

Lisa responded:

I am open to changing the word “patient,” but I am curious to know more about why you think it would be a good idea and also what everyone else thinks.

One of the things that I think is revolutionary about social therapy is the concept that the “patient” is not a vulnerable, passive, stigmatized person but rather a powerful, active agent in changing his or her life and the world. Or to put it another way, in creating his/her group/therapy. That’s why I am inclined to use/challenge that word. But I could also say “client” or “member of a social therapy group.” Thoughts?

The conversation continued.

From Esben, in Denmark:

I had the same response as you, Lisa – I like the word patient because it’s somewhat of a joke, in the sense that it does not refer to the conventional meaning of patient as passive vulnerable recipient/victim – however, I don’t know if you should make the point clearer, i.e. that in social therapy the patient is “a powerful, active agent in changing his or her life and the world. Or to put it another way, in creating his/her group/therapy.”. I do think using the term patient in this way does help to deconstruct and destigmatize the ‘role’ of patient.

I also just wanted to note that I feel so privileged every time I discover an email from my international friends and colleagues – we’re quite a task force ;o)

Hugs,

From Simon, in Canada:

Hi All,

Regarding the use of the word patient: At first, I thought that the use of the word was just fine; however, when the word was singled out for discussion, I started to think how I dislike the word client, but it also serves a function, just like the word patient, right? Nevertheless, technically, I now wonder if Lisa was ever a patient or was she more like a client? I mean to say that this all seems to be an interesting language game or a real good “joke” (as Esben says). I am not sure Lisa was a patient when I think about - I mean, will the readers get what Lisa is doing linguistically? Well, I would like to think some will. I come to “understand” a patient to be one who has simply received medical treatment; so, the question for me is, has Lisa ”undergone” and is “undergoing” or ”involved in” a psycho-therapy treatment, which would be considered to be providing medical treatment? In North America and many other places in the world, a client is a person taking advice from an attorney, accountant, or another professional person – and in this case, what arises for me is the idea of professionalism and what is a professional? A therapist seem to me to be a professional – so is Lisa a client – does Lisa take advice and does the therapist really give advice? or does the relationship consist of something more allusive . . . is it a unquantifiable exchange or more to the point, is it not a building of community, which is so much more complicated than the capitalistic client-customer-patient model can address? In other words, the relationship between the therapist and Lisa – found within the context of social therapy - is unclear to me actually – the line of client and/or patient seems to me to be blurred, not just because money exchanges hands, which makes Lisa a customer . . . a client . . . a buyer of mental goods (however you want to describe it); but more importantly, if the patient, as a concept “is to be understood as vulnerable, passive, stigmatized person, rather than a powerful, active agent in changing his or her life”. . . I agree with those that have suggested that as long as the point is made clear – as I believe Lisa has done – that Lisa’s idea of being a patient is her “becoming a powerful, active agent in creating her group/therapy,” which is in turn, allows her to create developmental possibilities – WELL, so be it – in this case, if it is good for her, it is good for me.

It was Fun playing with you all Thank you for the opportunity – what a wonderful debate :-)

From Ishita, in India:

Dear Friends

This reminds me of the debate going on worldwide to change the term Schizophrenia. But changing the name does not always change its impact. We need to change people’s outlook, transform the perception of the community towards people suffering from mental illness. Any person can be a patient any time (either suffering from physical or mental illness), so to me patient is a state of human being at particular time and place and not a description of the human being at all.

But we in our center use the term beneficiaries.

Love to all

From Prativa, in India:

I feel that in general the term “Patient” itself refers to a sick person either physical or mental. As we have seen in social therapy sessions, each member of the group is creating an environment for emotional development where they are trying to overcome stigma related to the terms “patient” and “illness.” Lisa, you are also too bold in your expression that I could not match the term patient with you. But I appreciate your revolutionary thought and attempt in using the term “patient.”

From Peter, in Uganda:

Wow, this turns into an interesting conversation, thanks for everyone’s contribution and I feel they are all great.

I commented about the word “Patient” in the context that we (the group) are trying to invite people (both that we know and we don’t know) to learn about Social Therapy and the International Class. And it’s the reason I said to Lisa that it was good she had not sent it out to the people she doesn’t know.

This was because, echoing Prativa’s word that the term “Patient” refers to a sick person, it’s quite easy for one to exonerate/excuse themselves that they are not patients (sick) to join social therapy. But believe me or not, so many people out there, (we are all) either mentally, physically or emotionally “sick”, but they (we) don’t want to believe or accept the fact that they (we) are sick.

Quoting Ishita’s words too (by the way, thank you Ishita for your wonderful contributions), that “we need to change people’s outlook, transform the perception of the community towards people suffering from mental illness,” is another example to show that people don’t want to associate themselves to “illness.” ?I may agree with Lisa when she says, “A patient” is not a vulnerable, passive, stigmatized person but rather a powerful, active agent in changing his or her life and the world, but for any person to understand that, they need to first join and learn/understand what social therapy is all about and to whom it is intended.

Maybe if we may ask Ishita why do you (at your center) use the term “Beneficiaries” to mean “Patients”? probably it will also help us to understand more why we may or may not use the word “Patient.”

From Ishita, in India:

I am enjoying our group discussion.

These are all mainly game of language. But it has some inner meaning too. I think when you are going to a doctor, teacher, lawyer, you expect to be benefited from these professionals. So we use the term beneficiaries who are coming to our center for that particular time for getting some benefit in their life which may be due to some reason they cannot do on their own. Peter, I agree with you as people often refuse to accept themselves as patient when suffering from mental illness, but in the case of chronic schizophrenia or other problems we have seen people prefer to remain in that state as it appears to them a comfortable situation where they need not be active, face challenges of life and think, “I cannot do that because I am a patient.” They do not want to change their performance and they play the same old role day in and day out.

Popular books, especially if they relate to current events, get reviewed  as soon as they are published—and sometimes before. Not so academic books. Alas, it’s typically a year before a review appears in print. So I was pleasantly surprised today to find an email in my inbox from Routledge’s marketing department with two reviews of my book Vygotsky at Work and Play.

One appears in the August 2009 The Psychologist, a journal of the British Psychological Association. The reviewer, Tania Heap from the Open University, seemed to me to “get” the book and was completely engaged by it being a  first person account. I was happy with her concluding words: “Anyone who has in interest in human learning and development should have this original piece of work on their shelves.”

The other review, by organizational psychologist Stephanie L. Brooke, appears in the American Psychological Association’s monthly review of books (online PsycCritiques/Contemporary Psychology) also in August 2009. This review is a rather lengthy and straightforward summary of the contents of the book. This reviewer is clearly more conflicted about the personal style, commenting that “Although subjective, the work is well thought out and well referenced.” Question: When did subjectivity and thinking become opposites?

I’ll keep you posted. Meanwhile, feel free to write a review!!!!

I’ll keep you posted!

I’ve been making a series of presentations in recent months around New York City and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed speaking with diverse audiences of undergraduates, graduate students, faculty and staffs at universities, conferences and human service organizations. The topics of my talks have varied—”Play is the Thing,” “Learning in Groups,” “Language Learning as Vygotskian Performance”—and the conversations have taken many different directions. But they are all relate to certain concepts of Vygotsky’s that have intrigued and inspired me for a long, long time.  I try to capture these concepts with quotes from Vygotsky’s writings. What do you think? Do they resonate with you? Intrigue? Inspire?

“The search for method becomes one of the most important problems of the entire enterprise of understanding the uniquely human forms of psychological activity. In this case, the method is simultaneously prerequisite and product, the tool and the result of the study.” (Mind in Society, 1978, p. 65)

“In play a child always behaves beyond his average age, above his daily behavior; in play it is as though he were a head taller than himself.” (Mind in Society, 1978, p. 102). 

“The development of a corresponding concept is not completed but only beginning at the moment a new word is learned. The new word is not the culmination but the beginning of the development of a concept. Here, as everywhere, the development of the meaningful aspect of speech turns out to be the basic and decisive process in the development of the child’s thinking and speech.” (Thinking and Speech, 1987, p. 241)

“The relationship of thought to word is not a thing but a process, a movement from thought to word and from word to thought … Thought is not expressed but completed in the word. We can, therefore, speak of the establishment (i.e., the unity of being and nonbeing) of thought in the word … The structure of speech is not simply the mirror image of the structure of thought. It cannot, therefore, be placed on thought like clothes off a rack. Speech does not merely serve as the expression of developed thought. Thought is restructured as it is transformed into speech. It is not expressed but completed in the word.” (Thinking and Speech, 1987, p. 250-1)

I am compelled to comment on this last quote, because it is so provocative and evocative! Here’s what my colleague Fred Newman and I think about its implications: If speaking is the completing of thinking, if the process is continuously creative in socio-cultural space (that is, if mind is in society), then it follows that the “completer” does not have to be the one who is doing the thinking. Others can complete for us. In doing so, they are no more saying what we are thinking than we are saying what we are thinking when we complete ourselves. This implication is key to our understanding of emotional growth in social therapeutics.

I’m excited about a new course offering of the East Side Institute, where I am privileged to be director. It’s entitled, “Conversations with a Black Minority: Postmodern Marxists in Dialogue about a New and Innovative Approach to “Black” Psychology,” and it will be led by four powerful African American women colleagues of mine from whom I have learned immeasurably: Lenora Fulani, Alvaader Frazier, Pam Lewis and Gloria Strickland (bios below).

During the five weekly sessions, they will “unpack” the title of their course—sharing how they understand themselves as a “Black Minority;” in what ways they are postmodern Marxists; what that looks like in their work as psychologists, educators and community activists; why they think such an approach is good for the development of black communities and of all people; and what the challenges are in light of “black psychology” — both the psychology of the black community and that of academics who identify and work with a black psychology. 

“Conversations …” meets Wednesday evenings, 6:30-8:00 PM February 25-March 25 at the East Side Institute. For more information or to register http://www.acteva.com/booking.cfm?bevaid=175846

I plan to write about the course here each week. 

Lenora Fulani is a leading youth development specialist who co-founded the All Stars Project in 1981. One of her current projects is Operation Conversation: Cops and Kids, a series of workshops that uses performance to facilitate dialogues between New York City police and Black youth. Dr. Fulani earned her Ph.D. in developmental psychology from the City University of New York. As America’s leading Black independent, she has twice run for President of the United States.

Alvaader Frazier, Esq. is a long time community organizer. She received her law degree from Western State University College of Law in Fullerton, California and has worked as a human rights attorney. Ms. Frazier is also a prolific poet, writer and patron of the arts.

Pamela Lewis is the Director of Youth Programs for the All Stars Project. At the All Stars she also serves as national producer of the All Stars Talent Show Network and co- director of the Joseph A. Forgione Development School for Youth.

Gloria Strickland is the Director of the All Stars Project of New Jersey. Prior to heading up the All Stars, Ms. Strickland was the executive director of the Somerset Community Action (SCAP) and the Somerset County Head Start programs. She has a Masters degree in education from New York University.

The headquarters of the East Side Institute was crowded with friends and colleagues and their friends and colleagues as we launched my new book, Vygotsky at Work and Play on January 23. We interrupted the chatter of conversation and book signing with a short program. Rafael Mendez, my friend and co-editor (of Psychological Investigations) hosted and shared  the importance of the ideas presented in the book to his work as a psychology professor and social therapist. Then Ana Marjanovic-Shane, a noted Vygotskian/cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) theorist and practitioner, spoke—giving what more than one guest said was a fabulous and fascinating lesson on Vygotsky. Here are some photos from the festivities.

Ana and Lois

Richard House and Del Loewenthal have done a great service to mental health professionals and consumers in putting together an intelligent and cogent collection of essays that lay bare the epistemological and ideological underpinnings of CBT and the methodological validity accorded to it. The two British psychologists are  editors of the new book, Against and For CBT: Towards a Constructive Dialogue?  One of the many critical questions the 24 essays in the book raise is: “What is the balance of responsibility between policy-makers, the CBT field itself, and the “modernist” Zeitgeist for the way in which CBT has increasingly been made into the prevailing therapy of “choice” within modern Western societies?

I am very pleased that one of the book’s essays was authored by my dear friend, mentor and collaborator Fred Newman. In their overview of the book’s contents, House and Loewenthal had this to say about Newman’s contribution: “In the final chapter on epistemological and research perspectives, ‘Where is the magic in cognitive therapy? – a philo/psychological investigation’ , Fred Newman explores the connection between cognitive therapy and common sense, the relationship between common sense and science, and the interrelationships between the cognitive, the linguistic, and the post-modern turn. We are treated to an engagingly discursive philosophical tour de force that incorporates such philosophical giants as Quine, Davidson, Wittgenstein, Vygotsky and Searle – and of course, Fred Newman and Lois Holzman’s own distinctive brand of ‘social therapy’. As always with Newman’s writings, the reader is in for a journey of many fascinating philosophical twists and turn – and not least, the post-modern one.” (p. 16)

Newman’s essay — and the entire book — is a must read.