I am happy to report that a new documentary film, Lev Vygotsky: One Man’s Legacy through his Life and Theory, is being released this month. The filmmaker is Valerie Lowe who, in addition to making films, is an adult educator, corporate consultant and staff trainer in British Columbia — and a completely lovely person. I got to know Val when she was just beginning this project a few years ago and have been following its development. 

I also got  pre-release glimpses of the film this past fall when Val showed segments at the ISCAR (International Society for Cultural Activity Research) conference in San Diego and the Performing the World 2008 (PTW’08) conference in New York City. The film uniquely combines the political-cultural history of Vygotsky’s life with illustrations of contemporary Vygotskian practices in several countries, and is comprised of interviews with Vygotsky family members Gita L. Vygodskaya and Elena Kravtzova, photographs, archival footage, and commentaries by contemporary Vygotksian scholars, Michael Cole, Lois Holzman, Vera John-Steiner, Alex Kozulin, Tamara Lifanova, Luciano Mecacci, and James Wertsch. You can view sections of the film at the website media page. (You can see about 5 seconds of me in one of them.)

It was a  privilege to have been included in “Lev Vygotsky” and, even more, to have been able to introduce Val and viewers to the some extraordinary Vygotskian practitioners.

Some colleagues and I are now planning a New York premiere of the film to take place in March or April. Watch for the announcement!

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.