Culture

23 Aug

Posted at 21:57h in Activity Theory, Creativity, Culture, Human Development, Popular Posts, Psychology of Becoming, Vygotsky

August 23, 2013 I’ve spent much of today gathering and reading bits of articles on imagination, play and creativity. Among them is a piece by Lev Vygotsky entitled, “Imagination and Creativity in Childhood”(translated into English from the Russian and published in 2004 in the Journal of Russian and East European Psychology)....

01 Aug

Posted at 21:16h in Community Organizing, Creativity, Culture, Health Care, Human Development, Psychology, Psychology of Becoming

August 1, 2013 About 3-4 months ago I started writing another blog on Psychology Today. I call it The Conceptual Revolution (The Creative Side of Culture Change). Usually I write different posts than what I write here. But today's an exception. Here's "How to Spread "Slow Ideas"—Talk to People." “Why do some...

25 Jul

Posted at 00:15h in Activity Theory, Culture, Education, Human Development, Language, Philosophy, Play, Psychology, Psychology of Becoming, Social Therapeutics, Vygotsky

  July 24 2013 Fred Newman's and my 1993 book, Lev Vygotsky: Revolutionary Scientist, is now a classic! It's been published by Psychology Press, and my copy arrived today in the mail. It felt good in my hands, and not just because it's a better size and paper quality than the original....

23 Jul

Posted at 15:31h in Applied Theatre, Community Organizing, Creativity, Culture, Human Development, Performance Movement, Play, Politics, Psychology, Psychology of Becoming, Theatre

July 23, 2013 Last month I spent my Wednesday evenings in conversation on the topic of “Performance Activism.” I was co-leading a short course in the East Side Institute’s Revolutionary Conversation series. My partner was Dan Friedman, who is a theatre historian, artistic director of the Castillo Theatre and, with me,...

11 Jul

Posted at 00:34h in Culture, Human Development, Philosophy, Popular Posts, Psychology of Becoming

July 10, 2013 When I last posted on May 29, I had just returned from Denmark where I co-taught a three-day course, ”Educational Psychology, Late-modernity and Social Therapeutics,” for PhD students in psychology at the University of Aarhus (Denmark’s second largest city). Two days later, I left for Singapore where I...

29 May

Posted at 22:07h in Critical psychiatry, Culture, DSM-5, Human Development, Philosophy, Psychology of Becoming, Psychotherapy, Social Therapy, Wittgenstein

May 29, 2013 To New York Times columnist and cultural and political commentator David Brooks, psychiatrists are not heroes of science but “heroes of uncertainty.” Such is the title of his May 27, 2013 Op-Ed piece.  Brooks takes the compilers of the DSM-5 and contemporary psychiatry to task for presenting their field...

02 May

Posted at 19:34h in Community Organizing, Culture, Education, Human Development, Learning Environments, Outside of School, Performance Movement, Play, Politics, Psychology of Becoming, Youth Development

May 2, 2013 "Radically accepting the poverty of one’s own life and community while simultaneously depersonalizing it makes possible a certain kind of growth/development – especially if one is simultaneously involved in activities that engage the underdevelopment that accompanies poverty." [caption id="attachment_1506" align="alignleft" width="204"] Lenora B. Fulani[/caption] So says Dr. Lenora Fulani in...

23 Apr

Posted at 17:30h in Community Organizing, Culture, Human Development, Philosophy, Politics, Postmodern Marxism, Psychology, Psychology of Becoming, Psychotherapy, Social Therapeutics, Social Therapy

April 23, 2013 A few years ago while doing some teaching in Brazil, I was interviewed (in English) for Internet radio on where social therapeutics comes from and where it’s going. The interview was rich and far-reaching, as I recall—radical therapy,  social constructionism, politics, philosophy, culture, community...

20 Dec

Posted at 03:02h in Applied Theatre, Culture, Performance Movement, Play, Psychology of Becoming, Social Therapy, Theatre, Youth Development

December 19, 2012 “A lot rides on our capacity to be who we’re not.” So remarked Christine LaCerva, director of The Social Therapy Group and the East Side Institute’s clinical training. Christine was one of six who I assembled to address the topic, “The Therapeutic Power of Performance,” at a plenary session...

26 Sep

Posted at 01:27h in Applied Theatre, Clowning, Community Organizing, Creativity, Culture, Education, Health Care, Human Development, Outside of School, Performance Movement, Play, Politics, Psychology, Psychology of Becoming, Psychotherapy, Theatre, Youth Development

September 24, 2012 Today I’m going to do some more promotion for Performing the World 2012 (PTW 2012)—because I’m so excited about it! The opening reception on Thursday evening October 4 will be a community welcome to New York—featuring food prepared by dozens of New York City friends; greetings by myself and...