Culture

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...

13 Sep

Posted at 21:07h in Applied Theatre, Community Organizing, Culture, Education, Health Care, Human Development, Learning Environments, Performance Movement, Play, Psychology, Psychology of Becoming, Psychotherapy, Theatre, Youth Development

September 13, 2012 It's the last few weeks leading up to the 7th Performing the World gathering taking place October 4-7 at the All Stars Project headquarters on 42 St in NYC. Amidst all the details and fine tuning of schedules and staffing, there's the bigger picture—the historicity of the activity,...

11 Sep

Posted at 00:13h in Activity Theory, Culture, Education, Human Development, Postmodern Marxism, Psychology, Psychology of Becoming, Psychotherapy, Social Therapeutics, Vygotsky, Youth Development

[caption id="attachment_1329" align="aligncenter" width="224"] Poster of the Japanese Society of Developmental Psychology Workshop in Tokyo[/caption] September 10, 2012 “You said performance is an untapped human resource, but Japanese people are reclusive…how can we work with that?” Can we redesign public schools to be ZPDs?” “If little children aren’t aware they’re performing and adults are,...

20 Jun

Posted at 01:23h in Applied Theatre, Community Organizing, Creativity, Culture, Education, Health Care, Human Development, Outside of School, Performance Movement, Play, Psychology of Becoming, Youth Development

June 19, 2012 I’ve been immersed in PTW—that’s Performing the World, an international festival/conference/happening I launched eleven years ago. This October, we’re hosting the 7th PTW, “Can Performance Change Save the World?” (recasting the 2010 PTW theme, “Can Performance Change the World?” because of the  increasing intensity of the challenges facing...