I posted a new chapter of The Overweight Brain a few days ago and am so pleased with the great feedback I'm receiving so far. Here's a snippet: Science relies on and perpetuates the distinction (dualism) between subjective and objective—subjective being beliefs, attitudes, and other mental processes that are “inside,” and objective being...
Renowned scholar John Shotter passed away on December 8, 2016 after a long illness. John loved to talk and to listen, to create conversation about everything, most especially about conversation itself. His contributions to social constructionism, Open Dialogue and a radically humanistic psychology are acknowledged and studied the world over. I...
As many readers of this site and the writings of the East Side Institute are aware, Fred Newman and I are among the vocal critics of psychology’s obsession with and glorification of the individual. We agree with our colleagues that psychology developed alongside and played a central role in the...
I'm happy to report that the expanded second edition of my book, Vygotsky at Work and Play is just three weeks away from publication (11/17/16). To give you a preview, here's an excerpt from my Introduction to the second edition. In his thoughtful and very generous Foreword to the first edition...
I'm immersed this week in final preparations for the 9th Performing the World event, PTW '16: Can We Perform Our Way to Power? (September 23-25) and in working on the science chapter for my online book The Overweight Brain. One thing led to another, as they always do. I was beginning to...
The Ethics of Diagnosis and Alternatives to It—An Invitation for Inquiry This week the American Psychological Association holds its annual convention in Denver. I had been planning to attend and present as part of a symposium, “The Future of Diagnosis: Ethics, Social Justice, and Alternative Paradigms.” The topic I planned to...
Performing the World (PTW) is a cross-disciplinary gathering of practitioners and scholars from every continent. Participants include performers and performance scholars, psychologists and social workers, physicians and nurses, educators and youth workers, community organizers and activists, and all others for whom performance, play and the creative/expressive arts offer a new...
Here's a sneak peek at the next chapter of The Overweight Brain. I'm giving it the working title — "The Cult(ure) of Science" Chapter 7. The Cult(ure) of Science My beef with science isn't that it’s a scam. Sciences like chemistry, anatomy, biology and physics—unlike psychology—don’t purposely distort what they’re studying to make it...
On January 25, 2016 I’ll be interviewing Ananta Kumar Giri, associate professor at the Madras Institute of Development Studies in Tamil Nadu, India, as part of the Side Institute’s “Making a Conceptual Revolution” series. Professor Giri is a fascinating person whose interests include social movements and cultural change, creativity and...
Today’s Words to Ponder are spoken by Sir Malcolm Muckerex, the pompous and erudite narrator in Fred Newman’s play, “Life Upon the Wicked Stage.” The play was first performed live at the American Psychological Association Convention in 1997; you can watch a video performance of it here. The world is a wicked...