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...
[caption id="attachment_3254" align="aligncenter" width="4032"] National Dong-Hwa University[/caption] A few weeks after traveling to Bogotá Colombia to participate in the International Conference on Citizenship Culture, Dan Friedman (Institute faculty, artistic director of the All Stars Project's Castillo Theatre and associate dean of All Stars' UX) and I were on our way to...
A colleague of mine invited me to contribute a chapter to a book he's putting together. Over the summer I completed the draft chapter, which I call Zones of Proximal Development: Mundane and Magical. I share a paragraph from the beginning pages and another from the ending pages. (You'll have...
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...
Dan Friedman (artistic director of the Castillo Theatre and associate dean of UX) and I were in Bogota Colombia last week at the invitation of former mayor Antanas Mockus and his organization Corpovisionarois. We were both keynote speakers at their International Conference on Citizenship Culture. This years theme was "Another...
This summer I drafted an article for a special issue on diagnostic alternatives of the Journal of Humanistic Psychology. Having learned that it will be at least a year before publication (which is ridiculous), I am making it available here. Feedback welcome! Diagnosis: A Thousand Ordinary People Speak Out Lois Holzman and Elisabeth...
I had a wonderful time this past weekend at the 2016 North Carolina Honors Association Conference in Greensboro North Carolina. It was a privilege to be the keynote speaker at the opening banquet, especially since the conference theme was "Innovations in Pedagogy, Research, and Learning: Using Play, Performance and Improvisation."...
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...