Psychology of Becoming

12 Apr Improvising With and In

Posted at 17:00h in Applied Theatre, Creativity, Culture, Education, Human Development, Learning Environments, Outside of School, Play, Psychology of Becoming, Theatre 2 Comments

Since 2016, I’ve been editor of a series of books—Studies in Play, Performance, Learning and Development—published by Palgrave Macmillan. I’m proud of the nine books I helped to get written and published. Every one of them has made important contributions within and across education, psychology, youth development and theatre/performance studies,...

13 Mar Words to Ponder #48

Posted at 17:46h in Community Organizing, Creativity, Culture, Human Development, Performance Movement, Psychology of Becoming, Words to Ponder 1 Comment

These Words to Ponder are those of performance activist Hector Aristizabal, taken from a wonderful interview with him at Creative Art Space. To be creative is to participate consciously in the ongoing creation of the world. Creativity is not primarily about producing art. It is about entering into relationship with life...

11 Mar Appreciating Vygotsky … and Writing Letters

Posted at 20:38h in Culture, Education, Human Development, Learning Environments, Psychology of Becoming, Vygotsky 0 Comments

If you're a reader of The Developmentalist, my "developmental" advice column, you know I'm a fan of writing letters. They are a particular way of organizing your relationship with the person you're writing to and with yourself. Writing a letter and never sending it can be just as good as...

11 Mar Step Out Of Psychology Speak

Posted at 17:35h in Creativity, DSM-5, Human Development, Interviews, Look and Listen, Psychology of Becoming, Social Therapeutics 0 Comments

I love Chris Hoff's The Radical Therapist podcast! I was a guest for the second time a few weeks ago, this time speaking about my book, A Developmentalist's Guide. Give a listen—to mine and others!...

12 Feb Join the 26/27 Cohort ofThe International Class

Posted at 20:36h in Psychology of Becoming 0 Comments

Check out the new webpages for the Institute's International Class. It's playful & philosophical, demanding & developmental, mundane & magical. And just what social change agents and those who aspire to lead most need!...

12 Feb Help Us Improve the People We Love

Posted at 02:34h in Creativity, Human Development, Psychology of Becoming, The Developmentalist, The Developmentalist 0 Comments

Dear Developmentalist, My friend Annette and I really enjoy talking together. When we meet up, both of us are eager to share about what is going on in our lives, but we also enjoy listening and learning from the other person. Whenever one of us shares something, the other is quick...

07 Feb Joint Subjectivity

Posted at 22:05h in Psychology of Becoming, Uncategorized 0 Comments

Fred Newman and I wrote this nearly 20 years ago. What do you think today? Over nearly three decades we have described our work (our politics) in many different ways. Perhaps this is an expression or result of differing elements of our joint subjectivity-- a moral and scientific aversion to labels and...

07 Feb More Dilemmas! More Letters!

Posted at 15:57h in Creativity, Culture, Human Development, Play, Psychology of Becoming, The Developmentalist 0 Comments

Greetings All, As I hope you know, I gathered many of the letters and responses that appeared in this column into a book, A Developmentalist's Guide to Better Mental Health: Navigating Everyday Life Dilemmas. (My editor at Routledge urged that title, although I would have gone with something more provocative.) If you...

26 Aug Excavating the Myth of Empathy

Posted at 21:55h in Community Organizing, Creativity, Critical psychiatry, Culture, Psychology of Becoming, Psychotherapy 2 Comments

I’ve been pondering the popularity of empathy for quite a while now, and I’ve been meaning to write something telling you why I find it so distasteful. As a way to ease into that create space, I share a bit of conversation “A Meandering Search for Method: Becoming Human in...

15 Aug Rhizomic Revolution

Posted at 03:05h in Community Organizing, Creativity, Culture, Psychology of Becoming 0 Comments

Carrie Lobman, the East Side Institute’s Leader of Education and Research and my close colleague and friend, gave the keynote address at the Cultivating Ensembles annual gathering last week. I love the title of her talk—“Boxes, Dualisms and Rhizomes”—and I loved the talk even more! Carrie urged that we go...