Developing News April – June 1999

CONTENTS:
In this issue four friends share their work with readers.

Leif Strandberg from Sweden.

Sheila McNamee from the United States

Will Wadlington from the United States

Ian Parker from the United Kingdom

Premier of Performing in Kulasi

Performing English

Social Therapy Around the Country

In Print

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A LETTER FROM SWEDEN
by Leif Strandberg

I want to tell you something about my work as a psychologist here "on the border of the Arctic Circle." My country has not been to war since 1809, when we "lost" Finland to Russia. We have a long social democratic tradition and during the Vietnam War Sweden talked very firmly against the war. I think we had the strongest anti-war movement (in relation to our population) in the whole so-called western world. Our relations to U.S. were frozen those days. No Swedish prime minister was invited to the U.S. and your country even brought its ambassador home. Our prime minister at that time was Olof Palme and, as you perhaps know, he was a leading person against the war. This created, of course, lots of tensions even inside the nation. Many right-wing people hated Palme. In 1986 Palme was assassinated in the street. We still don't know by whom. But after that the relations between the U.S. and Sweden, as a former Reagan minister said, became better and "Sweden was a normal nation again."

I live in the northern part of Sweden where there are a lot of forests, iron-, gold- and copper-ore and big rivers. So our industry reflects those conditions: mines, lumber- and paper industries, ironwork and water-power producing electricity. The Sami people, our native people, live in this region working with their reindeers. In other words, big mountains (we call them fjelds), dark forests and a beautiful archipelago. And of course The Midnight Sun and The Northern Light.

In the sixties we got our first university up here; the University of Umea, where I began to study psychology. It was not too much fun in the beginning. One of our professors had been the leading researcher and counselor when Sweden turned from left to right hand traffic in 1967. So we studied the perception of different traffic signs. That was not spicy enough for those of us who wanted to do bigger things (change the world for example) so we started to do our own reading.

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We started small study circle groups. The study-circle is also a Swedish specialty, emanating from the first popular movements in the middle of the 19th century. We studied Marx, Fanon, Sartre, Freire. We saw the name of Vygotsky but we did not understand how big he was. I saw him, at that time, more as a Russian behaviorist. We were also very inspired by the anti-psychiatry movement, especially by what went on in Italy, where they talked about tearing down the big mental hospitals.

We talked a lot about how people in big institutions and asylums, mental hospitals, schools, day care centers, homes for the aged, universities etc. could or could not develop. You know, "Universities with no walls."

Anyway, I finished my MSc in Psychology and after a year I was registered as a psychologist by the Swedish Board of Health and Welfare and I started to work with children and teachers in schools and pre-schools. In the beginning of 1990 Sweden did in fact tear down the big institutions and gave local communities and local municipalities authority to work with the elderly, the people from the mental hospitals, and so-called retarded people. It was a shift from the level of the state and the county to the local level.

There was also a shift from highly educated people (doctors etc.) to local nurses and nurse assistants. Many people (mostly academics) were angry at this development. I was not, and from that time I "dedicated my life" to this. I felt that what was going on was just what we had talked about as students. The local municipalities asked me (now a freelancer) to help them to develop team building together with the staff.

I've met thousands and thousands of so-called grassroots people, including nurses and nurse assistants. I was, and I still am, very impressed by what they are doing and how they

It has been important for us to put new questions on the agenda. The old ones asked by the institutions were completely wrong! Now we asked ourselves: What is life quality? What role do performance and activity play in that? What is a community of caregivers? How do care giving and care taking come together? Is it possible to organize liberation? What roles can neighbors, friends, relatives play in the local community of helpers? What does it mean to be together? What is a choice? What is a home? etc. In this phase I was very influenced by Wittgenstein's language games and Vygotsky's zones of proximal development.

The nurses and nurse assistants are organized in small teams with eight to ten member in each team.

Four or five teams are held together by a leader. My primary task is to help these teams to develop, to create the conditions in which they can work together, think together and share visions. In this process of team building I have created a method which I call "Let's write a book!" which is also influenced by the study circle tradition.

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"Let's write a book!"

The process of writing the book starts with small talk. We talk in the beginning very freely of the everyday life of the work: What's our everyday life activity? What do we do? What do we think of what we are doing? What kind of conceptual and other tools do we use? What do we want with our efforts? Sooner or later tensions begin to emerge in what we are talking about. Some situations are more complicated than others. At that moment I say: "Let's go deeper here. Let's write a story about such a situation!"

Small groups – sometimes made up of only two persons – then make small stories in which they describe the problematic situations more carefully. We then read the different stories together and talk about the meaning and the continuation of them. After a couple of days I go home, taking all the stories with me and in front of my computer I try to give the stories a frame; a story-grammar. You could say that my role is the role of an editor or a director at a theatre school.

After that I come back to the team and we read these stories together. We read and criticize "my version."

– No Leif, here you've misunderstood us completely.

– Oh did I really say that? It's not so bad ...is it?

– Do you mean that I meant that?

– Here is a new story about Emma...can we call her Emma?

Then I go home once again and write the final (?) version. In some of the books we collaborate with illustrators. In the writing phase I've learned a lot from both Freire and Freinet (the radical French educator).

After the books/booklets are ready, the teams start study-circles together with their work mates and other teams. Sometimes I join them and we expand the texts once more as a result of the discussions. It is very nice to listen to the discussions in the teams:

– Did you really say that...I didn't know you were that smart ...(haha)

– This is really about us and what we work with...

We are not writing for an academic reader but we try to do theory. An important part of our work is to invent and create new, more local concepts, words, and sentences. Most of them are hard to translate into English (and sometimes even into Swedish since we live in a part of the country where the local dialect is very special). Together with such teams I have created over 30 small books. We call them "A small book about..." In my opinion, this method gains: a local perspective; a bottom up (grassroots) perspective; collectiveness; doing-talking-writing in a seamless thread; confidence in everyday life activities; confidence by the members of the group; confidence in dialogue and negotiating; confidence in personal mastery.

In this work I've been very much inspired by what you are doing at the East Side Institute in New York. Your way of emphasizing democracy, equality, and performance resulting in an optimistic view of human growth, has been a great source of inspiration to me.

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RELATIONAL RESPONSIBILITY:

In early December I had the opportunity to meet with members of the East Side Institute in a variety of settings. I had the chance to join Lois Holzman at her Conversations on Critical Topics in Psychology and Education, as well as to join the staffs of the East Side Institute and East Side Center for Social Therapy to talk about the ways in which our work resonates. Together we engaged in a lively discussion about the direction of psychology and psychotherapy in particular, and social life in general. Our conversation focused on how, in practice, we might move from the individualist discourse that permeates mainstream psychology and psychotherapy (and all institutional domains) toward a relational understanding of social life. Of course what emerged in these discussions was the common thrust of our work. The main thread was one of practice. How do we put a relational sensibility to practice? It is clear that the work of the East Side Institute is devoted to this issue; putting theory to practice for purposes of transforming social life. Our common interests in this made for not only lively discussion but, more important, energy and excitement for continuing the conversation.

In my own work, I attempt to put theory to practice on a daily basis, whether that is with my students, my colleagues, my family, or with clients in consultation. The challenge is to develop an array of conversational practices that operate as boundary dissolving discourses. How does one cross the borders from one discursive community to another (including from academic work into the practices of the culture more directly)? Discussion of these issues has significant bearing on the professional development of educators, therapists, organizational consultants and managers as well as a host of other specialists.

In attempts to dissolve boundaries it is difficult to identify and justify participation by virtue of "tradition," "hierarchy," or "procedure" without critically questioning the genesis, coherence and ethics of any particular way of talking. Attention to these issues liberates me to engage in "meaningful" discourse with a broad array of "others."

For example, my students are just as important to the success of my courses and thus they have a large part in the organization and structure of our classes. We learn together. And, we frequently use "non-traditional" activities to illustrate what we have learned (videos, plays, stories, performances, etc.).

How might we, in a variety of significant settings (therapy, organizational life, education), enter conversations in ways that might sustain and support the process of constructing meaning as opposed to terminating it (see McNamee and Gergen, 1999, Relational Responsibility: Resources for Sustainable Dialogue, Sage Inc.)? What other resources might be available in our attempts to engage in dialogue, not annihilation of disparate views? How can we celebrate the relational ways in which we construct our realities? Is it possible to engender a sense of "we-ness" in the rationale and the coherence of the decisions we make while still allowing for differences of opinion? Do we have to continue in the individualist tradition by crediting one person with an idea, a solution, a particular competency or meritorious act? What would the implications of replacing this tradition with a relational sensibility be for our cultural rituals and institutions? The implications, to me, are profound. Certainly, the need to negotiate multiple realities is required for life in a global economy. Might this form of work address Wittgenstein's question: "How do we go on together?"

These are the issues circulating at the East Side Institute. Our conversation has only begun and I am eager to continue.

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In September 1999 colleagues from the University of New Hampshire and the Taos Institute (a community of scholars and practitioners working to explore, develop and extend the implications of social construction within a broad array of professional practices – www.serve.com/taos) will collaborate in offering an international, interdisciplinary conference entitled "Social Construction and Relational Practices." The conference theme places emphasis on the relational practices that create and transform cultural life. It is designed to bring scholars and societal practitioners into a mutually enriching dialogue.

Specifically, the conference will allow participants to explore the fertile repository of intellectual resources resulting from a social constructionist sensibility in academia.

Yet, equal attention will be given to the ways in which social construction has informed the development of many professional practices outside the scholarly world (e.g., education, therapy, community and organizational development, conflict management, political action, healthcare, and more). This conference will serve as a forum for generating further resources, both practical and theoretical, for human interchange.

The conference will be held at the University of New Hampshire's New England Center from September 16-19, 1999. For further information contact the University Conference Office at (603) 862-1200 or check our website at www.unh.edu/taos.

Sheila McNamee, Ph.D. is Professor and Chair of Communication at the University of New Hampshire and is co-founder of the Taos Institute

The End of Knowing: A New Developmental Way of Learning by Fred Newman and Lois Holzman will be the topic of a symposium at the Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association (APA) in Boston this August.

Summary of symposium

In "Postmodernism as a Humanism" (1995), Kenneth Gergen draws on various contemporary "ideological, literary-rhetorical, and social critiques," including his own social constructionist project, in an attempt to "role play some of the potentials of postmodern critique" (p. 73) for humanistic psychology. He attempts to counter the existential despair he finds at the center of contemporary humanistic thought, and to invite a new form of intellectual discourse. "Postmodernism," he says, "urges us to create multiple ways of generating integrative conversation, in a way that is congenial with the deepest hopes of the humanistic tradition" (p. 71). He tries to reconcile such central Western and humanistic concerns as the belief in the embodied self, individual agency, and freedom, with a postmodern orientation toward relatedness, multiculturalism, and polyphony. In so doing, he tries to save humanistic psychology from obsolescence.

In this symposium, a review of The End of Knowing [Wadlington] is followed by a response from one of the authors [Holzman]. This in turn is followed by a discussion involving the audience and participants in a conversation about the implications of a non-epistemological approach for humanistic psychology. Sheila McNamee and Maryl Carlin are the discussants. A key question is whether humanistic psychologists care about reforming, much less revolutionizing, their traditional ways of thinking and practicing psychotherapy.

Gergen, K. (1995) Postmodernism as a humanism. The Humanistic Psychologist, 23, 71-82.

Newman, F. and Holzman, L. (1997). The end of knowing: A new developmental way of learning. London: Routledge.

Will Wadlington, Ph.D. is assistant director of clinical services at the Center for Counseling and Psychological Services at Pennsylvania State University

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CRITICAL PSYCHOLOGY NEWS
by Ian Parker

1st Annual Review of Critical Psychology
due in July

The first issue of the Annual Review of Critical Psychology (ARCP) will be published in July 1999. This first themed special issue will be on "Foundations." What are the necessary prerequisites for critical work in different areas of the discipline? What theoretical and methodological resources do we already have at hand for good critical practice? What are the conceptual and institutional foundations for critical psychology? ARCP is an international refereed journal, providing an opportunity for readers to learn about theoretical frameworks and practical initiatives around the world. Contents of the first issue include articles on educational psychology, conversation analysis, lesbian and gay psychology, organizational psychology, materialism, dialectical postmodernism, mental health, methodology, racism, feminism and cognitive science, as well as review essays of key critical psychology texts. Fred Newman will be represented with an article entitled "One dogma of dialectical materialism."

For subscription information, contact Ian Parker, Editor, Discourse Unit, Psychology, Bolton Institute, Deane Road, Bolton, BL3 5AB UK. Website: www. sar.bolton.ac.uk/psych/ Email I.A.Parker @bolton.ac.uk Tel: +44 (1204) 903150 Fax: +44 (1204) 399074.

Critical Psychology and Action Research

This international conference, to be held on July 13-16, 1999 and organized by the Discourse Unit at the Bolton Institute, will provide a forum to discuss ways of changing the world through varieties of action research, and to critically reflect on how psychology needs to change to be up to the task. There will be keynote talks, individual papers, symposia and workshops. The conference will encompass theories, methods and examples of action research. Sessions will focus on issues of conscientization, cultural destabilization, education inclusion campaigns, feminist research, mental health intervention, practical deconstruction and radical therapeutic activities.

There will be participants from around the world, including from Australia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark, Finland, Mexico, Portugal, South Africa, United States and Venezuela.

For further details about conference booking and registration, contact Judy Whiting, Faculty of Arts, Science and Education, Bolton Institute, Chadwick Street, Bolton, BL2, 1JW, UK (fax: 01204 903338/email JWhiting@bolton.ac.uk)

Premier of Performing in Kulasi Brings Tears of Sadness and Joy.

Performing in Kulasi shows what developmental performance looks like in two vastly different cultures – U.S. inner cities and war-torn former Yugoslavia. The video focuses on Zdravo Da Ste, a refugee organization in the former Yugoslavia, and its collaboration with the East Side Institute.

Named for the village in which an Institute training was held with 60 members of Zdravo Da Ste, Performing in Kulasi premiered in New York City a day or so before NATO bombs began to fall (with guest commentary by Stanka Nestorovic, a Yugoslavian psychologist now living in the U.S.). Members of the audience shared how deeply affected they were: "All this beauty side by side with so much pain. It's a joy to see this collaboration in the face of such devastation"; "The issue is what we can build together and this video shows that beautifully"; "You see here what you don't see on TV. People supporting each other. Life goes on with all the bombs falling."

Performing in Kulasi was conceived and produced to be distributed free around the country and world to those who could be helped by seeing people developing in the midst of devastation. If you'd like to make a tax-deductible contribution toward this effort, or know people who would like to receive a copy, contact Mary Fridley at (212) 941-8906 or by email at maryfrid@aol.com.

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Performing English:
Performatory Developmental Learning
In Teaching ESL

Kim Sabo (who received her Ph.D. in environmental psychology from the CUNY Research Center and Graduate School in May) spent six months studying the effectiveness of performatory developmental learning for teaching high school English as a Second Language (ESL). She conducted an observational case study of a Brooklyn high school ESL class taught by Vicky Wallace, a teacher trained in the Institute's performance approach. According to Kim, "The teacher's success has everything to do with the fact that she was always focused on the activity of the class, not on any specific content. Her ability to relate to all classroom activity as performance allowed the students to learn in a very different manner. They no longer felt they needed to learn grammar before speaking; they just spoke. Whether they were performing as Native Americans to bring the textbook alive, as teachers, other students or themselves, they were speaking, listening, reading and writing in English."

Kim also noted the important connection between an activity focus, creating a performatory environment and playing with language.

"By the end of the semester, the students were talking to each other more in English than in Spanish. These conversations generally took place when they were working together to create performances...they often laughed at each other's performance; however, no one took it personally. After all, the laughter was directed at their performances, not at the individual students. In fact, it almost seemed as if the laughter enticed them to go further in their exaggerated behavior. Generally, high school students are extremely self-conscious and don't want to be made fun of; therefore they will not speak comfortably in front of their classmates. However, in this ESL classroom, an environment has been created in which students are able to play with language and be supportive of each other's performances. In this way, they changed their relationship to language."

An article based on these findings has been submitted to TESOL, a journal published by Teachers of English as a Second Language. The project was funded by a grant from the Virginia Wellington Cabot Foundation to the East Side Institute.

SOCIAL THERAPY AROUND THE COUNTRY

In Boston: The Boston Center for Social Therapy continued its popular life performance training series with a workshop on "The Joy of Growing Older/Growing Up."

In Horsham, PA: The Horsham Center for Social Therapy, the newest social therapy center in the country, opened its doors under the direction of Jennifer Bullock. Jennifer, who received a Masters in Counseling Psychology from Temple University and a Masters in Law and Social Policy from Bryn Mawr College, works as a forensic specialist for the Children's Advocacy Center in Philadelphia. In this capacity, she consults with the police, child protection services and prosecutors on evidence in cases involving child abuse. In explaining why she transitioned her private practice of more than nine years to a social therapy center, Jennifer said, "I've been influenced by social therapy for many years. After receiving formal training in the performance approach over the last year, I wanted this to be the kind of therapy I was practicing and the kind of center I was running." Congratulations!

In New York City: This year's Spring Institute with Fred Newman, "The Giving of Love," turned into a "live radio" performance, as workshop participants spent the afternoon "calling in" their questions about love and loving. Newman hosts a weekly call-in radio show in New York City ("Let's Develop," Sundays at noon, WVED-AM) and he likes the format so much he wanted to try it without the radio. The hundred plus people present found the conversation provocative, helpful and loving. You can purchase a copy of the video of The Giving of Love from the East Side Institute. Contact Ann Green at (212) 941-8906 or by email at esiesc@aol.com.

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The East Side Institute has awarded the Charles Alsdorf Scholarship to Michael Wise, a counselor and community educator on HIV/AIDS for The Long Island Counseling Center, a counseling center for gay adolescents. Established by Charles Alsdorf, a San Francisco business consultant, the scholarship provides funds for a year-long intensive training program in social therapy for a mental health or health professional who works in the gay community with people with HIV/AIDS.

East Side Institute staff members introduced their work to an ever-growing list of metropolitan area agencies and organizations: in Manhattan - American Business Women's Association, Dreams on the Move, Escalare Head Start and the Greenwich Village Youth Council; in Brooklyn - Alexander Robertson School; Brooklyn College; BTC Displaced Homemakers; the Salvation Army Senior Center and St. Barbara's Head Start; in the Bronx - Bronx Displaced Homemakers and Mid-Bronx Head Start and in Staten Island - In & Out, a program for prisoners at the Arthur Kill Correctional Facility.

In Philadelphia: The Philadelphia Center for Social Therapy, together with the Women's Group, a progressive ob/gyn practice in Philadelphia, sponsored a lecture on "Developmental Approaches to Menopause." Dr. Joyce Frye, the co-founder of the Jefferson Center for Integrative Medicine and the president of the National Center for Homeopathy, joined Elizabeth Hechtman, the director of the Philadelphia Center, in speaking with the more than 30 women who attended the event, which was held at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.

In San Francisco: The Center for Developmental Learning of the West Coast Center for Social Therapy kicked off its new year with a life performance training entitled "Relationships: Creating Conversations."

Helen Abel, West Coast Center clinical director and case manager with Alameda County Mental Health, spoke with volunteers from the Riley Center who will be working with battered women and their children in shelters. Helen also addressed social workers at Legal Services for Children whose clients include adults and children with AIDS.

Shelley Schwartz-Wobken, development trainer at the West Coast Center and an art therapist with the Mental Health Rehabilitation Facility of San Francisco General Hospital, presented on "Performance in the Milieu" to doctors, nurses, social workers, mental health workers and activity leaders who work on the same floor at the rehabilitation facility.

In Washington, DC: The Washington Center for Social Therapy held a life performance training on "Creating the Relationship You Want." The Washington Center also moved to a new office on Wisconsin Avenue, with an open house scheduled for May.

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IN PRINT

Performing Psychology: A Postmodern Culture of the Mind is the latest work of the Newman-Holzman team. A Routledge publication edited by Lois Holzman, the book is a collection of essays and stage plays by and about Fred Newman. According to the publisher's blurb, "the reader is invited into dialogues currently taking place as to the nature of human subjectivity, the relationship of theatre to human development, the status of traditional science in a postmodern world, the process of therapy and diagnosis, and the re-initiation of creativity and growth." Publication is set for late May.

The East Side Institute will be hosting a book party on Sunday, June 13 at 5pm. If you live in the New York City metropolitan area and are interested in attending, contact Madelyn Chapman at (212) 941-8906 or by email at Chapman500@aol.com.

The January 1998 issue of the Psychotherapy Forum contained a review of The End of Knowing by Gerda Klammer, a psychologist from Vienna, Austria. Gerda compared Newman and Holzman's work with Conversation, Language and Possibilities: A Postmodern Approach to Therapy by Harlene Anderson of the Galveston Institute in Houston, Texas.