Curriculum Vitae
Jim Lehrman
PO Box 2195
Venice, CA 90294
(310) 741-7783
jim@jimlehrman.com
www.jimlehrman.com
Contents
Personal Statement
This is a categorical display of a variety of my involvements over the past 35 years. I admit, it is an unconventional presentation of a fairly non-traditional path in life. I have been proactively self-directed through most of my life and have enjoyed filling my time with whatever was mutually enriching. There have been times when I sought out stimulating involvements and there have been times when I was the one sought after.
This Vitae contains lists of my involvements, followed by narrative descriptions to support the items contained in the lists. Reading through these notes that appear at the end of the Vitae traces a rich and unusual work life, full of colorful characters and cutting-edge projects. They read like a book. The notes are arranged in alphabetical order, like a glossary, to make referencing easier.
Prior to getting married, I routinely worked at several projects concurrently. I've enjoyed diversity while common values have always driven my commitment. As you can see by my involvements, I have been drawn to inspire and be inspired, to discover and to facilitate discovery, to empower and to be empowered. My energy has gone towards supporting the vision of a world that compassionately expresses concern for humanity, consideration for a future of quality, and the commitment to such fundamentally spiritual values as taking responsibility for one's own experience. Amidst a multitude of involvements, my Vitae reveals an eclecticism in which I have applied myself in depth and in quality in working with people, organizations, and ideas. Regardless of the context or position, my work has essentially been the same. I simply pay attention very well and respond with commitment and presence. The situation has always been second to this fundamental connection. I am held in high regard by clients, associates, and mentors alike. References are available to attest to my effectiveness.
I got married in 1986 and began a family in 1989. For 18 years, my attention has been more close to home. I have been a very present part of my children's lives, including playing a major role in their homeschooling, as well as in the schooling of their peers. Through this time I maintained a psychotherapy and mediation practice, and continued teaching, writing, and consulting. My two children are now artists - a photographer and an actor. We live in Los Angeles where my youngest daughter plays Jeremy Piven's daughter on HBO's Entourage. It is here, in the Entertainment Capital of The World that I am focusing on mediation for collaborators of creative projects.
I make myself available as a consultant on a project basis in any areas in which I can help clarify vision, purpose, or expression, help get someone or something back on track or back in balance, or help participants align their process in common unity.
Professional Experience
Clinical
2005-present
Mentoring and Mediation, Venice, California.
2002-05
Psychotherapy, Mediation, Making the Moment Matter, Paonia, Colorado.
1999-2002
Long-distance psychotherapy practice, On the road in America, with extended stays in Bisbee, AZ and Prescott, AZ.
Individual, couple, and family therapy via telephone while traveling in a motor home, with occasional in-person marathon sessions and milieu work; working with clients from my previous practice as well as new clients from as far away as London, Hamburg, Hong Kong, Taipei, Melbourne, and Riyadh.
1996-99
Making The Moment Matter for Kids, Tucson and Phoenix, Arizona.
Mentor: structured personal development program for children ages 9 to 12.
1995-99
Private psychotherapy practice, Tucson and Phoenix, Arizona.
Individual, couple, child, family and group psychotherapy, teaching and supervision of therapists, workshops, organizational consulting, mediation.
1994-99
Making The Moment Matter, Seattle, Washington, Tucson, Arizona, and Phoenix, Arizona.
Mentor: structured personal development program consisting of private and group sessions, workshops, a workbook, and an individualized program.
1989-95
Private psychotherapy practice, Seattle, Washington.
Individual, couple, family and group psychotherapy, teaching and supervision of Hakomi therapists, workshops in Quantum, Morita and Hakomi Psychotherapy, organizational consulting, mediation
1983-84
Robert Wickman, DO, PC, Scottsdale, Arizona
Technical Supervisor: computer diagnostics, thermography, hyperbaric medicine, electro-acuscope, homeopathy, colonics, clinical testing (pulmonary function, urinalysis, cytotoxic testing)
1983
Arizona Heart Institute, Phoenix, Arizona
Research consultant in psychotherapy program for obesity
1980-81
Four-Town Ambulance Co., Putnam, Connecticut
1 year experience in the field along with once-weekly shift in emergency room
1980-81
Psychotherapist, Preventive Self Care Services, Putnam, Connecticut
1976-77
Psychotherapist, Soma Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts
1975-79
Psychotherapist, Interface Foundation, Newton, Massachusetts
1975-76
Eikos Therapeutic Community, Boston, Massachusetts
Program Director, Milieu Therapist
1973-75
Ishi Research Center for the Study of Consciousness,
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Psychotherapist, Biofeedback Therapist, Music Therapist
1972-73
Erickson Educational Foundation, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Psychological Counselor: transsexuals, transvestites, hermaphrodites
1972
Goddard College Health Center, Plainfield, Vermont
Peer Counseling
Research
1978-79
The Karass Project, Interface Foundation, Newton, Massachusetts Diplomatic Liaison
1977
Robert S. Hartman Association, Boston, Massachusetts
Therapeutic Researcher
1976
Whitewood Stamps, Inc., Newton, Massachusetts
Researcher
1973-75
Ishi Research Center for The Study of Consciousness, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Researcher: Altered States of Consciousness, Parapsychology Research and Development for Cyborg Corporation (producer of biofeedback instruments)
1972
Erickson Educational Foundation, Baton Rouge, Louisianna
Research and Development for Altered States of Consciousness; Gender Identity Disorders
Teaching
2007-2009
"Communication Skills for Lawyers and Accountants"
Grobstein, Horwarth & Company, Sherman Oaks, California
2003-2005
"Playing Ball On Running Water; Practical Psychology for Young People"
Vision School, Paonia, Colorado
2003-2005
"Relationship Skills for Young People"
Vision School, Paonia, Colorado
2003-2004
"Theater Arts 101"
Vision School, Paonia, Colorado
1998-1999
"Body-Centered Psychology, Reading People to the Core"
Southwest Institute of Healing Arts, Scottsdale, Arizona.
1998
"Making The Moment Matter for Kids"
Miles Exploratory Learning Center, Tucson, Arizona.
Satori School, Tucson, Arizona.
Scottsdale USDs Gifted Program, Scottsdale, Arizona.<
"Managing Experience"
Desert Institute for the Healing Arts, Tucson, Arizona.
1997
Workshop: "Purpose & Passion"
Making The Moment Matter, Tucson, Arizona.
1996-1997
"Character Theory, Mindfulness,
Present-Centered Psychotherapies"
Desert Institute for the Healing Arts, Tucson, Arizona
1995-1999
"Process Group for Professionals", 9 months
"Reading People; Character Theory for Professionals", 9 months
"Introduction to Hakomi for Professionals", 6 months
Hakomi Phoenix, Phoenix, Arizona.
"Paying Attention and Getting What You Pay For", Workshop
"Having Your Cake and Experiencing It, Too", Workshop
"Experiencing Your Relationship With Death", Workshop
"Purpose & Passion", Workshop
Making The Moment Matter, Seattle, Washington.
1995
"Exploring Resistance"
Workshop Assistant, Hakomi Institute of Tucson, Tucson, Arizona.
1992
Advisor to student Will Michel-Henri
Antioch University, Seattle, Washington
1992-94
Head Assistant; Two Year Professional Training
Hakomi Institute of Seattle, Seattle, Washington
1991
"Character Theory (3 month program)", Assistant
Hakomi Institute of Portland, Portland, Oregon
1990
"Introduction to Morita Psychotherapy", Workshop
Northwest Institute for Morita Therapy, Seattle, Washington
1990-91
"Professional Skills Training (6 month program)", Assistant
Hakomi Institute of Portland, Portland, Oregon
1982-83
"Character Theory and Analysis for Professionals"
(12 month program)
Scottsdale Center for Rolfing, Scottsdale, Arizona.
1982
"The Hakomi Method of Body Centered Psychotherapy", Assistant Instructor
Arizona Heart Institute, Phoenix, Arizona.
1975-79
"Conscious Living, Conscious Dying"
Interface Foundation, Newton, Massachusetts
1977
"Attitudinal Healing (six week course)"
Hippocrates Health Institute, Boston, Massachusetts.
1977
"Conscious Living, Conscious Dying (ten session course)"
Rocky Mountain Healing Arts Festival, Boulder School of Massage
Therapy, Boulder, CO.
1975
"Third Force Psychology", Substitute Instructor for Mel Bucholtz
"General Systems Theory", Substitute Instructor for Mel Bucholtz
Emerson College, Boston, Massachusetts.
1974
"Altered States of Consciousness", Biofeedback Lab Instructor
Boston College, Boston, Massachusetts.
Presentations
1998
Annual Conference
Arizona Dispute Resolution Association,
Tucson, Arizona
"Reading People to the Core: Professional Applications of Character Analysis"
1995
Scottsdale Psychotherapy Center, Scottsdale, Arizona
"Introduction to Hakomi for Professionals"
1995
Desert Institute for the Healing Arts, Tucson, Arizona
"Developing The Witness of Mindfulness", and "Reading Bodies for Psychological Information"
1994
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C. Canada
"Morita Psychotherapy and the Present-Centered Therapies"
1994
Seattle Counselor's Association, Seattle, Washington
"Hakomi Psychotherapy and the Mind-body Connection"
1983
National Health Federation Annual Conference, Tucson, Arizona
"Legislative Update on Freedom of Choice in Health Care"
1982-84
Miscellaneous Television and Radio Appearances, Phoenix, Arizona
various presentations and panel discussions on health care policy and issues
1982
The Hakomi Institute, Boulder, Colorado
organized and introduced 9 week film series "Character Theory in American Film"
1978
The Findhorn Foundation, Inverness, Scotland
"The Karass Project"
1977
Towards Tomorrow Fair, University of Massachusetts,
Amherst, Massachusetts
"Healing Attitudes"
1976
Harrisburg Area Community College, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
"Healthy Attitudes Towards Mental Health"
1975
Harvard College, School of Divinity, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Conference on Mystical Experience, presented paper
1975
New England Communities Conference, Another Place Farm,
Greenville, New Hampshire
"Therapeutic Communities"
1975
Erickson Educational Foundation, Mazatlan, Mexico
"Perception
Reality, Choice and Control"
1974
WGBH TV (PBS), Boston, Massachusetts
Group Facilitator; Conference on the Future of
Communications Technology
Presentation; "A Biological Model of the Evolution of
Communications Technology"
1974
Harrisburg Academy, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
"Parapsychology and Altered States of Consciousness"
"Brain Hemispheric Asymmetry"
1973
Goddard College, Plainfield, Vermont
"Gender Identity Disorders"
1973
Penn State University, University Park, Pennsylvania
"Gender Identity Disorders"
Writing
1997-1999
Mindful Awareness Magazine, advice column
1997-1999
Dupree's Diamond News; write-in advice column
1995-96
"Lessons From The Lotus: Practical Spiritual Teachings of a Traveling Buddhist Monk", ghostwriter in collaboration with Bhante Wimila, Bantam 1997
1994
Making The Moment Matter Workbook, self-published workbook for self-development program
1994
"Buddhism and Psychotherapy", article for The Center for Conscious Evolution Newsletter, Boston MA
1993
Smoochie, TV pilot treatment
1992
Making The Moment Matter, book-in-progress
1988-89
miscellaneous material for Antioch University catalog,
Seattle Washington
1984-87
miscellaneous material for Omega Institute catalogs,
Rhinebeck New York
1983-84
Patient education materials for Robert Wickman, DO, Scottsdale Arizona
1983-84
Speech writer/Ghost writer for Robert Wickman, DO, Scottsdale Arizona
1983
Arizona Legislation: SB 1254, "Health Practitioners; Registration"
(major contributing author)
1975-79
miscellaneous material for Interface Foundation catalogs,
Boston Massachusetts
Administrative and Organizational
2009-10
Heartbeat of Global Unity, Venice, CA
Organizational Consultant
2002-05
Were In It Together, Paonia, Colorado
Founder and President
2002-06
Blue Sage Center for the Arts, Paonia, Colorado
Board Member
1998-99
Damian Ranch, Tucson, Arizona
Mediator and Organizational Consultant
1998
Arizona Earth Fair, Mormon Lake, Arizona
Organizational Consultant; Planning and Operations
1997-99
5th World Network, Tucson, Arizona
Organizational Consultant
1995-97
MediaFusion, Tucson, Arizona
Organizational Consultant
1992
Infinity Foundation, Seattle, Washington
Planning and Budget Consultant
1991
International Foundation for Homeopathy, Seattle, Washington
Organizational Consultant
1991
Honey Bear Cafe, Seattle, Washington
Organizational Consultant
1989
International Association for Constructive Living, Sonoma, California
Facilitator of 1st Annual conference
1989
Training & Economic Development Center of Linn-Benton Community College, Albany, Oregon
Organizational Consultant
1988-89
Northwest Institute for Morita Therapy, Seattle, Washington
Director
1988-94
Lehrman Consulting and Development, Seattle, Washington
Consulting practice, custom software development
1988-89
Antioch University, Seattle, Washington
Admissions Assistant
1987-88
Oregon Physician's Collective, Salem, Oregon
Organizational Consultant
1987
Pacific Rim Telecommunications Network, Maui, Hawaii
Consultant, Facilitator, Mediator
1984-87
Omega Institute for Holistic Studies, Rhinebeck, New York
Administrative Director
1982-84
Free Choice in Health Care, Inc., Phoenix, Arizona
Founding President
1982-84
Colon Hygiene Association, Inc., Phoenix, Arizona
Founding President
1983
Rittenhouse Square Nutritional Consultants, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Organizational Consultant
1983
Boulder School of Massage Therapy, Boulder, Colorado
Consultant
personal and organizational transition counseling for the Director of the school
1983
The Hakomi Institute, Boulder, Colorado
Consultant
video production of training/documentary tapes, editorial
consulting on second edition of training manual, organizational
consulting, facilitator of cultural exchange programs
1981-82
Arizona Homeopathic Medical Examining Board, Phoenix, Arizona
Political and educational consultant to the President of the Board
1981
Connecticut Center for Massage Therapy, Newington, Connecticut
Consultant in organizational structuring, planning and incorporation
1981
Tim McNally, JD, Putnam, Connecticut
Legal consultant
1980-81
Hakomi Institute, Boston, Massachusetts
Consultant in organizational structuring, planning, group process facilitation, and incorporation
1978-79
The Karass Project, Interface Foundation, Newton, Massachusetts
Administrator
1978
Whole Life Times Magazine, Boston, Massachusetts
Consultant in planning & visioning
1976-79
Boulder School of Massage Therapy, Boulder, Colorado
Northeast Representative and applicant interviewer
1976
Common Unity Magazine, New Haven, Connecticut
Co-founder
1975-79
Interface Foundation, Newton, Massachusetts
Executive Director
1975-76
Eikos Therapeutic Community, Boston, Massachusetts
Director of Volunteer Program
1975
New Age Journal, Boston, Massachusetts
Consultant to editor/publisher
1974
Genessa Foundation, Fair Oaks, California
Coordinator of Boston workshops
1973-75
Ishi Research Center for the Study of Consciousness, Cambridge,
Massachusetts
Conference Organizer
Computer Software Development
2009-10
Law Offices of Deborah R. Bronner & Associates, Los Angeles, California
Loan Modification program
1995-99
Lehrman consulting & Development, Tucson, Arizona
Internet sites I have designed and produced include:
Practical Tools for Self Development
Hakomi Psychotherapy
Quantum Psychotherapy
Morita Psychotherapy
Buddhist Psychotherapy
Loving Presence, Ron Kurtz
Homeopathy, Dr. Peter Wright
Peace Keeping for Professionals, Ellis Amdur
Sculpture and Print, Bruce Fink (under construction)
1988-94
Lehrman Consulting & Development, Seattle, Washington
Programs I have designed and produced include:
Macintosh Mortgage Broker for Lofurno Mortgage Co., Seattle, Washington
Expert System Report Generator for Surgical Reports for Tom Laney, MD, DMD
Information Management System for BodyMind Academy, Kirkland, Washington
Professional Training Log System for Hakomi Institute, Boulder, Colorado
Clinical Training Video Indexing System for Ananda Zaren, Santa Barbara California
DreamWork System for Meredith Lowry, DO, Portland Oregon
Training Notes System for Meredith Lowry, DO, Portland Oregon
Homeopathic Practice Management System for Meredith Lowry, DO, Portland Oregon
Emergency Medical Record Tracking System for Vital Records, Inc., Tucson, Arizona
Administrative Information Management System for Nomad University, Seattle Washington
Accounts & Activities System for Marcee Hanan, Wholesale Clothing Rep, Seattle Washington
Facility & Tenant Management System for Capital Hill Apartments, Seattle Washington
Admissions Process Tracking System for Antioch University, Seattle Washington
Computing Resources Dept. Project Management System for Antioch University, Seattle WA
Software Indexing System for Antioch University, Seattle, Washington
Information Management System for Quantum Institute, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Practice Management System for Peter Wright, ND, Seattle, Washington
Practice Management System (design only) for Stephen King, ND, Seattle Washington
Book Writing Utilities for James Cleever, L.Ac., Portland Oregon
Procedure, Personnel, & Policy Program for Honey Bear Cafe, Seattle Washington
Book Writing System for Honey Bear Cafe, Seattle Washington
Resume Maker for Roy Goodman, Seattle Washington
TV & Movie Screen Writing System for Jim Lehrman, Seattle Washington
Psychotherapy Practice Management System for Jim Lehrman, Seattle Washington
Major Educational Events Organized and Produced
2005-06
Blue Sage Lecture Series
Blue Sage Center for the Arts, Paonia, Colorado
2003, 2004
Sunfest Solar Energy Festival
Blue Sage Center for the Arts, Paonia, Colorado
1998
"Arizona Earth Fair"
3 days of music and peace
Mormon Lake Village, Arizona
By Windspirit Community
1998
"Here, There, and Everywhere"
Arizona Dispute Resoultion Association Annual Conference
held at Manning House, Tucson, Arizona
By Mediation Association of Southern Arizona
1979
"Stress, Psychological Factors, and Cancer"
Carl O. Simonton, MD and staff
held at Episcopal Divinity School
Cambridge, Massachusetts
By Interface Foundation
1979
"Healing the Earth"
David Spangler, Dorothy Maclean, Paul Winter, others
held at Harvard School of Education
Cambridge, Massachusetts
By Interface Foundation
1979
"Getting To the Same Place"
Ram Dass, Paul Winter, Patricia Sun, David Dellinger, others
held at Crotched Mountain Ski Resort
Francistown, New Hampshire
produced independently
1978
"Marshall McLuhan and Buckminster Fuller"
Marshall McLuhan, Buckminster Fuller
Harvard Science Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Park Plaza Hotel, Boston, Massachusetts
by Boston Artists & Designers Guild
1978
"Holistic Education"
John Holt, David Spangler, Jack Canfield, others
Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts
by Interface Foundation
1978
"The Magical Child"
Joseph Chilton Pierce
Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts
by Interface Foundation
1978
"Choices for Childbirth"
Suzanne Arms, others
Harvard Science Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts
by Interface Foundation
1978
"Conscious Birth, Conscious Death"
Frederick Leboyer, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
Harvard Science Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts
by Interface Foundation
1977
"Conversations with Buckminster Fuller"
Werner Erhard, Bucky Fuller, and Jaime Snyder
Harvard Science Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts
by Interface Foundation
1977
"Holistic Health - The Role of Body, Mind, and Spirit in the Healing Process"
Ken Dychtwald, Raymond Moody, Itzhak Bentov, others
Harvard Science Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts
by Interface Foundation
1977
"Three Ways of Being with Bucky"
Buckminster Fuller
Harvard Science Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts
by Interface Foundation
1977
"Towards a Physics of Consciousness II"
Itzhak Bentov, Arthur Young, Ira Einhorn, others
Harvard Science Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts
by Interface Foundation
1977
"Death, Rebirth, LSD, and the Cosmic Game"
Stanislav Grof, MD
Harvard Science Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts
by Interface Foundation
1977
"Third Annual New England Communities Conference"
Greenville, New Hampshire
by Another Place Farm
1977
"The New Physics"
Fritjof Capra
Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts
by Interface Foundation
1977
"New England Healing Arts Festival"
Greenville, New Hampshire
by Another Place Farm
1977
"Madness and the Mystical Experience"
Salvador Roquet, MD
Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts
by Interface Foundation
1976
"Being with Bucky"
Buckminster Fuller
Harvard Science Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts
by Interface Foundation
1976
"Towards a Physics of Consciousness I"
Itzhak Bentov, William Tiller
Boston Museum of Science, Boston, Massachusetts
by Interface Foundation
1976
"New Age Childraising"
Greenville, New Hampshire
by Another Place Farm
1976
"Second Annual New England Communities Conference"
Greenville, New Hampshire
by Another Place Farm
1975
"Mystical Experience"
Walter Houston Clark, Salvador Roquet, MD, George Quasha,
Mel Bucholtz, Richard Katz, Jon Lieff, Jim Lehrman, others
Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, Massachusetts
by Ishi Research Center
1975
"New England Communities Conference"
Greenville, New Hampshire
produced independently
1974
"Holistic Awareness Symposium"
Ida Rolf, MD, Buckminster Fuller, William Gray, MD
Boston, Massachusetts
by Ishi Research Center
Education
2005
Talent Representation, UCLA Extension, Los Angles, CA
2003
Non-Violent Communication, Paonia, Colorado
2002
Non-Violent Communication, Prescott, Arizona
1998
Quantum Institute, Santa Cruz, California
5 day Advanced Professional Training in Quantum Psychology and Superstrings
1998
Sandra Ingerman, Tucson, Arizona
The Way of the Shaman, Two-Day Workshop
1997
Ann Yellott, PH.D. & Linda Devoy, J.D., Accord Mediation, Tucson,
Arizona
40 hour Training in Mediation towards Arizona certification
1996
Quantum Institute, Albuquerque, New Mexico
9 day Enneagram Training
1995
Quantum Institute, Albuquerque, New Mexico
5 day Advanced Professional Training in Quantum Psychotherapy
1993-94
Quantum Institute, Albuquerque, New Mexico
15 day Professional Training in Quantum Psychotherapy
(preceded by numerous workshops)
1992-93
Group Leadership Training, Portland, Oregon
1 year training with Amina Knowlan and David Patterson
1990
Michelle Weiner-Davis, MSW, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle,
Washington
Workshop
Brief Solution-Oriented Therapy with Couples
1989
ToDo Institute, Los Angeles, California
Advanced Training in Morita Psychotherapy (5 day
residential intensive)
1988
ToDo Institute, Los Angeles, California
Training and Certification in Morita Psychotherapy (10 day
residential intensive)
1987
ToDo Institute, Los Angeles, California
Introduction to Morita Psychotherapy (5 day residential intensive)
1984
University of Phoenix, Phoenix, Arizona
Health Services Administration
1984
Long Beach Memorial Medical Center, Long Beach, California
40 hour training in Hyperbaric Medicine
1983-84
Barrister's Inn, Phoenix, Arizona
160 hour course on Constitutional Law
1983
American Biologics, San Francisco, California
Training and certification in Cytotoxic Testing
1983
Life Energy Research Foundation, Reading, Pennsylvania
Training in operation and proficiency of diagnostic medical computer
software
1982
The Hakomi Institute, Boulder, Colorado
Three month residential intensive training in Hakomi body-centered
psychotherapy
1981-83
Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona
Pre-Med curriculum
1980-81
Emergency Medical Technician, Putnam, Connecticut
Training and Certification
1979
Northeast Natural Health Institute, Leominster, Massachusetts
Colonic Therapy, training and certification
1977-82
Ron Kurtz, Colorado, Massachusetts, and Connecticut
Ron Kurtz Method of Body-Centered Psychotherapy (evolved in Hakomi
Psychotherapy)
1973-75
Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Jungian Psychology, Psychology of Consciousness (credit through
Goddard College)
1973
Hershey Medical Center of Pennsylvania State University, Hershey, Pennsylvania
Psychophysiology, Sleep Pathology (credit through Goddard College
1972-76
Goddard College, Plainfield, Vermont
Psychology of Consciousness
1971-72
Harrisburg Area Community College, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Psychology of Music
Personal
Birthdate
September 12, 1952
Birthplace
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Marital Status
Married, 2 children
Health
Excellent
Activities through the years which illustrate interests outside of my professional or educational direction include:
active parenting and homeschooling, swimming in oceans, paddling in rivers, rollerblading, spelunking, rock climbing, living in the woods, traveling around the country, continent, and planet, working in a sound and light show at the Ambassador Theater in Washington, being a radio disk jockey in Pennsylvania, Washington, and Colorado, playing bass guitarist with Pandora's Box, guitarist with Guru Blanket Band, and drummer in garage bands in my earlier years.
Notes
Another Place Farm (Greenville, New Hampshire)
Another Place is a conference and networking center in New Hampshire dedicated to developing a New England community of people working for spiritual and political freedom. It sees its role as being part of a planetary process to co-create a new culture based on harmony within and between all people, on political and economic equality, on self-empowerment, responsibility, and compassion. In 1975, I came upon the facility as I was looking for a location suitable for the New England Communities Conference which I was organizing. At that time it was a fairly run-down rural retreat center for a Boston-based organization serving troubled youth. The caretaker of the farm, Marc Sarkady, shared my vision of the conference and of what could grow at the farm. Marc organized renovation efforts of the facility and joined me and another friend in putting together that first conference. Out of it's success, the conference center was founded. With Marc and an excellent team, I organized numerous conferences there in the ensuing years, splitting both my home and my work between the Farm and Interface in Boston.
Antioch University (Seattle, Washington)
When I moved with my wife to Seattle I set out to find a part-time job to provide cash flow while building a psychotherapy practice. I got hired by Antioch to be an admissions counselor. My job included interviewing potential applicants and inputting data from the interviews into the computer database. On my first day on the job, I pointed out to the director of admissions that the database didn't have any place for me to input any of the valuable marketing-oriented information I had obtained in my interviews. I explained what could be done with this information and when she asked if it was possible to change the database I asked if I could give it a try. I had never done anything like this before and this was my first experience with a Macintosh but two days later I presented her with the changes I made. Her response was to give me a larger office, a computer of my own, and instructions to keep going with it. I planned out in thorough detail a database design which the admissions director presented to the dean of the school. From this, my position and salary were changed and I was empowered to institute my design. I spent the next twelve months putting together the prototype for the information management system for the University. During this time, my system was used daily in its expanding component pieces and I was given other unrelated problems to which I responded with computer solutions. After one year, my information management system was completed and in full use and I had created dozens of other computer programs to fill the needs of numerous departments. Additionally, I had contributed copy to describe the Whole Systems Program for the Antioch catalog, and taught the admissions director how to incorporate marketing analysis into her approach to admissions. By this time my therapy practice was growing such that, instead of renewing my contract with Antioch, I left to focus on my private practice. Because of what I learned at Antioch, I was able to supplement my therapy practice with a computer consulting business, Lehrman Consulting and Development (see the project listing starting on page 8). While continuing to live in Seattle, I was asked by one of my Hakomi students to be on his three-member advisory committee. The school made an exception to their Ph.D. requirement for me and I served as the student's advisor.
Arizona Heart Institute (Phoenix, Arizona)
I was brought in to the Arizona Heart Institute to "read" participants in the obesity program as well as non-obese post-operative heart patients. My focus was on the participants who were failing the program. I applied my expertise in character theory to recommend intervention strategies that would work within the avenues of flexibility inherent to the patient's individual belief systems.
Blue Sage Center for the Arts
see Paonia
Colon Hygiene Association (Scottsdale, Arizona)
The CHA was incorporated in 1982 to standardize, professionalize, and regulate the procedures of colonic therapy, and to serve the health consumer through public education and quality control of detoxification and colonic health care. Colonic treatment is used as a preventive approach to health care, as well as an intervention to existing health problems, as a health program in itself or as an adjunct to other medical or health procedures. I was the founder of CHA and I am quoted in Ms. Magazine, July 1983, as a national expert in colonic therapy. I left the CHA when I accepted the Omega Institute's offer to become their Administrative Director.
Common Unity (New Haven, Connecticut)
Common Unity was the grass-roots-styled journal of the New England intentional communities movement in the mid to late 70s. It was created as the communications vehicle for the decentralized community of people who found nourishment in attending the New England Communities Conferences. I participated in visioning the publication, nursing editions through their completion, and contributing material. Paul Freundlich was its editor.
Damian Ranch (Tucson, Arizona)
A multi-generational intentional community founded in the mid-70s, this group of about 20 people, mostly artists and writers, was in severe interpersonal conflict and entanglement. After my family and I moved into the community I was hired as a mediator. Taking advantage of my living there, I took on a milieu approach which proved to be effective in getting issues delineated and people talking, with more of an "in it together" orientation.
Dupree's Diamond News (Purdys, New York)
This magazine, with readership in the United States, Canada, Britain, and Japan, provides information that is both entertaining and enlightening to the broad international Grateful Dead community. I provide their regular write-in advice column, offering practical approaches to emotional and behavioral problems in response to letters from readers.
Eikos Therapeutic Community (Boston, Massachusetts)
Eikos is a community-styled therapeutic alternative to mental hospital commitment and confinement, based on the ideas and work of R. D. Laing, MD. In my early years as a therapist, between 1973 and 1975, I began to question the efficacy of one-on-one psychotherapy. I started exploring alternative forms of psychotherapy that would work more from within the client's lifestyle. My search brought me to Eikos, where, for one year, I lived and worked as Resident Director. My work at Eikos gave me much experience not only in milieu psychotherapy but also in the treating of schizophrenics and psychotics through the use of metaphoric language. In this work, I would establish a common reality by modeling the client's own metaphoric language and behavior, then shift the metaphor just slightly enough so he or she would follow, then I would continue to shift the metaphor until, together, we would find ourselves back in everyday reality, where we could more fully access and use the client's adult resources to explore and integrate what had occurred.
Embry Riddle Aeronautical University (Prescott, Arizona)
ERAU is a four-year university preparing students for careers in aviation, aerospace engineering, foreign policy, and international security/intelligence. I was hired by the Academic Dean to work freely with the individual Deans as well as with the Council of Deans to foster a more positive, collaborative and vision-based culture at the highest level of the University and to therefore facilitate more effective communication throughout the administration. As the Academic Dean described me, I was like the person in Native American traditions who could go back and forth between warring tribes and be equally trusted by all peoples as serving all of their best interests.
Erickson Educational Foundation (Baton Rouge, Louisiana)
The Erickson Educational Foundation sponsors and conducts research in areas considered too unconventional for the support of larger scientific foundations, research centers, or philanthropic organizations. EEF sponsored the original "importation" of acupuncture into America, all research in gender identity disorders in the world in the early days of transsexual research, the early work of Masters and Johnson, the noted sex researchers, the work of Robert Masters and Jean Houston (authors of Mind Games, The Psychedelic Experience, and others), Stanley Krippner, a leading parapsychologist (author of Realms of Healing, The Kirlian Aura, Dream Telepathy, etc.), and others. I originally took a position at EEF for a one-semester paid field-study program through Goddard College to conduct psychosexual research and counseling and work additionally on a project in altered states of consciousness. Reed Erickson, the visionary founder and President of EEF, saw something in me he wanted to invest in and became my first professional mentor. Our joint projects focused on altered states of consciousness research. I was eventually offered a promotion and an invitation to stay for another semester, which I took until I decided to go back to school to pursue learning the skills to more effectively study consciousness. While at EEF, I worked on the Altered States of Consciousness Induction Device (ASCID), developed induction techniques for altering the experience of time (accelerated mental processing), created tapes for guiding subjects through ASCID experiences, and explored the benefits of ASCID use. From EEF, I went to the Hershey Medical Center to study psychophysiology and the psychophysiology of sleep.
Free Choice in Health Care, Inc. (Phoenix, Arizona)
FCHC was formed in 1982 to promote consumer-oriented health policy and to act as a watchdog agency for health related legislation in the state of Arizona. While living in Boulder, Colorado, I was asked to come to Phoenix to help organize an intelligent defense against the Arizona Medical Association's proposed legislation that would disallow many forms of alternative healing. I moved to Arizona and put this organization together. As it's president, I wrote legislation, appeared on television talk shows, participated in panel discussions and debates, made presentations at the House of Representatives, consulted in the defense of health practitioners charged with practicing medicine without a license across the country, organized a state-wide membership program, published a membership newsletter, and worked with others in other states in an organized effort to protect access to the healing arts. With the help of what I learned in the University of Phoenix's Bachelor of Science in Health Services Administration program, along with my own ability to notice, decipher, and communicate underlying issues and interests existing within a situation of conflict, I was able to translate the issues of alternative health providers, medical policy-makers, and health consumers to each other, constructively diffusing the polarizations that previously fueled a climate of distrust. I left FCHC when I accepted the Omega Institute's offer to become their Administrative Director.
Genessa (Fair Oaks, California)
Genessa is a training program in a general systems approach to problem solving developed by Derald Langham, Ph.D. It incorporates his background in genetics with Taoist principles of opposites and unity. I organized events for Dr. Langham and greatly appreciated participating in his teachings.
Getting Real is a game I created while living in Tucson. Getting Real is an interactive card game in which two people tell personal stories in response to cards that are selected at random. Each card asks for a story to be told in response to a question about either the questioner, the answerer, or the relationship between the two players. Unlike games in which the players compete against and take from each other, the objective in this game is to give and receive in order to move together to a deeper level of acceptance, understanding, and connection. The gains are not limited to the time the game is played but, as is the very purpose of the game, the ongoing relationship benefits in becoming genuinely richer. Aside from offering benefits of value to any people who wish to deepen their relationship or reconnect, the game is fun to play and even fun to watch being played. Based on the simple art of the oral traditions and the principles of cooperation, sincerity, and responsive resonance, this game will be time well-spent. One person is the Storyteller and one person is the Guide, who asks for and listens to the story. Skills required by the Storyteller are self-reflection, recollection and sharing what has meaning. The Guide needs only to be able to stay present and listen with an open heart, responding with authenticity. Thus people of almost any age can play. The game is available in a variety of editions, each designed for people relating in specific relationship structures, including adults and their parents, young children and their parents, adult siblings, children siblings, adult friends, child friends, husbands and wives, significant others, neighbors, employers and employees, co-workers, and others. A paradox in this card game is that players might get farther by playing out fewer cards and spending more time interacting after a story is shared. The object is not to see how many cards you can answer but to see what magic can happen between the two of you with just a few cards.
Getting to the Same Place (Francistown, New Hampshire)
"Getting to the Same Place" was a Memorial Day weekend outdoor conference/festival held at the base of a ski mountain. Marc Sarkady, then director of Another Place Farm, invited me to organize this event with him. We merged our visions and developed an innovative plan to bring veterans of the movements of the 60s to question and respond to what we as a generation of concerned, committed, and empowered people could do to affect a more positive future. Marking the tenth anniversary of the Woodstock Festival, we asked more than 20 individuals who represented a cross-section of our culture (poets, musicians, therapists, homesteaders, politicians, Nobel-candidate physicists, publishers, and more) to speak for 5 minutes each on what they have seen since the milestone of Woodstock that helps guide them to a vision of what they hope to see in these next 10 years. Additionally, we had keynote speakers such as Ram Dass, Dave Dellinger, and Patricia Sun, and music provided by such performers as the Paul Winter Consort, Do'ah, and Ghandarva. While rain kept the size of the crowds lower than we had hoped, media coverage was very favorable and further helped to contribute to our cause.
Goddard College (Plainfield, Vermont)
My status at Goddard College was as a full-credit student in their off-campus Adult Degree Program (ADP), which enabled me to design my own curriculum, attend courses at other schools, negotiate individual arrangements with instructors in the other schools, and participate in invaluable work experiences both on a graduate level and professionally in the field. I originally went to Goddard simply to be with my girlfriend but was so impressed with the on-campus offerings that I made individual arrangements with the instructors there to attend classes. It was only after my involvement in the field-study program set up for me by Goddard College (see Erickson Educational Foundation) that I got motivated to enroll in a degree program. That is when I joined Goddard's ADP. Activities in which I participated under Goddard's ADP umbrella include studying psychophysiology under Ed Bixler at the Sleep Research Center of Hershey Medical Center, and, at Harvard University studying Jungian Psychology under Bill Schneider, the Psychology of Consciousness under Dan Goleman, and the Psychophysiology of Consciousness under Richard Davidson.
Hakomi Institute (Boulder, Colorado)
The Hakomi Institute was formed to coordinate the training, certification, and quality control of therapists of the Hakomi method of body-centered psychotherapy created by Ron Kurtz. Ron Kurtz is an internationally acclaimed psychotherapist and author of The Body Reveals, Body-Centered Psychotherapy, and Grace Unfolding. Hakomi therapy directs your attention to your in-the-moment experience of feelings and thoughts as a means to examine and reassess core beliefs. Core beliefs are the unconscious blueprints of how you interact with your world. They come from messages you heard early in life which have since taken on a life of their own. They are the underlying structure around which your experience, sense of self, and actions unconsciously organize, in turn influencing and maintaining the flow of experience itself. Hakomi brings a constructive awareness of options to those themes in one's life which limit one's freedom of experience or ability to respond. Habits of personal collapse, in their subtle and gross forms, are outgrown and replaced with the empowerment of more efficient perception and more effective choice. Principles in this work include organicity, mindfulness, non-violence, mind-body holism, and unity. I began training in depth with Ron in 1977, and have assisted him in trainings since 1990. In 1980, I facilitated the creation of the organization and wrote the corporate papers for the Institute. Since 1982 I have taught and supervised therapists in Hakomi in Arizona, Washington, and California.
Robert S. Hartman Association (Newton, Massachusetts)
The Robert S. Hartman Association was created with the purpose of supporting, facilitating, conducting, and documenting the therapeutic work of Dr. Salvador Roquet, a Mexican psychiatrist. Dr. Roquet's therapy, which utilized native and synthetic hallucinogenic substances and dissociative drugs, grew out of extensive contact with the Indians of Mexico, whose ritual use of hallucinogens showed him the key to extraordinarily effective and efficient group therapy. Through the Association, we conducted extensive research on the efficacy of Dr. Roquet's approach over a period of two years. We ran 24-hour group sessions, utilizing such resources as a audio visual programs created by the team of Stan Grof and Helen Bonny, pharmaceutical grade LSD and Ketamine Hydrochloride. The Association was named after the creator of the Hartman Value Inventory Profile, which was a tool we used in measuring transformation in the research subjects.
Harvard University (Cambridge, Massachusetts)
see listings for Goddard College and Ishi Research Center.
Hippocrates Health Institute (Boston, Massachusetts)
Hippocrates is an education and treatment center for both health care providers and patients involved with life threatening illnesses. The focus of Hippocrates Health Institute is nutritional, dietary, and attitudinal re-education. I taught Attitudinal Healing to residents and other students there.
Honey Bear Cafe (Seattle, Washington)
The Honey Bear is a bakery and local hang-out/attraction owned and operated by Karl and Rissa Warner. It is one of Seattle's landmarks as well as being one of it's success stories. I helped the Warners organize a plan of formalizing procedures for the operation and management of their establishment, and developed both the personnel and procedural manuals. I served as mediator for them in business relationships in several contexts, including conflict resolution and real estate negotiations.
Infinity Foundation (Seattle, Washington)
Infinity Foundation was created by Andrew Bloomfield in Seattle to offer cultural expression for Tibetan Buddhism and Tibetan culture. I served briefly as a consultant in preparing a plan and a budget for His Holiness, the Dalai Lama.
Interface Foundation (Newton, Massachusetts)
Interface is an educational association dedicated to introducing and nurturing holistic awareness in the New England region. An annotated list of some major conferences is included in the "Major Educational Events" section herein. Besides events of the scale represented in the list (200-1200 attendees), Interface offers smaller weekend workshops and nightly lectures and classes. The American Medical Association awards continuing medical education credits to medical professionals who attend lectures of the Interface Holistic Health Lecture Series as well as for the larger health-related events. In the beginning years of Interface I lived at Interface and, together with Rick Ingrasci and Ed Hauben, took Interface from a mere vision to a financially successful and programmatically innovative and respected educational institution. I was its Executive Director from 1975 to 1979. By 1979, the challenge of creation was behind us and operations had become fairly routine. When the Karass project was created, I became its administrator. I maintained my position on the Board of Directors for some years after this.
International Association for Constructive Living (Coos Bay, Oregon)
In 1989, the first gathering of certified Morita therapists was held in Sonoma, California. I co-facilitated the meeting with Patricia Ryan, who organized the event, and I led the process of creating the Association. The Association has held annual meetings at locations around the United States since this spearheading event. See ToDo Institute for more details on Morita.
Ishi Research Center for the Study of Consciousness (Cambridge, Massachusetts)
Ishi was the predecessor of Interface Foundation. Our focus was about 65 percent research and 35 percent education. Research was sponsored by WGBH (Boston's public broadcasting station), Boston College, Cyborg Corporation, Harvard University, and others. I was involved in design and execution of all research, and worked on-site at Harvard's Department of Psychophysiology. Projects included the psychophysiological comparative study of meditation techniques, the study of practical applications of altered states of consciousness, research and development of video and multimedia technology designed to alter consciousness, research and development in biofeedback for Cyborg Corporation, and a variety of parapsychological investigations, including the close study of the medium Elwood Babbit. Through Ishi, I also taught biofeedback at Boston College. I left Hershey Medical Center (see description) to become part of the small core group that Mel Bucholtz had assembled to create Ishi, which included Richard Ingrasci MD, Ed Hauben, and myself. Aside from research projects, I did psychotherapy, biofeedback therapy, and music therapy, as well as teaching and organizing educational events. I appreciate having had Mel as a mentor to me through my years in Boston and beyond.
Karass (Greenville, New Hampshire)
The Karass Project was designed by Peter Callaway to link international centers devoted to the evolution of a planetary culture. Karass focused on enhancing the processes found within new communities that are intentionally creating new transcultural expressions for humanity. It operated as an active and nomadic communications network between Arcosanti (a community in Arizona that is taking a radically new approach to urban shelter), Findhorn (a community in Northern Scotland working towards the realization of holism as the basis for individual and group function), and Auroville (a community in India that hopes to integrate races and cultures from a planetary perspective). The project provided these communities with video equipment and trained participants in creating "video letters", which were used to initiate relationship between the communities. We then supplied the communities with computers to link further with each other, and eventually funded travel for two elected members from each community who traveled continually as one sub-community, the "Hexiad". Through all this, we facilitated problem solving between the communities and worked to deepen inter-community relationships. The project is the subject of a book by Jerry Glenn. I was the initial administrator of the project and did on-site and remote mediation with the communities. As Administrator of the project I lived at the project base, Merriam Hill House, a "country gentleman's estate" once owned by the Merriam family, of Merriam Webster Dictionary.
KVNF
See Paonia
Making The Moment Matter (Seattle, WA & Tucson, AZ)
Making The Moment Matter is a structured program of individualized training in mindfulness and self-inquiry for people who are motivated to be more connected to their experience and more effective in responding to their experience. Through a blend of individual and group sessions, participants learn to be consciously responsive in living life to the fullest and treating all of life with the highest of respect. Having come up with the name sometime around 1989 to describe my therapeutic approach, I created this program and put it into implementation at the end of 1994 as a self-directed program in personal development to replace the dependency of psychotherapy. The program was designed to help adults discover and responsively use their resources, clarify and address their purpose, and maintain a self awareness that enables them to be consciously and creatively responsive in living life to the fullest. Participants have changed in ways that are both tangible and in alignment with their personal visions. The program includes a 36 page workbook that I created and is supplemented by periodic workshops. In August of 1996, I transposed the program into a separate "Making The Moment Matter for Kids" to offer these same opportunities to children. Making The Moment Matter for Kids teaches children in age-appropriate ways how to notice more of what goes on inside then, and how to not get so lost in their experience. This enables them to get out from under negative self talk that takes on a life of its own, and to get unstuck from strong emotions that seem to have power of monstrous proportion.
MediaFusion (Tucson, Arizona)
MediaFusion, Inc. was an award-winning multimedia production company that uniquely combined the talents of artists, scientists and information providers to create innovative software solutions on CD ROMs. They recognized that the most important goal of interactive design was to develop a clear and engaging human interface. The company was created in 1995 by Anthony Colombo, whose strong commitment to grace in design and collaboration, and to the appropriate use of technology in support of spiritual values inspired my own participation. I served MediaFusion in the capacity as a consultant-on-call, working individually with Anthony and others, as well as in the context of mediator and facilitator of group process.
Mediation
Just as my initiation into the service of counseling came at a very early age, I learned to respond as a mediator early in life. My skills as a therapist, mediator and negotiator are seemingly innate, and I have put them to test often enough now to have honed the skills through practice. I have been called in several times to avert people from jumping off roofs and each time I have been successful. Using non-violent means, I have succeeded in negotiating a gun away from a man holding a group at gunpoint. More than once I have diffused violent situations. Less dramatically, I have facilitated divorces in ways in which resentments and loss of respect, basic love, and perspective were avoided. I have mediated between tenants and landlords, employers and employees, husbands and wives, parents and children, as well as with business partners, co-workers, intentional communities, and creative collaborators. I have negotiated real estate deals and business contracts. I model an "in it together" orientation and position myself as a teacher, an interactive guide, empowering parties to listen, strive to understand, and respond to each other's interests with compassion and fairness. As with therapy, I can translate what someone is trying to say or to not say and present it in a way that relaxes tensions and brings people together through the clarification. I consider a mediation or negotiation successful only if both parties feel good about the outcome. My current focus is primarily on helping creative collaborators in arts and entertainment (such as authors, musicians, and filmmakers) resolve conflict and bring their projects to full development. I do this work through my "Conflict Resolution for Creative Collaborators" project.
Morita Psychology
see ToDo Institute
New Age Journal (Brookline, Massachusetts)
The New Age Journal was created by Eric Utne and Peggy Taylor as a response to their dissatisfaction with the limited editorial scope of East West Journal. They both worked for the EWJ, which was the vehicle of expression for the macrobiotic philosophy that was taught by Michio Kuchi. As a husband/wife team, Eric and Peggy created New Age Journal to serve as an expression of the widening interest in all aspects of the newly named "new age movement". The role I played with the magazine was an informal one. As a friend to Peggy Taylor, who was going through divorce at the time, I helped her work through issues and come to see that she could take over the magazine herself. I then helped her carry out the transition through my strategic and emotional support. Without this work, informal as it was, the magazine would have ended with the end of their marriage. Eric went on to create the Utne Reader.
Omega Institute (Rhinebeck, New York)
Omega Institute is a holistic education center at the forefront of personal and professional development in a variety of subject areas, from health and psychology to multi-cultural arts and spirituality. More than 10,000 participants attend workshops and conferences each year on the campus in the countryside of Rhinebeck, New York, as well as at sites throughout the United States. Founded in 1977, Omega is recognized worldwide for its broad-based curriculum and its unique community spirit. When Omega sought me out to offer me the position of Director, the organization, a non-profit, tax-exempt educational organization, was $40,000 in the red. After my first year there, we were $80,000 in the black. During my tenure, net profit increased each consecutive year. My third and last year the net profit was well over $150,000. When I arrived the staff that had worked on the campus any of the previous seasons felt so badly treated that there were very few people interested in returning to work the next season. I created the Summer Staff Program which nurtured the staff, treated them with respect, and was modeled after the same principles I had previously used to represent health consumers in Arizona. My greatest contribution at Omega was this re-organization/paradigm shift of the staff program. Each consecutive year after my first, the majority of staff wanted to return and additional applicants for staff positions flocked in in growing numbers. Second to this contribution was my instituting of administrative systems that enabled me to focus on management of personnel. By simplifying procedures, by computerizing what was appropriate and creating efficient structures, I was able to follow a "management by personal contact" approach. I interviewed and selected most of the 200 to 250 staff each year and focused my attention on managing the managers, empowering them with ways to help their staff be happy. I spent most of my time out of my office, and spent much time talking with all levels of staff. I instituted a radio communication system that kept me in touch regardless of where I was on campus, day or night to deal with everything from medical emergencies, plumbing disasters, kitchen crises, or a wide variety of problems with staff or participants. The scope of my responsibilities demanded my full attention day and night and I thrived on the breadth and depth of my work. I was single then, and when I fell in love and married in 1987, I knew it would have to be my last year at Omega. I left with no idea of what my next work would be, settling with my wife in Seattle for the next 7 years, where we had two children, and where I started a private practice in psychotherapy, with a variety of other business involvements. I miss much about Omega, and am continually thankful for its role in bringing me together with my wife.
Pacific Rim Telecommunications Network (Maui, Hawaii)
While honeymooning for three months in Hawaii, I ran into an old friend, Ron Anastasia, who solicited my help in planning to organize a telecommunications network. For one month, I facilitated meetings that involved people from several countries and cultures. I planned, led groups, and mediated, while trying to get more and more time at the beach with my wife.
Paonia
Paonia is a town of about 1500 people nestled against the western slope of the Colorado Rockies, an hour and a half south of Glenwood Springs. With no ski resorts, no airports, no factory outlets, and not even on the road to any attractions, it is a world unto itself. Like a real-life Northern Exposure, it is a melting pot of eccentric characters and organizations out to change the world. No stop lights, no fast food chains, no car lots. Organic orchards of apple, peach, cherry, apricot, and pear, along with a few fine vineyards. When I first experienced Paonia, during a two week visit, I thought of this place as a college town without the college. In such a short time, I met so many highly, creatively, and socially intelligent people here who seemed to thrive on community, culture, and communication. I chose to move here in part because it's the most intellectually rich little town I've come across. My whole family actively chose Paonia. My kids said they would rather live in this town where townspeople of all ages get together once a month to take the stage at the Blue Sage Center for the Arts and share stories with each other, than live where they would hang out at the mall with their friends. A first-run movie theater, two performing arts centers, great music, great art, great people. Only 1500 people, yet a bookstore, library, the home of Chaco Sandals, High Country News, and KVNF, the NPR radio station covering the western slope of Colorado. I served on the Board of Directors of the Blue Sage Center for the Arts, had a radio show on KVNF for two years, and created an NPO called We're In It Together.
Prescott Educational Resource Center for Homeschoolers (PERCH) (Prescott, Arizona)
As homeschooling parents, my wife and I envisioned a more collective effort than what we were giving our children. I articulated a vision for a community resource center for homeschooling families and distributed that vision via email to the Prescott homeschooling community. After assembling sufficient support from the community, I went to the superintendent of Prescott Unified School District, shared my vision, and asked for his support. He resonated so much with the vision that he gave support in the form of facilities, computers, furniture, and staff. As part of our research into homeschool resource centers, my family and I traveled to Paonia, Colorado, where we looked into the Vision Coalition for Community Education. In addition to being impressed with Vision, we liked Paonia and it's people and opportunities so much that we moved there in September of 2001.
Present-Centered Psychotherapies
I have coined this term to refer to the modalities or psychotherapeutic methods which focus attention on how you organize your experience in the moment. This focus is a key component common to Stephen Wolinsky's Quantum Psychotherapy, Ron Kurtz' body-centered Hakomi Psychotherapy, David Reynolds' Constructive Living, Shoma Morita's Morita Psychotherapy, and the method and principles of my own approach. The form is practical and experiential, within the context of a supportive relationship. The function is to integrate the ability to see and respond more effectively and free of the emotional charge of past experience or future projections. Clients become more mindful of how they are interpreting and responding both internally and externally to events and experiences in the present. They "unfuse" from their thoughts and feelings in order to simply allow them to be experienced. As clients are neither lost in nor lost to their experience, they are able to accept "what is as simply being what is so". Unwanted aspects of self, along with unwelcome experience are seen simply as facts to be accepted as such. This is a path towards the sort of acceptance that paradoxically facilitates constructive change. Attention is not placed on the reasons for actions or feelings but onto the internal mechanisms that influence the actions or feelings. Automatic behavior drops away and clients are able entertain what is possible and make more constructive choices. This approach fosters an empowering sense of responsibility for one's experience of reality. Clients begin to see themselves as merely the "space" in which their experience occurs. Within this metaphor, their function is to monitor and manage what occurs in that space. Choices begin to be made with a sense of connection to life.
Preventive Self Care Services (Putnam, Connecticut)
PSCS was an adjunctive health services clinic offering homeopathy, therapeutic massage, nutritional counseling, colonic and detoxification therapy, and psychotherapy. It was located a block away from Swami Satchidananda's holistic health clinic, Integral Health Services, and served as an annex to the clinic. Staff from both centers met jointly in weekly and comprehensive patient staffing meetings. Meredith Lowry, D.O., and I put PSCS together and, along with a massage therapist, were its practitioners. I left to pursue pre-med studies at Arizona State University.
Purpose & Passion (Seattle, Washington, Phoenix & Tucson, Arizona)
This is a one-to-two day workshop I offer to guide people through exploring what matters to them and how to behave as if it matters. The workshop helps participants blend a personal sense of meaning with the magic and mystery of being alive. Participants travel through a three-dimensional map that takes them to a comprehensive understanding of how to see clearly, plan effectively and move efficiently towards their goals. Participants leave the workshop with a set of practical tools to help them apply this map appropriately in their lives. A support group is formed by participants and a 60 minute individual session is included as follow up to the workshop.
Quantum Institute (Albuquerque, New Mexico)
Quantum Psychology, created by Stephen Wolinsky, is a practical approach to becoming mindful of the relationship between your automatic responses and what triggers them, and the mechanism, itself, of those automatic responses. It offers a means to enable you to stay in your adult experience of what is in your present moment, and maintain rather than lose access to inner resources which your automatic responses cut you off from. You are able to notice the mechanism of your automatic response "trance" and exercise control over it. You are then able to respond more effectively, free of the emotional charge of past experiences. The six books written by Dr. Wolinsky to date include
Trances People Live, Quantum Consciousness, The Dark Side of the Inner Child, The Tao of Chaos, Hearts On Fire, and The Way of the Human. I began training extensively with Stephen in 1993. He has invited me to edit material and collaborate on writing projects and he frequently refers clients to me.
Reading People - Character Theory for Professionals (Phoenix & Tucson, Arizona)
This is a theoretical and practical training in character theory that I offer to people in the helping professions. Character strategies are patterns of internal organizing principles that affect how we process information, how we see, understand, feel, and develop a response to events. Through this 6 to 9 month curriculum participants study each of the 7 character strategies through highly-detailed didactic presentation and by taking on each type experientially. Students learn about the "missing experience" (experiences which, because they were lacking in the person's earlier life, created the core beliefs and defense strategies which define the person's character today), as well as explore in depth the cognitive, emotional, and bodily patterns of each character strategy. The goal of this teaching is to help students get a clear understanding of the experience of the character patterns; learn to feel the pattern in themselves and others, detect and go past any judgments they have about people in these patterns, including themselves, and learn how to work with people in each pattern. It is presented in a way that makes it both fun and easy to learn. Time is spent processing what is learned with the purpose of deepening integration for both personal and clinical understanding and application.
Remote Viewing
Remote viewing is the science and practice of getting information about a designated target through apparently psychic means. A client recommended that I go through a training in Tucson offered by Wayne Carr, PhD. My client hooked me in by explaining I would like it because it's another tool of perception to add to my tool bag. My performance in the first 5-day training surprised everyone, including myself. I established a record of having 100% accuracy. I was invited to advanced trainings and extended specialized trainings and continued to demonstrate exceptional innate skills, maintaining my 100% accuracy even in rigorous tests. Eventually, I was studied in a lab and it was determined I had certain brainwave signatures that suggested highly developed abilities in both receiving and transmitting information. I worked briefly for American Lightning (Phoenix), a consulting firm offering remote viewing by contract.
Rolling Turtle (across the United States and into Mexico)
In 1999, my family and I bought a 21 foot Toyota Dolphin motor home which we named the Rolling Turtle. We got rid of much we had assumed we needed, put some things in storage, and packed the Rolling Turtle to begin an experiment that lasted, in it's pure state, for a year and a half. Since leaving Tucson, we have homeschooled the kids through adventures in more than 20 states plus several trips into Mexico, adding to our family by picking up two dogs along the way. The Rolling Turtle afforded us an incredible time of education, growth, and connection - to the planet, each other, and people of diverse cultures. We continue to make trips in the Rolling Turtle from our new home in Paonia.
Shanti Wellness Center (Prescott, Arizona)
Shanti is a medical clinic offering a wide variety of allopathic, naturopathic, and alternative medical and health care for free. Supported by grants and donations, people can come once or often to receive health care.
Soma Clinic (Cambridge, Massachusetts)
Soma is a collective of psychotherapists directed by Jon Lieff, MD. The Soma "community" has a Sufi orientation and an extracurricular interest in music. I worked as a psychotherapist at Soma from 1976 through 1977. During this time, I was on staff at several Intensive Therapy Weekends that Soma put on. For a short time, I played guitar in the "Guru Blanket Band" which was partially composed of Soma staff.
That Thou Art; Self-discovery for Teens (Paonia, Colorado)
This is a class for students in the state sponsored Vision Home and Community Program. Co-taught with Janel Possiel, the class meets two hours twice each week for 14 to 18 year olds to be introduced, both theoretically and experientially, to the practice of self-discovery. Aside from group discussion and exercises, participants read, write poetry, and engage in a variety of artistic self-expression.
Theater Arts 101 (Paonia, Colorado) is a fun, low stress approach to developing basic acting skills offered to Vision students ages 9 and up. Meeting 90 minutes each week, students choose scenes from plays and movies and act them out. They pick monologs and dialogs to practice and perform in front of each other. They also play some theater games and make up things to do in front of a video camera. While the class is not production-oriented, the students perform a less formal showcase of what they've learned in front of an audience of their families and friends. The follow-up Theater Arts 102, enables graduates of Theater Arts 101 to perform in a full-length play written by myself exclusively for that particular group of students.
ToDo Institute (Coos Bay, Oregon)
The ToDo Institute oversees the training and certification of Morita therapists in the United States. Morita Therapy is a 70 year old purpose-centered, results-oriented therapy from Japan, based on principles of Zen Buddhism. Instead of working to reduce symptoms, Morita works to help people take action responsively in life regardless of symptoms or natural fears. Acceptance of what is allows for active responding to what needs doing. Dogmatic patterns of collapse are replaced with the flexibility to call upon courage and empowerment. Decisions become grounded in purpose rather than influenced by the fluid flow of feelings. I was trained and certified by David Reynolds, the person responsible for bringing Morita to the west. David is author of
The Quiet Therapies, Constructive Living, Playing Ball On Running Water, Morita Psychotherapy, and eight other books on the subject. See also the listing for the International Association for Constructive Living.
University of Phoenix (Phoenix, Arizona)
The Bachelor of Science in Health Services Administration program was designed for people who already had some clinical experience in health care who aspired to become hospital administrators. I used this program specifically to learn to speak the language of health care policy-making so as to be effective as a policy-maker. I completed the program but because of my move to New York to take the position of Director of Omega Institute, I failed to complete certain requirements the University imposed and thus received no degree. What I learned in this program was critical in the efforts I carried out through Free Choice in Health Care, including legislative work, lobbying, televised debates with old guard medical policy-makers, and translating policy concerns to health consumers through the Free Choice In Health Care newsletter.
Whitewood Stamps (Newton, Massachusetts)
Whitewood Stamps is a small Boston-based research and consulting firm ("think tank") that emphasizes an integrated approach to the use of information. The organization has been involved in fields as diverse as cable television, biofeedback, fire prevention, special education, and national surveying of attitudes surrounding death and dying and the role of attitude in the healing process. Some of its founders, Jeff Stamps and Jessica Lipnack, have since written the book, Networking. I worked as an information researcher on several projects including needs assessment of summer program resources available to special needs children and a national survey of beliefs about the role attitude plays in the disease process and in the healing process. I also participated in planning sessions, in-house workshops, brain-storming sessions, and governance meetings.
Whole Life Times (Boston, Massachusetts)
The Whole Life Times is the publication out of which the very successful annual national symposium Whole Life Expo grew. Josef Kottler, the creator of both, met with me to develop his vision and get ideas for carrying it out.
WMSP & WHAC (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania)
As an FCC-licensed radio announcer, I produced shows on these two stations between 1969 and 1971. My programs exposed a young adult audience to an eclectic range of music (classical, jazz, rock, folk) with commentary on the threads of relationship between the different styles. From 2002 to 2005, I did a show on KVNF in Colorado called Cookin' With Jazz as well as a Grateful Dead show.
Educational Philosophy
Educationally, I place the highest value on knowing yourself. The better you are at knowing yourself - not in a static, dogmatic way, but by paying attention to the unfolding events in your experience and to how you organize in that moment around those events - the more life, itself, provides meaningful learning experiences. This type of knowing yourself is where education overlaps with spiritual inquiry. I teach ways to know yourself. The skills I teach fit into an area that is, today, called emotional intelligence. Whereas intelligence is the ability to understand and use information, emotional intelligence is the ability to know, process, and understand what is happening in your cognitive, emotional, and behavioral experience, and the ability to use that knowledge to adapt to inner and outer circumstances as well as to use all experience as a vehicle for further growth.
First, some of my background... Even though I went through the traditional educational system, I was able to design my own curriculum in my senior year in high school and get permission to travel along the Mississippi River where I could explore the roots of American music. I enjoyed that, and, possibly for the first time, learned what I wanted to learn. From that successful experience, I saw there were other things I really wanted to learn. I spent my college years studying with teachers whom I researched, contacted at a variety of schools and research institutions around the east coast, and with whom I negotiated relationships and curriculums independent of the constraints of the educational system.
This approach has served me well. I have been successful in my work of helping people take responsibility for their experience for close to 35 years. I teach, supervise, and mentor psychiatrists, psychologists, and psychotherapists, while concurrently being their own therapist. My clients also include business consultants and corporate trainers, college professors, inventors, authors, celebrities of various sorts, and children. I've run educational institutions with a staff of 250 employees, been the technical supervisor of a medical clinic, lectured on both coasts and in other countries, taught in colleges, and been an advisor to college undergraduates. I also flunked 9th grade, never got above a D in math, and do not have a college degree. I've been dyslexic my whole life yet, ironically, I have been the ghost writer of such things as health legislation, medical articles, successful applications to medical school, and books published on such subjects as psychology and Buddhism.
Through my own experience, I've come to see that education is a natural, and often transparent, byproduct of having a meaningfully interactive relationship with your world that is responsive to your interests. Education can be that simple; not dependent on institutions or on reading the "right stuff". If you can develop a good awareness of what turns you on and has meaning for you, and can organize your time and efforts to explore ways to get more involved in those interests, something organic happens that is very rich.
In my thinking, teaching emotional intelligence skills is like oiling the tracks we travel through life on. Regardless of your interests and what learnings you pursue, having the strength of character to stay bigger than your experience will help you understand, integrate and reflect in your personality, personal vision, and actions what you are learning.
Emotional intelligence is a set of skills, integrated and applied responsively, which enable you to maintain perspective on what happens in your experience, moment to moment. In my approach, these are those fundamental skills which focus young people onto developing a clarity of values and purpose, with an emphasis on responding to that clarity and on integrating a practical understanding of the way they create their experience of reality. When children learn at an early age that they are the creators of their experience, and learn just how this is true, they stand to become very empowered and creative people. What I am teaching is self-discovery. My approach teaches kids how to deal with the fundamental questions about meaning in life, and how to have a conscious relationship with these questions through out their lives.
One of the things I was required to do to graduate from high school was give a presentation to the whole school. I surprised my teachers by talking about education. I was surprised, myself, when teachers who actually showed little respect to me in my high school years came to me and told me how inspired they were by my ideas of alternatives to traditional education, and by what I had described as the underlying principles of education. In one way or another, I have been working with those principles all these years, as a teacher, therapist, and educational administrator.
When I work individually with kids, I am responsive to their personal needs, concerns, and experience, while helping them progress developmentally in their ability to have a more conscious relationship with their thoughts and feelings. I help them become better friends with their experience as well as better managers of it. I teach with a focus on empowering leadership in the kids and my group activities are designed to encourage creative thinking and constructively deepening interaction. Children learn how to know what has meaning for them. And, most of all, children learn to connect to the richness that exists in each moment of existence.
