FINAL ANNOUNCEMENT
UNSCIENTIFIC PSYCHOLOGY: CONVERSATIONS WITH OTHER VOICES
June 14-15, 1997
Edith Macy Conference Center
Briarcliff Manor, New York
Sponsored by the Center for Developmental Learning
of the East Side Institute for Short Term Psychotherapy
If social policy is to undergo a humanistic and democratic transformation, it
is more important than ever that we examine the subjective constraints
limiting our collective ability, not only to make these changes, but to move
forward as a world--and,of course, the relationship between these and
objective constraints. This gathering
will address whether and how the new psychologies--which some call postmodern
or post-scientific--can impact on the pressing political and social issues of
the day.
The invited presenters/facilitators--social, developmental and educational
psychologists who have been seriously addressing the failure of mainstream
psychology--are leading voices who engage issues of language and philosophy
(methodology) in their psychological theorizing and practice. Seeing
discursive, narrative,
performative and performatory approaches to understanding human social life
as a much-needed step away from positivist and pragmatically-driven
mainstream psychology, some nevertheless have serious concerns about whether
the modernist assumptions of self, identity, reality and truth are challenged
thoroughly enough by such approaches and about what they see are serious
costs that accompany such challenges. Do social, cultural, critical,
constructionist, and/or activity-theoretic approaches have the potential to
contribute, directly or indirectly, to qualitative social and political
change?
Invited Presenters and Facilitators
Erica Burman is Senior Lecturer in developmental and educational psychology
at the Manchester Metropolitan University in Manchester, England. Her
recent works are Deconstructing Developmental Psychology and the forthcoming
Deconstructing
Feminist Psychology. She is also editor of Feminists and Psychological
Practice and co-editor (with Ian Parker) of Discourse Analytic Research.
Lenora Fulani is on the faculty of the East Side Institute's Center for
Developmental Learning and a therapist at the East Side Center for Social
Therapy. As developmental psychologist and political activist, she has been
a key player in the movement for independent politics in the US. She
introduces diverse
audiences--from community activists to politicians to inner-city teens--to
the postmodern challenge. She is editor of The Psychopathology of Everyday
Racism and Sexism and a
contributor to Erica Burman's forthcoming Deconstructing Feminist Psychology.
Kenneth Gergen is the Mustin Professor of Psychology at Swarthmore College
in Swarthmore, PA. He is the author of three of the most influential
postmodern discussions of the social sciences: Toward Transformation in
Social Knowledge; The Saturated Self: Dilemmas of Identity in Contemporary
Life; and Realities and
Relationships: Sounding in Social Construction.
Mary Gergen is Associate Professor of Psychology and Women's Studies at
Pennsylvania State University. Her scholarship concerns postmodern and
feminist theories. She is editor of Feminist Thought and the Structure of
Knowledge;and co-editor (with Sara Davis) of the forthcoming Conversations
at the Crossroads: Social Constructionism and the Psychology of Gender.
Lois Holzman was on the faculty of Empire State College, State University of
New York for seventeen years. She is director of the Center for
Developmental Learning in New York City. She is author of Schools for
Growth: Radical Alternatives to Current
Educational Models (forthcoming), and co-author with Fred Newman of Lev
Vygotsky: Revolutionary Scientist and Unscientific Psychology: A
Cultural-Performatory Approach to Understanding Human Life.
John R. Morss is Senior Lecturer at the University of Otago in New Zealand.
A leading critical developmental psychologist, he is the author of The
Biologising of Childhood: Developmental Psychology and the Darwinian Myth;
and Growing Critical: Alternatives to Developmental Psychology.
Fred Newman is a practicing psychotherapist, Artistic Director of the
Castillo Theatre, and Director of Training at the East Side Institute for
Short Term Psychotherapy in New York City where social therapy, the
performatory therapeutic approach he founded, is practiced. His recent
books include Let's Develop! and Performance of a Lifetime: A
Practical-Philosophical Guide to the Joyous Life and, with Lois Holzman, Lev
Vygotsky: Revolutionary Scientist and Unscientific Psychology: A
Cultural-Performatory Approach to Understanding Human Life.
Ian Parker is Professor of Psychology in the Discourse Unit at Bolton
Institute in England. He is author of The Crisis in Modern Social
Psychology--and How to End It, co-author of Deconstructing Psychopathology,
and co-editor of Deconstructing Social Psychology, Psychology and Society:
Radical Theory and Practice, and Discourse Analytic Research.
John Shotter is Professor of Communication at the University of New
Hampshire. His most recent books--Cultural Politics of Everyday Life:
Social Constructionism, Rhetoric and Knowing of the Third Kind; and
Conversational Realities: Studies in Social Constructionism--explore the
dialogic realities of the lifeworld.
Creating a new approach to understanding human life--an unscientific
psychology--is the activity of making new meaning. It is an emergent
conversation created by and out of diverse voices who speak more poetically,
culturally, and historically than analytically and taxonomically. It is a
conversation about persons (not minds), about relationships and relationality
(not environmental influences on self-contained individuals), about human
activity (not behavior), about narratives and stories (not Truth), about
creating new forms of life (not adapting to forms of alienation). What is
developing is an
approach to understanding human life as emergent, activistic, relational, and
performatory.
More a retreat than a formal conference, this two-day gathering will bring
together researchers and practitioners for an experiment in creating
conversation. We will work to build an environment in which we can create
something out of the diversity of traditions, disciplines, and new ideas and
practices that participants bring. Registration,
limited to 150, includes colleagues from all over the US, Europe, Latin
America, New Zealand, and Australia. There are still some spaces available,
so if you want to add your voice to this conversation, you need to act soon.
The Edith Macy Conference Center is located less than an hour from New York
City in a beautiful country setting surrounded by hiking trails. There is an
outdoor swimming pool on the premises.
The meetings will begin at 9:00 am on Saturday, June 14 and end at 4:00 pm on
Sunday, June 15.
Fees.
2 days, Saturday night accommodations, 5 meals $315
2 days, no accommodations, 5 meals $245
Saturday only, no accommodations, 3 meals $150
Sunday only, no accommodations, 2 meals $125
Name:
Address:
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To register, please send information to:
Mail: East Side Institute
500 Greenwich Street
New York, New York 10013
Phone: (212) 941-8906
Fax: (212) 941-8340
email: esiesc@xxxxxxx
On the Internet: www.castillo.org
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