The Deep Democracy of Open Forums: Practical Steps to Conflict Prevention and Resolution for the Family, Workplace, and World

Although I have a number of friends who have studied with him, I have not had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Mindel or his equally gifted wife. I am now a retired psychotherapist but still do work in he field of leadership and groups facilitation(with my colleagues @ Matrix Leadership). However, one of the many reasons why I respect the body of his work so greatly is my own history of Sun Dancing for two decades with the Lakota people on the Rosebud Reservation, and the quest for knowledge from indigenous healers that come from the oral tradition. I could add far greater involvement in those kinds of arenas but that is not pertinent to this review. Belatedly, I owe him a profound thank you for having recognized and brought into the mainstream of psychology, the worldview of the shaman. As an acquaintance of the late (and great) anthropologist, Dr. Felicitas Goodman, I wish to thank him for his innovation in incorporating the right use of power and the realization that older modalities are in no way simple, primitive, or lacking in complexity. I am only touching on one aspect of the courage of his true intellectual inquiry. He and his wife have brought science in and through the areas of cultural diversity and the destructive and exclusivity of all the "isms" that separate us. I do apologize for the clumsiness of this review; it is late, but I wanted to honor him and his wife's work. In the Lakota tradition, I would do so by singing an honoring song. Maybe someday I will have the opportunity of doing so. Until then, try any of his books. They are always filled with compassion and appreciation, as well as being part of the great Hegelian dialective that leads toward the Whole. A mind not to be missed.