Hi Holger,
Well, what to say?
Thanks for your welcome, and how fantastic to find that you are
interested in OST and POP!
My work (and at the moment it is mainly limited to writing a PhD
about it rather than doing it) involves 3 main 'modalities'.
(I'd prefer a better word than modality to describe these ways of
working.)
They are Ortho-Bionomy (OB), a form of gentle bodywork, Process
Oriented Psychology (POP) and (OST).
Another interest of mine for my thesis is in Jean Gebser, who wrote
about Integral Consciousness in 1949.
There is a nice summary of his integral motifs in Gebser's book - The
Everpresent Origin (on page 361 of the 1991 translation).
It's my belief that OB, POP and OST all nestle quite nicely into
Gebser's description of the Integral Structure of Consciousness.
How OST fits with Gebser might be the topic for another post one of
these days.
Sorry for all these abbreviations - I'm trying to be fairly brief -
but prefer the whole words.
I reckon all 3 modalities are more alike than they are different from
each other in many ways...
One (OB) works mainly with the body, the next (POP) with the psyche
and the third (OST) is used generally with groups.
All respect nothingness and being in the present moment, without
discounting the past and future.
None is hierarchical or patriarchal in spirit.
Each modality values deep democracy and appreciates the wisdom of
participants at least as much as an outside expert.
None tries to push the river upstream, but is responsive to feedback
(law of 2 feet, when it's over, it's over etc)
I don't feel quite qualified to relate any of these modalities to
Quantum Physics, Social Constructivism or Systems Theory in any depth
yet.
But I'd like to reread Harrison's article called Emerging Order in
Open Space with Arnold Mindell's book "Quantum Mind" to look further
into those issues.
And I am delighted to know of your interest in both OST and POP.
Time is escaping under my fingers, and I can't write more at present.
I'm going away tomorrow for a few days and need to pack.
Thank you for your response.
I feel quite excited about what you have said so far and hope to hear
more soon.
Warm regards,
Allison.
On 23/11/2005, at 6:41 PM, Change Management Toolbook wrote:
On Tue, 22 Nov 2005 19:11:54 +1100, Allison & Jim Baensch
<mb...@iinet.net.au> wrote:
My second paper at the conference will be about high and low dreams -
a paper related to Process Oriented Psychology (Arnold Mindell and
colleagues).
So I am aware of the benefits of not just focussing on the positives
of a situation.
Thanks for your tasty response,
Allison.
Hello Allison,
welcome to the list and thanks for your input. I am thrilled of the
combination of the two sessions you will host at the conference:
Open Space Technology and Process Oriented Psychology.
I have been working with OST for a while and just started a couple of
months ago to involve myself into POP, attending a training with Max
Schupbach. What one usually does is to compare (even if you don't
want to
compare), and one starts to compare on different levels. I, for
example,
compare the process level of OST gatherings and POP (unfortunately
I have
not yet been exposed to an open forum, but rather to 20-40 people
processes). More interesting for me, I also compare the meta level.
What I found out is that the underlying assumptions and the
foundationss
of OST and POP match somehow. We just had an interesting discussion
in the
German OS list about the application of Quantum Physics (QP) to social
processes. POP refers to QP as its main founding theory. In the
literature
on OST, QP has not been mentioned (at least not that I know),
although the
principles, particular the "What ever happens..." are deeply
quantum. I
like the analogies to QP, but as I have learned from physicists,
they are
just analogies / models, and that there is no computer in the world
which
can calculate whether quantum effects guide large systems. My main
critic
of POP is that they (sometimes) take QP not as a model, but as a
guiding
principle for groups. Although that sounds nice, it is not
supported by
current physics, which can only prove the validity of QP to atomic and
molecular systems.
On the other side, OST (and Appreciative Inquiry/AI) have a lot of
references to Social Constructivism (SC) and Neurobiology, while
POP has
more implicit assumptions of SC.
OST, then, has its foundation in Complexity or Chaos Theory os Systems
Thinking (ST). I always feel that ST as a guiding principle is
closer to
the reality of larger social systems then QP. Maybe it will turn
out that
ST is a macro description of QP. POP does not speak in system terms
but in
quantum terms.
However, the practices and the processes are very different. In
POP, you
have the facilitator as an explicit role (which can shift from
person to
person, because POP assumes non-local roles). In OST you basically
don't
have a facilitator (in German, we speak instead of a "Begleiter",
which
means somebody who goes along with somebody or something).
Another difference between the two processes is the degree to which
conflicts are verbalized and addressed. What I like about OST and
AI is
the ease with which tensions are dealt with. As a consequence, people
might see that there are alternatives to dealing with problems and
conflicts in a violent manner. In POP processes, I have seen a lot of
verbal violence, and grief. One can argue wether this is not part
of life,
and OST and AI neglect the deep divide which exists between people.
As my
spiritual teacher Stephen Gilligan has said: "Life is beautiful, but
sometimes it hurts like hell."
You see, I have only questions, no answers at all. I am fascinated
of both
approaches, and would like to hear from you how do you perceive the
difference (and the similarities). If you could send me your
presentation
of POP, I would be quite pleased.
Go on! With best regards
Holger Nauheimer
Change Facilitation sro
Panenska 3
81103 Bratislava
Slovakia
http://www.change-management-toolbook.com
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