I stepped off the plane in Islamabad, Pakistan, with many questions on my mind. I did not know if the Pakistani people would feel hopeful or hopeless.  When I was there two years ago, everyone was stressed and hope seemed out of reach. Many areas […]

From September 12 – 25, 2015, Pat Omidian, PhD, travelled to Japan to lead experiential workshops and lecture on Community Wellness Focusing in Tokyo, Kyoto and Hiroshima. … After the workshop, [a participant] told the story to 5th grade children (10-11 years old) at school. [She] taught a domestic science class by telling them about the positive deviant woman and avoidance of Ebola as a case. How important it is to devise ideas at home!

Are you a psychosocial or development professional looking for more effective ways of working with groups? Would you enjoy feeling more comfortable and at ease, in helping groups turn conflicting perspectives into new creative possibilities? Are you a Focusing or Nonviolent Communication (NVC) practitioner interested […]

Our staff members at the Confidence Clinic were selected and trained to be nonjudgmental and accepting.  The Focusing attitude of compassionate curiosity was helpful.  One participant who had a lot of anger problems and came to us just after completing drug rehabilitation described how that “compassionate curiosity” […]

My colleague Nina Lawrence and I started teaching the Focusing process one year ago in a workshop for 11 management and health staff from an Afghan non-governmental association called Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance (CHA) in Peshawar, Pakistan. The efforts are to help Afghan refugees and […]

As a medical anthropologist, just back from two months in Liberia working on behalf of the World Health Organization (WHO), I was featured as one of five experts in the September 25 issue ofTime Magazine, a prominent American weekly news magazine. Click here to see the […]