Changing Our Consciousness

Welcome to Changing Our Consciousness™, a radical re-imagining of the world, in which people develop and harness their capacities for empathy in the service of human understanding and integration of difference.

Since each visitor to this website arrives by a unique path, I would like to share with you a time line that roughly chronicles the evolution of my vision and its transformation from the abstract into the reality of the Changing Our Consciousnesss™ projects.

After more than a decade in solitary conceptual thinking about ways in which the psychoanalytic model could be usefully applied to society at large, I and a small group of colleagues began a listserv in 2004 to discuss issues related to psychoanalysis and society. The intense conflicts that emerged in that faceless internet arena seemed to parallel aggressive/regressive dynamics that arise on the world stage. In 2005 I presented a paper about the experience at the Conference on Prejudice and Conflict in Salt Lake City. I began to consider ways to harness the aggressive/regressive energy within the the online group, in the service of creating a methodology to address intergroup conflict. What emerged were the Waging Dialogue™ Forums.

Currently there are seven active, moderated, online forums. Each brings people with different worldviews together to discuss issues ranging from “Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia” to “Psychotherapy and Medication.” Each one struggles with the hard work of bridging the divide between Self and Other as the discussions go on.

During this process, the clumsiness of forum participants – myself included – in being able to identify and respond appropriately to the emotional experience of the Other became painfully obvious. I began to conceptualize the problem as a language yet to be learned and understood, in an academic curriculum in Emotional Literacy, taught from elementary through graduate school.

With the help of a gifted filmmaker and Skidmore College student named Max Rosenbaum, I hosted a focus group of high schools students where I presented the idea of such a curriculum, and I was thrilled at how quickly they understood and were willing to get involved. The “thought experiment” model arose from that discussion. Max continued to arrange focus groups while developing a series of short videos.

Next I reached out to the academic community. Our ever-expanding group of outstanding educators, counselors, curriculum designers and administrators are working together to design, implement, and test the model curriculum we now call Emotional Imprint™. Educational consultant Melissa Brand has designed a detailed, formal presentation of the project for potential funders, and special education teacher Victoria Grinman has created a series of concrete lesson plans. We have begun the process of writing grants to design and implement pilot projects in several schools.

Understanding others requires that we understand thought process differences and reframe our understanding of mental illness. In 2008, Dr. Lois Oppenheim, Chair of the Department of Modern Languages and Literature at Montclair State University and member of the New York Psychoanalytic and William Alanson White institutes, joined me to co-create the documentary feature How to Touch a Hot Stove. Our goal is to de-stigmatize mental illness, not through education alone, but experientially, by implementing a methodology to catalyze change. The film will be introduced by actor John Turturro and directed by award-winning director Sheryll Franco of Falling Awake Productions. The summary of the film and the marvelous cast can be found on the How To Touch A Hot Stove website.

We have just launched a fourth project, the Depth Perception Party™. DPP is dedicated to the discovery of creative solutions to political conflicts through the ability to imagine the emotional experience of the other, and the support of leaders who demonstrate this capacity. We actively seek participants in this initiative who share a desire to catalyze social change by working to understand the worldviews of both political parties, locate short and long term horizons, support creative leadership, and imagine hew solutions to longstanding political conflict.

With the Depth Perception Party, we are exploring the world of “social media” and “viral marketing.” DPP has been launched as a Facebook group and introduced through a You Tube video.

By promoting creative thinking, listening, discussion, learning and teaching, our current projects engage and challenge us to move from prejudgment and fear to empathy and understanding. None of this would have taken shape, had it not been for our Director of Communications, Susan Dansker. More than a designer and writer, Susan actively participates in all our projects, challenging us to integrate difficult concepts into visual-verbal synergy.

My collaborators and I are now actively exploring the possibility of obtaining non-profit status, so that we may be able to accept donations to offset the ongoing expense of our websites and other promotional materials. We hope to raise completion funds for How To Touch A Hot Stove through the online arts funding platform, Kickstarter.

We continually update this website as our projects develop, and we welcome your involvement in any aspect of Changing Our Consciousness that may interest you. Please feel free at any time to offer your comments or suggestions by contacting me at alicelmaher@gmail.com.