As with any successful endeavor, much of abcmind has been shaped by significant people and ideas that came before:

Clients & Participants

The people with whom we share meaningful priorities are our first point of thanks. Many clients, program participants and our extended-family & friend network have grown the knowledge base and value of abcmind practices. The ability to be open, to trust, to learn and to share... have been offered by those who visit. We cherish these qualities, and thank our members for teaching & enriching our programs and team.

An emeritus professor at the University of Minnesota, a trailblazer in academic parity for her gender and a stellar if somewhat stern influence who showed everyone around her what perfection looks like. One of the founders of the field of interpersonal relationships, she spent her career building and guiding the now burgeoning science of relationship theory & emotion. She accepted only the best from her students and her writing reads like literature rather than jargon: understandable, enjoyable, enlightening.

A mentor to the ideas practiced at abcmind, he pioneered the study of habit formation and is, of course, a founding thinker for the field of psychology writ large. A pragmatist and an inspiration, you will find his concepts throughout our meetings and this site. 

Karen Horney is a tough read. With the same phrase she can save you from yourself or put you over the edge depending on your present state. Her ideas cut straight through to the truth of our development as meaningful creatures. Her neo-Freudian theories of personal transformation metaphorically link us and the work at abcmind to the growth of trees in their natural environment and demonstrate the basis of our potential to move from “neurotic worry-worts” into stable world contributors.

Like Brown University, this is a school of diversity held together by a strong tradition in the study of artistic practice. The teacher of this school often says, “you (student) can do anything you want, just don’t use my name”. Thus no names will be mentioned. However, the teachings offered in the study of movement, meditation & skill-building is unmatched by any other, indifferent to time or place.

Solution-focused coaching, as taught at Erickson International College, is an advance in the practice of therapeutic offerings based on the work of the late psychiatrist Milton Erickson. Erickson was a visionary in seeing the whole person from within their own world with respect and understanding. While solution-focused coaching is mostly used for personal transformation in organizational settings, its application has great potential for individuals wanting to develop a broader psychological range linked to valued action in their own lives. The approach helps inform the abcmind philosophy. With a conscientious and step by step movement toward increasing resourcefulness, people can move through fear and replace limiting-beliefs with successful habits. 

Martha Nussbaum taught the founders of abcmind the classics: Plato, Socrates, Aristotle. She has devoted her academic career to studying the good in ancient greek thought and its applicability for the challenges we face as a society and people today. It would be difficult to come in contact with someone more well-read and in greater possession of understanding regarding our history’s most revered thinkers. It is helpful to consider these ideas.

An artistic maverick and teacher of the arts of stage design, prop work and set construction, Mr. Dodge is one example of a lone individual who teaches the art of living by example. He is a maniacal driver who possesses an eerie ability to wield fake blood and whose summer parties light up the woods with thousands of hand placed lights. At his invitation, a wide-range of people... famous, fanatical, the unsuccessful and the gifted... feel welcome together. We thank him and those like him who demonstrate in action that anyone can create a place to really be themselves... when they fight for it.

A move to integrate the scientific study of character traits and virtue with practical strategies for “living the good life,” positive psychology takes the best from humanistic psychology created in the 1970’s and marries it to recent evidence-based clinical practices and social psychological science. In so doing it offers individuals a better understanding of what forms the basis of human flourishing. abcmind uses this work extensively in its offerings, agreeing that a focus on human strength has just as much potential to free people from the things that constrain them as does the traditional medical-model strategy of decreasing disorder and disease. abcmind focuses on “what is right,” in addition to understanding “what is wrong,” in order to get at the heart of a well-rounded solution set.

“DBT” is another important advance in therapeutic practice that combines eastern meditative ideas and western cognitive behavioral psychology to improve human functioning. abcmind has found increases in our potential to help gifted people flourish by incorporating skills training to successfully deal with recurring challenges.

Lastly, Martha Graham proves that we are more than what is in our minds. With one of the most beautiful forms to move the vision of people, she spoke to us from our other language. People would benefit to find her again and listen.

To make sure we balance our internal focus with an awareness of our body and its motion through space, abcmind partners with Steel Flower to offer exercises for Movement & Health in the meditative tradition.