Printable Order Form Here.

Pre-registration is necessary. Lodging is not included in registration, though lunches and snacks will be provided.

This workshop is being held at the Mountain Meadow Inn, near Helena, Mt.
A limited number of rooms are available at a reduced rate of $65/night (plus tax) for one or two people - breakfast is included!
This is a great opportunity to stay in Helena, enjoy the workshop and have quality accomodation.

Contact Info:

Mention you are attending the Bohmian Dialogue Workshop.

Mountain Meadow Inn

2245 Head Lane
Helena, MT 59601
Phone: 406-443-7301
Fax: 406-443-8029

Participants will have advanced reading and ‘homework’ to ensure a basic understanding of Bohmian dialogue. This advance preparation is a must for participation in the process.

Reading list for Dialogue workshop.

Praise of Lee Nichol and Bohmian Dialogue

To whom it may concern,

I have a special interest in dialogue especially Bohmian Dialogue. As Senior Vice President at Christiana Care Health System a large hospital organization in Wilmington, Delaware I am very concerned about, and spend most of my time in conversation with, people trying to achieve a true level of communication. I have a wide range of departments reporting to me and communication difficulties are of concern. For instance, it is no secret that the greatest cause of sentenial events [medical errors] is due to the “Lack of Communication”. This is true both for Christiana as well as medical errors reported nationally. Hospitals are complex systems with a diverse range of people who need to communicate together to provide a safe environment for patients and each other.
Dialogue, Bohmian Dialogue stands as a positive alternative to the traditional processes used to provide the potential of understanding and possible fellowship. Those of us who dare to dialogue begin to explore the terrain of what David Bohm calls “shared common content” and in doing so awaken the possibility of a meaningful human experience.

Finally let me also say that I teach a class at Penn State University undergraduate program on the concept of Dialogue and Complex Systems and have found my students awakened by the experience of dialogue and the thoughts of David Bohm. If you are serious about exploring Bohmian Dialogue I could not recommend anyone else more qualified and experienced than Lee Nichol.

Sincerely,

Ray Seigfried

To whom it may concern,

As a Professor of Adult and Higher Education, I have been “on the trail” of various forms of dialogue for several years now. I’ve read widely in the professional literature and have introduced the process to graduate students in courses on leadership and administration. In my sessions with students, I sometimes stumbled, but I certainly learned a lot. I sensed, however, that none of the research on dialogue I was drawing on moved us to the place I thought we needed to be. A friend told me about a conference he had attended in 2003 called the National Coalition of Deliberation and Dialogue and urged me to go to the next one. Without question, he said, the most valuable part of the meeting was his participation in a daylong session with Lee Nichol on the form of dialogue developed by David Bohm. I went to the Coalition’s conference in October 2004 specifically to attend Lee’s workshop.

I was not disappointed. Lee led a three-hour orientation session on the first day and a six-hour session called “Embodying Bohmian dialogue” the next. I found his teaching and facilitation to be some of the most important personal and professional development experiences I have had in many years. As a result of his skillful (even artistic) teaching, I experienced a remarkable advance in my understanding not only of the dialogue process itself but of its potential power in individual and organizational change.

I was also able to see how Bohmian dialogue connected to adult learning and development, which has been my main interest as a professor, consultant, and researcher for almost three decades. I understand more deeply now how Lee’s work in dialogue can suuport persons’ development into increasingly complex , inclusive, and integrated ways of knowing themselves and the world. So as a result of being one of Lee’s “students,” I have been able to expand greatly the kind of work I do with graduate students as well as with professionals in other fields.

Sincerely,

Chuck Claxton
Appalachian State University
Boone, NC 28608

Five dimensions of Bohmian Dialogue:

Conversation
Inquiry
Creating shared meaning
Participatory process
Collective Meditation

Conversation -
to talk together without an agenda
to listen to the other
Respect, empathy, care, receptivity, solicitude.
to understand the experience of the other
intentionality
interpersonal reasoning
reciprocity

Inquiry
Collective inquiry into beliefs and feelings
Inquiry into the content and the process
Requires openness and courage
The art of questioning
Raising consciousness
Reflexivity
Unlearning in order to learn

Creating shared meaning
Flow of meaning circulating around and through the participants
Diversity in points of view
Shared content of consciousness
Meaning is a form of being
Participation in shaping nature’s evolution
Accepting the risk of being transformed
Suspension of judgment
A form of socio-therapy

Participatory Process
No hierarchy, empowerment.
A way of looking at the world
A new form of consciousness
embeddedness in the wholeness
Perception of our interconnectedness
Less attachment to conceptual language.
The very being of each thing arises in participation

Collective Meditation
Acceptance of present moment reality without attempting to change
people, behaviors, situations, etc.
The cultivation of attention
A form of subtle intelligence beyond the duality of observer/observed.
Attention directed toward the thought process individually and
collectively.
Social creativity and “enlightenment.”

The Five Dimensions is from Mario Cayer's chapter in Dialogue As A Means Of Collective Communication - 2005.