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I have been a professional
researcher,
educator, and therapist specializing in stepfamilies since 1979. A Stanford graduate,
I was an
engineer, trainer, and manager for GT&E and IBM for 17 years. I have
been a stepson, step-grandson, stepbrother of four, and a stepfather
of two girls.
I spent two years (full time) researching lay and professional stepfamily literature published between 1979 and 1980 for my social work
Master's-degree thesis, and have taken over 400 hours of clinical
post-graduate training in a wide range of topics since then. I have
consulted with well over 1,000 typical Mid-western
and stepfamily
adults
since 1981.
I
co-founded the nonprofit Stepfamily Association of Illinois, Inc. (SAI) with interested
others in 1981. Shortly after that, I was invited to join the
Board of Directors of the Stepfamily
Association of America (SAA) by its founders, Drs. John and Emily Visher. I later served on
the
SAA
Advisory Council, and was invited to rejoin the Board in March, 2002 by
President Marjorie Engel.
After SAA passed it's mission to the
National Stepfamily Resource
Center, I became a member of the NSRC Stepfamily Experts
Council.
I took over 3,000 calls on the Stepfamily inFormation "warm-line." I moderated
the "Stepfamily Is-sues" chat at
Divorcenet.com for two years, and have
answered over 500 online stepparenting questions at
AllExperts.com. I rejoined AllExperts.com 8/08 as an expert in effective communication,
and am a self-actualization consultant at SelfGrowth.com.
I have
learned from over 1,000 typical family adults from
all walks of life, in over 18,000 hours of per-sonal consultations, classes,
and workshops. I have published my learnings in this (evolving) non-profit Web
site, several magazines, and a series of
guidebooks for lay and
professional readers. I was also a
contributing editor for SAA's e-magazine Your Stepfamily Online.
I
created a modular 18-hour class
for stepfamily adults, and led versions of it for scores of groups in
the Chicago area. I've also taught a half-day portion of a family-life
weekend seminar for 40 groups of re-marrying coup-les. One module
is a unique three-hour stepfamily
for groups of 12 or
more peo-ple to raise their awareness experientially.
I have led over 400 classes and seminars for adults and teens on interpersonal communications
skills, healthy
grieving, anger management, addictions,
divorce recovery; effective single parenting; and
recovery from
low-nurturance-childhood
My sponsors have included the State of Illinois;
Cook County States Attorney's Office, the Catholic Diocese (Family Life
Office) of Rockford IL, Mothers Without Custody, major
Chicago-area businesses; Governors State, Northwestern, Northeastern Illinois, and Northern
Illinois universities; and many local schools, churches, and mental-health agencies.
I have
appeared on local and national radio and NBC television speaking on these topics.
I was a board member of a large suburban-Chicago mental health center for
seven years, including a tem a president. I was also president of the Oak
Park, IL High School's Citizen's Advisory Council
|
As the son of two functional alcoholics, I have been in proactive
ACoA recovery since 1986.
This has led me to learn and use
to promote individual clients' recovery
from up to six
wounds
related to growing up in low-nurturance (dysfunctional) childhoods. It also
led me to gradually shift from ignorant childhood atheism to my current firm
belief in a benign, acces-sible Higher Power. |
Work with over 1,000 average Midwestern-US clients suggests that
over
80% of the adults in typi-cal
troubled relationships and families are
(GWCs) - and they don't (want to) know it or what it
to them and their kids.
My work has led me to promote preventing the unremar-ked, lethal [wounds +
unawareness]
that seems to be spreading in and weakening our culture now - hence this
Web site. This has
become my life mission and a steady source of daily purpose and
satis-faction.
I began trying to broadcast what I've learned about solving stepfamily
problems on the Web about 1999. Since then, my Web site has continuously
evolved in structure and content. In May of 2009, I enlarged the site's
scope to all families, and shifted the format to an 8-module free
self-study course. I'm now editing all the site's content to reflect this
scope and format change.
To my knowledge,
this site is unique. I've never seen another book, program, or Web site
focused on breaking the [wounds + unawareness] cycle. If you know of one,
please let me know!
I have been confined to a wheelchair for three years because of a
progressive, incurable muscle-wasting disease. I have years of personal experience as a step-grandson, adult step-son, stepfather of two girls, stepbrother of four, step-cousin, and
step-uncle-in-law. I am twice divorced, and have no bio-kids. I had to retire from
my private therapy practice in January
2006, and now do
from Portland, Oregon (USA).
At age 72, I am deeply concerned about the right-to-die movement, and
Americans' crippling indifference to...
-
personal
amidst relentless media hyper-stimulation,
-
the priceless opportunity
to teach kids and adults to think and communicate more effectively,
-
the pandemic toxic effects
of unqualified child conception and parenting,
-
preventing the tragic U.S.
divorce epidemic; and...
-
the increasing damage
humans are doing to our Earth.
To contact
me, go here.
Please help me improve this Web site: invest a minute and
tell me about yourself
- totally anonymous, NO advertizing.
THANKS!
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