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.
Since 1981,
I have taken over 3,000 calls on the Stepfamily inFormation "warm-line." I moderated
the "Stepfamily Issues" forum at
Divorcenet.com for two years, and have
answered over 500 online steppar-enting questions at
AllExperts.com. I rejoined AllExperts.com 8/08 as an expert in effective communica-tion,
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
designed a series of online PowerPoint presentations on key topics in
this nonprofit site. I also
created a modular 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 remarrying coup-les. One module
is a unique three-hour stepfamily
for groups of 12 or
more people 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.
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As the son of two functional alcoholics, I have been in proactive "ACoA" recovery since 1986.
This has led to adopting and using
to promote individual clients' recovery
from up to six
wounds
related to growing up in low-nurturance (dysfunctional) childhoods.
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Work with over 1,000 average Midwestern-US clients suggests that
over
80% of the adults in typical
troubled relationships and families are
(GWCs) and don't (want to) know it, or what it probably
to them and their kids. All
my work has led me recently to promote
preventing the unremarked [wounds +
unawareness]
that seems to be spreading in and weakening our culture now. This has
become my life mission and a steady source of daily purpose and
satisfaction.
I have been adapting to diabetes and an incurable muscle-wasting disease
that increasingly limits My physical abilities for a decade. 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 biokids. I had to retire from
my private therapy practice in January
2006, and do
now
from Portland, Oregon (USA).
To contact
me, go here,
or join and use the Break the Cycle!
discussion board.
If you're curious about how
and why I came to create this Web site, see
this.
Please help me improve this Web site: invest a minute and
tell me about yourself - totally anonymous, NO advertizing.
THANKS!
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![Break the inheitred [wounds + unawareness] cycle!](../art/hdr-cycle.gif)
