Bohm Research

The Work of David Bohm

Physicist David Bohm (The Undivided Universe, Wholeness and The Implicate Order) in the latter 20 years of his work on physics, used his observations and conclusions to gather individuals together from diverse fields to "dialogue" - by which he meant to explore and inquire into the meanings behind the way they thought about things. Dialogue caught on, due to its success, and is now used in many group processes.

How we apply this to our program

“Dialogue” is a specific form of in-depth exploratory interaction which can include situations where two people inquire into what to do next together. While outside of our program, the techniques of dialogue might be taught to people engaging a a group process, here it springs up naturally and spontaneously in situations where a group is subjected to previously-unseen challenge events - such as are provided by a Ropes Course. Dialogue happens naturally in our program when two or more youth inquire together about how to solve the next challenge, and what they need to get there.

Most interchange between people is not dialogue. It is passing information, vying for power, but rarely is it a shared exploration. Dialogue deepens while most conversation is based on patterned and repetitive gesturing.

The use of this understanding seems simple and self-evident on the surface - as it should - but the implications of making use of it are that an already sought after result - participants digging deeper within themselves for answers - with its known long term positive implications - is built in to our program. What seems simple about "dialogue" is also complex and useful at a level beneath the surface.

To encourage dialogue, we discourage adult mentors/volunteers and even our own Facilitators from interrupting it or from supplying their own answers when the youth are stuck. This serves the purpose of deepening the conversation to include inherent values, ethics and internal codes of conduct - which is exactly what we want.