» Articles
Listed below are articles selected by PRH Educators from recent PRH newsletters, the popular press, and scholarly journals, along with references to other sources. Covering a variety of themes, these articles are chosen because they show more evidence of the importance of personal growth work or ways to promote growth. Excerpts from our newsletters are shared first, followed by referenced articles, listed alphabetically by title. These articles are updated periodically.
If you would like to suggest an article or reference for inclusion here, send the article or necessary identifying information along with your reason for recommending it to a PRH Educator. The web site committee will make final selections.
From PRH Newsletters
The HOV Lane of Growth, by Ja Kim, Vancouver, BC (excerpted from the Western Division, 2011 Issue 1 newsletter)
“Why do I call PRH workshops “the HOV (High Occupancy Vehicle) lane of growth”? Each time I complete a PRH workshop’s “itinerary” of reflective questions, I experience deep healing and unanticipated shifts in my understanding of myself. I often don’t know the other people in the circle, to whom I may reveal some of my innermost experiences. I share because there is an intentionality among those in the workshops that is absent from other, more social interactions. This intention – theirs and mine— may be the glue that makes my insights and learning “stick.
In PRH workshops, when I listen to the sharing of others, I feel alertness like an electrical charge. This occurs when I hear someone articulate something that is true for me, that I have never expressed. It’s as if my unexpressed reality is an undertow of dormant genes swimming beneath my awareness…..” (to finish reading this interview, and read similar articles, visit our Newsletter section)
Sensational Nature, by Ron Spann (excerpted from the Central Division 2009, Issue 2 Newsletter)
“This issue of the Newsletter is timed to appear close to Earth Day 2009. The world of nature, as the source of our material environment, always hovers in the background of the PRH explanatory system, and not infrequently moves into the foreground. Several of our workshops invite you outdoors to an immediate experience of the natural world. In fact, Listening to the Messages of My Body even gives you the chance to bond with a tree of your choice!
These exercises are not a stealth move on the part of PRH to recruit an army of tree huggers. Exercises built on direct exposure to nature are tapping into its extraordinary impact on our sensory, emotional, and spiritual experiences, and into the sensations to which these give rise. This rests on an implicit assumption of PRH that humanity is a part of the rest of creation and owes its wellbeing to it.
Of course, belonging to the natural world does not always mean that we like it or are convinced of its value to our growth…” (to finish reading this and similar articles, visit our Newsletter section)
Value of Reflective Writing
American Psychological Association. (2005) New Research Extends Understanding of the Positive Health Effects of Expressive Writing. APA Online, http://www.apa.org/releases/expressiveC05.html
Kalb, Claudia. (1999) Pen, Paper, Power! Newsweek, April 26, 1999, pp. 75 – 76.
Sloan, Denise M. and Brian P. Marx. (2004) Taking Pen to Hand: Evaluating Theories Underlying the Written Disclosure Paradigm. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 11:2, 121-137.