Al Turtle's Relationship Wisdom

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View Article  Class on Emotionally Abusive Behavior
Here is the class I use to distinguish between the communication habits the lead to strive, struggle and distress and those that lead to peaceful coexistence.    more »
View Article  Peace and Domestic Violence
Recently I gave a 3–hour presentation at a conference on Domestic Violence. The title was "Remediating Bullies and Their Makers: A different look at Domestic Violence." Here is the background and one of the Powerpoint presentations.    more »
View Article  Election Year - My Thoughts - Obama
“So, why are you voting for Obama,” I get asked this a lot. It has come up for several months, since I decided to share my preference in this fall’s election. These are my thoughts. They belong to me and yours should differ. If you don't like politics, skip this altogether.    more »
View Article  Decision Making in a Heirarchy
This is an excerpt from my paper on Dialogue in a Hierarchy. It focuses on decision making. It now includes a chart.   more »
View Article  Being Dialogical & Avoiding MasterTalk
I think that "Being Dialogical" is the inverse of being Emotionally Symbiotic. If we keep an ear out for MasterTalk, and remove it, we can easily and durably stay in a Dialogical space.   more »
View Article  Practical Application of Communologue
This is a writeup of an application of Communologue in a project that I completed 2003-2004.   more »
View Article  Avoid becoming a Bully, yourself!
A conversation with a relationship therapist about avoiding becoming a Bully.    more »
View Article  An Application of Communologue: United Way of Kootenai County
By Donald L. Gibbon. Northern Idaho sounds like it should be about as far away from 21st century social ills as you could get and still have access to modern America’s social benefits. Coeur d’Alene, known to demographers and government bureaucrats as CdA, has a population of only about 35,000, but it’s still the largest town in the state north of Boise, some 460 long miles to the south.   more »
View Article  Avoiding Transpersonal Pernicious Behavior in a Group
Some more thoughts on Guiding a Communologue Group. A new guideline added on Nov 1, '06.   more »
View Article  Guiding Communologue
A list of interventions that can be used to create and maintain a dialogical group atmosphere. A new guideline added on Nov 27, '07.   more »
View Article  (audio commentary) Guiding Communologue - Interventions

This is an audio file of my thoughts about guiding Communologue, listing and explaining the interventions I believe are important. ...   more »

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View Article  Interviewing the Elephant
About guiding people into dialogical space.   more »
View Article  Notes: Guiding Dialogue (5 July 2006)
Notes for a Class on Guiding Dialogue   more »
View Article  Guide's Role in Communologue
Thoughts on the Role of a Communologue Facilitator.   more »
View Article  Group Core Beliefs
Strange that last night these came to me. Another new way of looking at "being together in durable peacefulness." Empower whatever group you are in to do the following.   more »
View Article  Group Standards for Discussion
This is a letter I wrote to the Peace Project concerning my group's self-defined standards of Communologue.    more »
View Article  To Imago Therapists
An open letter (probably with lots of typos) that I wrote to any and all Imago Therapists during my vacation in the mountains in early September 2005. In it I pose an important question. Is what I am doing "Imago?"   more »
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View Article  Thank Heavens for Bullies. We need them.
Sometimes people get the impression that I want all bullies to go away. But I really think they are valuable. Where would we all be without them? Now, what am I talking about!?    more »
View Article  Dialogical Groups: Communologue
I am currently leading a group based on Communologue principles. These are the core of dialogical skills originally formulated in Imago Relationship, but recently expanded by the Imago Peace Project to include critical factors missing in Imago. Members of the Imago Peace Project (http://imagopeaceproject.org) can teach you these Communologue skills.    more »
View Article  Peace Decays into War in Discrete Steps
A chart of how normal discourse collapses thru arguing, thru violence, into the form of communication we call WARFARE.    more »
View Article  Peace Building: The Essay
When two people come together, they have a choice: to move toward Peace or to move toward War. The choices and the actions/habits that go with them are clear when one studies couples who are successful at bringing lasting Peace and those who are not. Here's my essay on this situation.   more »
View Article  Did Dialogue Occur?
This is a way of scoring to see if you were experiencing dialogue or just normal chaotic conversation.   more »
View Article  Diversity and PreValidation: A Chart
To really grasp Diversity, I think people need to have an image, a model, that makes sense of Understanding and Validation. I have used this model for three years and it works. It defines "making sense", "understanding", "validation" and that most valuable of skills, "PreValidation".   more »
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View Article  Peace Building: A Chart
The choices that two or more people have when they come together. Based on the experience of lots and lots of couples who have learned, what the average citizen hasn't, that arguing doesn't work.   more »
View Article  MasterTalk: Samples of Dealing with it.
I use these three terms (Master, Slave, Friend) to refer to the three positions from which and to which communication can be addressed. These are similar to the positions in Transactional Analysis of Parent, Child, and Adult. No one is a Master. They just speak, and perhaps think, from the Master position. No one is a Slave. They just speak from the Slave position. MasterTalk seems extremely easy to identify in conversation and writing.   more »
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