Kindred Spirits - Essays in Race, Politics, and Psychology 1960-2000
615 pages

This is a book of social criticism, historical analysis, psychological theory, and self-disclosure with a dollop of transcendental mysticism thrown in at the very end. Its thesis: "We are all kindred spirits and we all forget that we are all kindred spirits." We are all experiencing processes. We are all ambiguous gestalts. We are all "more simply human than otherwise". True, we have our divisions. We are black and white, rich and poor, young and old, male and female, straight and gay, 'us' and 'them'. The first two parts of the book are about two of these divisions: racism and excessive inequality. But, ultimately, it ought to be our goal to remember - one more time than we forget - that we are all kindred spirits. I hope that is the direction in which world-consciousness is going.

Other than my critique of psychological experimentation (The Social Nature of Psychological Research: Basic Books, 1968), my adventure into the realms of the lovetorn (Ask Dr. Neil: Love, Sex and Relationship Advice from the Internet:Booklocker, 2002), and my stubborn resistence to collecting under one roof my writings on education... Here it is; most all of me. From my mid-1960s years in the south, civil rights, and race through my late 60s- mid-70s years as a political troublemaker and wannabe theorist and on to my 'mature' work as a psychotherapist and Opening the Heart workshop leader... advertisements for what I have done, what I have written, and who I have been. It is the story of one life unfolding,warts and thoughts and feelings side by side, an as yet unfinished melody. Perhaps one day I will feel the need to update it.

-- Many Blessings
Neil Friedman

More about Kindred Spirits: Sample Chapter