Jean Houston, PhD
Jean Houston, Ph.D., scholar, philosopher, and researcher, is one of the foremost visionary thinkers and doers of our time. She is long regarded as one of the principal founders of the Human Potential Movement.
Thirty-six years ago, along with her husband Dr. Robert Masters, Houston founded The Foundation for Mind Research. She is also the founder and principal teacher of the Mystery School, a program of cross-cultural, mythic, and spiritual studies dedicated to teaching history, philosophy, the new physics, psychology, anthropology, myth, and the many dimensions of human potential. For more than 20 years, the Mystery School has taken place on both the East and West coasts.
Houston is a prolific writer and author of 19 books, including A Passion for the Possible, Search for the Beloved, Life Force, The Possible Human, Public Like a Frog, A Mythic Life: Learning to Live Our Greater Story, and The Passion of Isis and Osiers. Her latest book, Jump Time, explores a new global paradigm and a regenesis of human society, and is sparking the action of social artists working on the frontiers of the new global community. She is also the creator of a national nonprofit organization, The Possible Society, which encourages the creation of new ways for people to work together to help solve societal problems.
Houston holds a bachelor's degree from Barnard College and a doctorate from the Union Graduate School. A past president of the Association of Humanistic Psychology, she has taught philosophy, psychology, and religion at Columbia University, Hunter College, the New School for Social Research, and Marymount College, as well as summer sessions in human development at the University of California at Santa Cruz and the University of British Columbia. She has directed two three-year courses in human capacities development and a program of cross-cultural mythic and spiritual studies for more than 20 years. In 2002, she established the first summer Institute in Social Artistry, which drew participants from all over the world.
Houston has worked with numerous corporations, including Xerox, Beatrice Foods, General Electric, and Rodale Press. She has also worked with governmental agencies, including the U.S. Department of Commerce, the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment, and the Department of Energy.
As advisor to UNICEF in human and cultural development, Houston worked to implement some of their extensive educational and health programs, primarily in Myanmar (Burma) and Bangladesh. In 1988, she worked with leaders throughout New Zealand to help bring forth that nation's promise. With other international agencies, she has implemented the social development of indigenous people through the integration of their unique cultural gifts into their health and educational systems. In September of 1999, she traveled to Dharamsala, India as one of the distinguished group chosen to work with the Dalai Lama in an informative and advisory capacity. Her work with the Dalai Lama continues.
Houston has chaired, among many other academic and scientific convocations, the 1975 United Nations Temple of Understanding Conference of World Religious Leaders. Under the sponsorship of the Department of Commerce, she also helped to initiate and then chaired the 1979 Symposium for leading government policy makers.
In 1985, Houston was awarded the Distinguished Leadership Award from the Association of Teacher Educators. In 1993, she received the Gardner Murphy Humanitarian Award for her work in psychology and the INTA Humanitarian of the Year award. In 1994, she received the Lifetime Outstanding Creative Achievement Award from the Creative Education Foundation. The following year, she was given the Keeper of the Lore Award for her studies in myth and culture. In 1997, she was made a Fellow of the World Business Academy. In 1999, she received the Pathfinder Award from the Association of Humanistic Psychology.
A powerful and dynamic speaker, Houston holds conferences and seminars with social leaders, educational institutions, and business organizations worldwide. She has worked intensively in 40 cultures and lectured in more than 70 countries, helping to enhance and deepen their own uniqueness while they become part of the global community. Her ability to inspire and invigorate people enables her to readily convey her vision-the finest possible achievement of the individual potential. |
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