Creating Our Lives Together Study Group (Winter 2025)

Join Melissa Meyer, Chakradhar Iyyunni and Desire Wandan for an exploration of two of Fred Newman’s popular books – Let’s Develop!: A Guide to Continuous Personal Growth and Performance of a Lifetime: A Practical-Philosophical Guide to the Joyous Life. These texts challenge traditional psychology’s fixation on the self, diagnosis and solving problems, and introduce you to the collaborative, performatory and growthful practice called social therapeutics. In the study group we will read and discuss these concepts and practices collectively. We will play with the exercises Newman prescribes at the end of each chapter in Let's Develop! and explore how performance and philosophy can create joy in our lives.

Zoom Meeting Dates:

Wednesdays, 12:00pm-1:30pm Eastern US (UTC-5) - (Click links below to see the time of each session in your part of the world)

• January 22nd and 29th, and February 5th, 12th, 19th and 26th

Leader Biographies

Melissa Meyer is the Institute’s associate director and a social therapeutic coach. She is co-chair of the International Organizing Committee for Performing The World Happenings, a biannual virtual gathering that explores performance, play and improvisation as methods to help communities grow and create positive social change. She is currently a social therapeutic coach in three weekly Developing Across Borders groups -- spaces where people perform as world citizens, invent new ways of being and seeing, and produce new possibilities for each other and their communities.

Desire Wandan, the Institute's Media and Tech Producer, is a teaching artist, videographer and documentarian. Des was introduced to social therapeutics while a student at Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn, where he performed as a leader of the “Let’s Talk About It” group led by Barbara Silverman. He currently serves as tech producer (Z-Jay) and volunteer coordinator for ESI programs, and as multimedia content producer of short videos, documentaries and the “All Power to the Developing” podcast series. Passionate about Hip-Hop culture, he is an avid dancer and teaching artist in communities across New York.