ABOUT THE BEHAVIOR ONLINE FORUM

February 4, 1996

The experience of reading any of the BOL Conversations is very different from that of browsing one of the active Forum discussion areas. The Conversations are focussed and coherent, as the two parties involved do their best to be clear and stay on track. In contrast, the Forum discussions are more open and open-ended. For me that brings an element of vitality, and with it a tendency towards incoherence.

The General Forum is becoming quite active as people express their particular interests, but, because of its lack of structure it is easy to miss conversational threads of potential interest. I want to call your attention to two new threads there. Jessica Broitman, one of the key people in the San Francisco Psychotherapy Research Group, is leading a discussion of Control Mastery Theory, an interesting and well-researched approach to psychotherapy. Barbara Ann Levy has initiated a discussion on art therapy and other creative therapies. In these two cases the General Discussion is serving as a kind of incubator and as we gain experience those threads may migrate to their own discussion areas. Soon Oliva Espin will begin a thread on gender and ethnic issues.

I also want to call your attention to the Shame and Affect forum area where Donald Nathanson and Vick Kelly hold forth on their topic and to the discussion on the Adlerian perspective. Nathanson, Kelly and Stein are all active in and comfortable with the Internet, so their participation is unimpeded by unfamiliarity with the medium, which is the case with some of our other expert conversationalists.

Also coming soon is a private discussion among organizational development specialists. If you have an interest in joining that discussion, please write.

In case you haven't noticed, each of the Conversations is linked to a Forum discussion area, so you can explore a topic by observing a one-to-one interview and then join in by jumping to the Forum on that topic.

The Editor