Cover of Talking Back to Dr. Phil by love-based psychology advocate David Bedrick . You can catch the previous segment of this 4-part series by Aberjhani by clicking right here . Part 3 starts now : Another principle derived from David Bedrick’s meditations on process-oriented psychology suggests treating “the powers behind difficulties or disturbances as allies instead of enemies.” That could be a tough sell for people dealing with issues such as spouse abuse or drug addiction, but the author makes his case well enough. Moreover, the debatable nature of his love-based manifesto in its entirety is not lost on Bedrick. In his own defense and that of those he would help to heal themselves and their communities, he notes the following: “Like the US Constitution, I do not adhere to majoritarianism, but rather protect marginalized people and forms of expression from being seen as ‘problems’ and subjected to ...

“We each have lessons to learn and to teach, and healing is something we all do together.”—David Bedrick ( Talking Back to Dr. Phil ) Black History Month is a time I usually reserve for purchasing and reading books by and about African Americans to help add functional substance to the month’s cultural and educational value .  It therefore was unlikely that I would read David Bedrick’s Talking Back to Dr. Phil ––after receiving a copy as a gift––any time soon.  This is what happened to change my mind: Just as I was preparing to place the book halfway between a stack of titles waiting for my attention, I took a quick look inside at the acknowledgments page and read this opening sentence: “About twenty-five years ago, I had the privilege of hearing the music and poetry of Etheridge Knight, a freedom-loving black poet living in Boston.” Since Knight was one of my all-time favorite tortured-soul scarred-radical-genius explosively-complex literary heroes, I k...