Greg Jemsek Discusses Ideology, Dogma, Self-Knowledge and Cults on Blog Talk Radio

ASHLAND, OR, April 16, 2013 (Press-News.org) QuietHorizon.com
Media contact: WJ Carrel Greg Jemsek, award-winning author and narrative therapist, is the guest of talk show host Andrea Garrison on the "Online with Andrea" Internet radio program on Monday, April 15, 2013 from 7:30 to 9:30 pm ET. The interview will explore the role of belief in contemporary life, and how easily beliefs can calcify into ideologies. This open conversation, which invites call-ins from the public, can be accessed at blogtalkradio.com/onlinewithandrea/2013/04/15/quiet-horizon. The call-in number is (347)426-3895, press #1 to connect on-air. For those who miss the program, it can be found in archives at http://www.onlinewithandrea.com 24 hours after the air date.

Jemsek puts forth ideas from his new psychology book Quiet Horizon: Releasing Ideology and Embracing Self-Knowledge (Trafford Publishing, 2011, ISBN 978-1-4269-1127-9, $24.95 paperback, 332 pages, 5 ½ x 8 ½; also on Kindle for $7.69) which is available at online booksellers Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, QuietHorizon.com, and other Internet book seller web sites.

Quiet Horizon explores how ideologies can undermine a person's internal drive for self-knowledge. He examines 4 key psychological and sociological determinants that convince people to compromise their sovereignty to ideological authorities, using his own experience in a cult as a youth to highlight how this process works. His conclusions lead him to the broader questions explored in Quiet Horizon: Can a person pursue spirituality on his own terms? Has ideological rigidity permanently contaminated our political environment? What are the key psychological factors needed to support common sense in the face of the increasing narrow mindedness of societal interest groups? The result of these queries helped the author construct a unique theory and a powerful tool for defusing ideological trances.

Jemsek's current work facilitating the Dogma Dialogues (interactive seminars) employs that tool by explaining both the power of ideological organizations and the way to "jump out of" utopian systems these organizations present as solutions to the complex problems confronting communities worldwide. In doing so, a path for dealing with these problems collaboratively and inclusively is suggested.

Greg Jemsek began his work as a therapist in the mid-1970's training Lifeline volunteers and working with heroin addicted Vietnam War veterans. In 1984 he received his Master's Degree in Consciousness Studies from John F. Kennedy University. In 1992, he immigrated to New Zealand where he practiced as a psychotherapist for 8 years, and supervised agency counselors for the New Zealand Association of Counselors. He was Program Director for the Graduate Psychotherapy Training Program at the Eastern Institute of Technology in Napier, NZ where he established an on-site Supervision Clinic and brought modules in Narrative, Gestalt, and Hakomi Therapy into the curriculum. At EIT he launched the first ever module devoted to indigenous Maori perspectives on mental health. During this time he also trained in Narrative Therapy with Michael White and David Epston. He uses narrative as his primary approach in his Ashland, Oregon practice. Jemsek's blog at http://www.quiethorizon.com discusses contemporary issues related to fundamentalist thinking, cults, and paths to self-knowledge outside of ideologies.

Radio host Andrea Garrison produces her weekly two-hour program, Online with Andrea, on Internet radio at Blog Talk Radio. Topics on her program include explorations of "health, fitness, body, mind, heart, soul, spirit, the spoken word, art, music, dance, theater, film, the environment, planet earth, and beyond." Garrison is also the author of In the Presence of Angels (Swedenborg Foundation Press, 2013). Garrison's web site is onlinewithandrea.com.