A Life Deeply Lived
Dr. Arnold Mindell (Arny), therapist, teacher, physicist, author, conflict facilitator, and founder of Process oriented Psychology, passed away on June 10, 2024, in Yachats, Oregon.
Arny was born January 1, 1940, in Schenectady, N.Y., the first baby born in New York state that year to his parents Bianka and Max Mindell. It was an auspicious beginning to an amazing life. In 1962 he graduated Summa Cum Laude with simultaneous Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Arts degrees in Science and Languages from Union College. In 1964 he earned an M.S. from MIT in applied physics and mechanical engineering, did research at the ETH technical Institute in Zurich Switzerland, and received a PhD in psychology from Union Institute in 1972.
Not content to study the physical universe alone, Arny had a deep desire to understand the nature of people as well. He became a Jungian analyst at the C.G. Jung Institute in Switzerland in 1970, and a training analyst in 1977. He then developed Process Oriented Psychology (or Process Work), a multi-dimensional approach to working with the gamut of our human experiences.
His passion and focus was always on nature and process, that is, the flow of experience. He was a Taoist at heart, constantly following nature’s unique path with an utterly open and curious mind. He discovered that even the most difficult parts of life such as body symptoms, relationship troubles, or group conflicts – when followed and unfolded with awareness –contain a great deal of wisdom and meaning for our lives. He also discovered that we do not only dream at night, but have an ongoing dreaming process we can step into at any time to gain a great deal of insight for ourselves and our world. When our signals and experiences are unfolded with awareness, this often brings relief and unexpected resolutions to personal issues and sustainable social change.
In the beginning of his development of Process work, Arny discovered the idea of the Dreambody (the mirror connection between our body experiences and our dreams). He is also known for his development of process-oriented relationship work, innovative methods for communicating and working with people in near death and comatose states, inner work methods, his work with people in extreme states of consciousness, and much more.
As a little boy, Arny had a lot of pain, fighting, and suffering when people tried to kill him because of diversity issues when he went to school. While these almost deadly incidents were terrible, he finally made friends with his opponents and became class president, He said these painful experiences motivated him later on to develop Worldwork, a method for working with small and large groups, conflict situations, and social and diversity issues of all kinds. He created the concept and practice of Deep Democracy which values all people and parts of a given situation, as well as the different levels of our experience including our everyday consensus reality, the dreams and dream-like background to everyday life, and the deepest most sentient and unifying experiences that connect us with the earth and universe.
He is known as a pioneer in the fields of transpersonal, humanistic, and body-oriented psychotherapies, as well as conflict resolution, and for his synthesis of physics and psychology. Over the years, he wrote 23 books about Process Work.
Arny and colleagues created the first school of Process Work in Zurich in 1982 called FGPOP or The Research Society for Process Oriented Psychology (now the Institute fuer Prozess Arbeit) and the Process Work Center of Portland, Oregon in 1989 (now the Process Work Institute). The study and practice of Process Work has continued to bloom and as of 2024 there are over 20 schools of Process Work around the world.
For decades Arny and his wife, partner, and co-teacher Amy, have taught Process Work throughout the world, as have many of Arny’s students and colleagues. Arny and Amy were also resident teachers at Esalen Institute in the 1990s and have been frequent speakers at psychological conferences, on television, radio, and the internet. Since 1986 they have had a home in Yachats, Oregon where Arny rejoiced every day at the magnificence of nature and the sea.
Arny was deeply loved as a partner and husband, beloved father to Lara Gmuer Mindell and Robin Mindell, grandfather to Aurelia and Zoey Mindell, and a dear friend, colleague, and brilliant teacher to thousands of people all over the world. He is also known for his joyful, spontaneous, and playful spirit, his devotion and courage to explore even the most challenging human experiences, his passion for research, and his deep desire to make the world a better place for all. He will be deeply missed, though he will always be present in the hearts of everyone who loved him and who will carry on his spirit, work, and legacy.
~ Arnold Mindell
