The Taos Institute is a non-profit educational organization, concerned with the social processes essential for the construction of reason, knowledge, and human value. The institute is engaged in exploring, developing and disseminating ideas and practices that promote creative, appreciative and collaborative processes in families, communities and organizations around the world.

Overview

The educational ends of the organization are achieved through conferences, workshops, publications, a PhD program, a distance learning program, newsletters, and web-based offerings. These activities function at the interface between the scholarly community and societal practitioners primarily from communities of mental health, social work, counseling, organizational change, education, community building, gerontology and medicine. Their endeavors are the ways in which scholarly research can enrich professional practices, and practices can stimulate scholarly inquiry.

History

The Taos Institute was founded in 1991 by a group of scholars and practitioners exploring the potentials of social constructionist

Social constructionism

Social constructionism and social constructivism are sociological theories of knowledge that consider how social phenomena or objects of consciousness develop in social contexts. A social construction is a concept or practice that is the construct of a particular group...

 ideas for generating and informing societal practices. The founders included Harlene Anderson

Harlene Anderson

Harlene Anderson is an American psychologist. Along with Dr. Harold A. Goolishian , she developed a postmodern collaborative approach to therapy. She is recognized as a leader in the field of marriage and family therapy for her contributions to theory development, as well as innovative practices...

, David Cooperrider

David Cooperrider

David Cooperrider is the Fairmount Minerals Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University, and Faculty Director at the Center for Business as an Agent of World Benefit at Case....

, Kenneth Gergen, Mary Gergen

Mary Gergen

Mary Gergen is an American social psychologist specializing in feminist studies womens' studies and social constructionism. Her contributions to the field of feminist studies, organization development Organization development, and social process are reflected in numerous books, journal articles,...

, Sheila McNamee

Sheila McNamee

Sheila McNamee is an American academic known for her work in social constructionism. She is a Professor of Communication at the University of New Hampshire and a founder, Vice President and board member of the Taos Institute...

, Suresh Srivastva, and Diana Whitney

Diana Whitney

Diana Whitney is an American author, award-winning consultant and educator whose writings – 15 books and dozens of chapters and articles – have advanced the positive principles and practices of appreciative inquiry and social constructionist theory worldwide...

. Primary attention was focused at that time on organizational development and family therapy

Family therapy

Family therapy, also referred to as couple and family therapy, family systems therapy, and family counseling, is a branch of psychotherapy that works with families and couples in intimate relationships to nurture change and development. It tends to view change in terms of the systems of...

, with practices of appreciative inquiry

Appreciative inquiry

Appreciative Inquiry is primarily an organisational development method which seeks to engage all levels of an organisation to renew, change and improved performance. Its exponents view it as being applicable to organisations facing rapid change or growth...

 and co-constructive practices of therapy prevailing.

The name of the Institute was derived, in part, from the fact that one of its founders, Diana Whitney, lived in Taos, New Mexico

Taos, New Mexico

Taos is a town in Taos County in the north-central region of New Mexico, incorporated in 1934. As of the 2000 census, its population was 4,700. Other nearby communities include Ranchos de Taos, Cañon, Taos Canyon, Ranchitos, and El Prado. The town is close to Taos Pueblo, the Native American...

, and provided a geographic center for possible meetings. In addition, however, the locale was rich in multi-cultural, artistic, and spiritual traditions, and blended these traditions with a promise of new horizons. In 1992, the Institute held its first international conference in Taos.

Since this early period institute activities have expanded in many directions. In addition to annual conferences, many of which have been in partnership with universities and other institutes, a program of workshops was initiated. The workshops were facilitated by the development of an Associates wing of the Institute, including scholars and practitioners sharing in the interests of the Institute.

There are presently over 130 associates representing 17 nations. Among the associates are Sara Cobb, Susan Levin, Peter Lang, Peter Whitehouse, Karl Weick, Barnett Pearce, Robert Neimeyer, and Ron Chenail. Among the Honorary Associates are listed Tom Andersen, Warren Bennis

Warren Bennis

Warren Gamaliel Bennis is an American scholar, organizational consultant and author, widely regarded as a pioneer of the contemporary field of Leadership studies....

, Jerome Bruner

Jerome Bruner

Jerome Seymour Bruner is an American psychologist who has contributed to cognitive psychology and cognitive learning theory in educational psychology, as well as to history and to the general philosophy of education. Bruner is currently a senior research fellow at the New York University School...

, Lynn Hoffman

Lynn Hoffman (family therapist)

Lynn Hoffman , ACSW, is a US social worker, family therapist, author and historian of family therapy. Her mother, Ruth Reeves was a painter and Art Deco textile designer...

, Peggy Penn, Theodore Sarbin, John Shotter, and Michael White

Michael White (psychotherapist)

Michael White was an Australian social worker and family therapist.He is known as the founder of narrative therapy, and for his significant contribution to psychotherapy and family therapy, which have been a source of techniques adopted by other approaches.-Biography:Michael Kingsley White was...

.

With the collaboration of the associates, the institute went on to develop a publishing company (Taos Institute Publications), a distance learning program (in conjunction with the Houston-Galveston Institute), and a PhD program (in collaboration with Tilburg University in the Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

). The institute also serves as the home for the electronically distributed, Positive Aging Newsletter. Most of the founders remain on the executive board, but have since been joined by Dawn Dole, Robert Cottor, Sally St. George, Jane Magruder Watkins, and Dan Wulff. Because of its widely distributed activities, the institute now functions as a virtual as opposed to a geographically centered organization.