About Lois Holzman
"Lois Holzman is the director and co-founder of the East Side Institute for Group and Short Term Psychotherapy. As a leading proponent of a cultural approach to human learning and development, she has made the writings of Lev Vygotsky relevant to the fields of psychotherapy, education and organizational and community development. She is well known for her pioneering work in exploring the human capacity to perform and its fundamentality in learning how to learn. She is particularly respected as an activist scholar who builds bridges between university-based and community-based practices, bringing the traditions and innovations of each to the other.
With 25 years of experience in implementing, researching and teaching performance-based psychology, education, health care, youth development, therapy, and organizational and community development, Holzman is a leader of the growing performance movement. The mission of the Institute she directs is the development, in both theory and practice, of a new psychology that understands our ability to perform — to pretend, to play, to improvise, to be who we are and other than who we are — as key to our emotional, social and intellectual growth and well-being. Through the Institute and numerous organizations that use its approach, she is advancing the use and understanding of performance as the engine of human development at any age and social circumstance....[for more click here.]"
- from the East Side Institute
Process Philosophy meets Lois Holzman
Open AI with Prompts from Jay McDaniel
Process philosophy and Lois Holzman’s understanding of play meet in a shared recognition: human beings develop by creating the world together, not merely adapting to it. Both see life as an improvisational, relational, ever-unfinished becoming. Both understand that our next step is never merely given—it must be created.
Play as Development-in-the-Making
For Lois Holzman, play is not the opposite of seriousness. It is a method of becoming. To play is to relate to oneself and others as more than who we are, to perform “a head taller,” and to create new emotional and social possibilities. Play is development. Play is growth. Play is method.
Process philosophy resonates deeply with this. Whitehead insists that life is a continuous creative advance into novelty, not the repetition of fixed essences. Each moment is an improvisation, a fresh synthesis—“the many become one, and are increased by one.”
Play, in Holzman’s sense, is this self-creating synthesis enacted socially.
Play as Co-Creation in a World of Relational Becoming
Whitehead and Holzman share a profound relational ontology:
Both reject the isolated, individualistic self. Both locate creativity in between-ness—in the relational spaces where something new can emerge.
Play is one of the richest forms of this relational creativity. In play, we practice “being with” in ways not limited by the past. We create developmental environments where new feelings, identities, and communities can be born.
Play as Improvisation: The Heart of Process Reality
Holzman’s emphasis on performance and improvisation aligns perfectly with your emerging vision of the universe as an improvisational theatrical event.
In play:
This is exactly how Whitehead understands concrescence: each moment is a performance, an embodied selection among possibilities, guided by a lure toward beauty.
Play is concrescence made visible.
Play as an Ethical Practice of Possibility
Play, in the East Side Institute's tradition, is also an ethical stance. It makes a claim about how to live:
Holzman’s method of social therapeutics invites people to create environments where development is socially constructed, especially by those marginalized or constrained by social structures.
Process philosophy affirms that creativity is the heartbeat of the universe. Holzman shows how this heartbeat becomes a method of collective liberation.
Play and the Divine Eros
From a process-theological angle:
In this sense, play is spiritually significant. It is a gesture of trust in the creative advance of the world, a willingness to respond to the lure toward richer experience.
Holzman shows us that such trust can be enacted in community, in performance, and in new ways of relating.
Toward a Process-Relational Play Culture
Combining Whitehead and Holzman points toward a culture of:
This is what the East Side Institute already models, and what process philosophy supports metaphysically: a world in which play is not a diversion but a way of life.
Play as Development-in-the-Making
For Lois Holzman, play is not the opposite of seriousness. It is a method of becoming. To play is to relate to oneself and others as more than who we are, to perform “a head taller,” and to create new emotional and social possibilities. Play is development. Play is growth. Play is method.
Process philosophy resonates deeply with this. Whitehead insists that life is a continuous creative advance into novelty, not the repetition of fixed essences. Each moment is an improvisation, a fresh synthesis—“the many become one, and are increased by one.”
Play, in Holzman’s sense, is this self-creating synthesis enacted socially.
Play as Co-Creation in a World of Relational Becoming
Whitehead and Holzman share a profound relational ontology:
- For Whitehead, we are constituted by our relations—the world flows into us before we act.
- For Holzman, we become who we are by performing together, building worlds with others.
Both reject the isolated, individualistic self. Both locate creativity in between-ness—in the relational spaces where something new can emerge.
Play is one of the richest forms of this relational creativity. In play, we practice “being with” in ways not limited by the past. We create developmental environments where new feelings, identities, and communities can be born.
Play as Improvisation: The Heart of Process Reality
Holzman’s emphasis on performance and improvisation aligns perfectly with your emerging vision of the universe as an improvisational theatrical event.
In play:
- We don’t follow a script.
- We co-create the next moment.
- We embody possibilities that are not yet actual.
- We risk, reach, stretch, and imagine.
This is exactly how Whitehead understands concrescence: each moment is a performance, an embodied selection among possibilities, guided by a lure toward beauty.
Play is concrescence made visible.
Play as an Ethical Practice of Possibility
Play, in the East Side Institute's tradition, is also an ethical stance. It makes a claim about how to live:
- Not by collapse into the given
- Not by rigid adherence to the past
- But by opening space for the new
Holzman’s method of social therapeutics invites people to create environments where development is socially constructed, especially by those marginalized or constrained by social structures.
Process philosophy affirms that creativity is the heartbeat of the universe. Holzman shows how this heartbeat becomes a method of collective liberation.
Play and the Divine Eros
From a process-theological angle:
- Play is a response to the divine lure.
- The lure invites improvisation, risk, relational openness.
- The Spirit is not a static presence but a playful energy encouraging new possibilities for well-being.
In this sense, play is spiritually significant. It is a gesture of trust in the creative advance of the world, a willingness to respond to the lure toward richer experience.
Holzman shows us that such trust can be enacted in community, in performance, and in new ways of relating.
Toward a Process-Relational Play Culture
Combining Whitehead and Holzman points toward a culture of:
- Developmental conversations
- Improvisational social forms
- Performative resilience
- Creative citizenship
- Compassion practiced through imaginative risk
- Communities that build worlds together
This is what the East Side Institute already models, and what process philosophy supports metaphysically: a world in which play is not a diversion but a way of life.