I was a guest on http://cultureofempathy.com with host Edwin Rutsch.
Edwin has been seeking to build a culture of empathy, one that encompasses all human systems, starting with oneself and one's family.
Wesley Bertrand and Edwin Rutsch: How to Build a Culture of Empathy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFkcZCB09h0
Our conversation with other notes: http://j.mp/1366vQS
http://cultureofempathy.com/Projects/Empathy-Tent/index.htm
http://cultureofempathy.com/Projects/Empathy-Movement/Restorative-Empathy-Circle/Index.htm
http://www.youtube.com/user/EdwinRutsch/videos

The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem
http://www.nathanielbranden.com/product-category/self-esteem/
Breaking Free by Nathaniel Branden
http://books.google.com/books/about/Breaking_free.html?id=2U8dAQAAMAAJ

Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes
http://www.alfiekohn.org/books/pbr.htm
Unconditional Parenting: Moving From Rewards And Punishments To Love And Reason by Alfie Kohn
http://www.unconditionalparenting.com/up/

Nonviolent Communication: A Language Of Life by Marshall Rosenberg
http://www.amazon.com/Nonviolent-Communication-Language-Marshall-Rosenberg/dp/1892005034/
http://en.nvcwiki.com/index.php/Restorative_justice

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntaryism
Fundamentals of Voluntaryism (nod to Carl Watner)
http://voluntaryist.com/fundamentals/

Sudbury Valley School that fosters intrinsic motivation
http://www.sudval.org/

http://www.guywinch.com/the-book/
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-squeaky-wheel

Human Centered Design
http://dschool.stanford.edu/

http://abc.go.com/watch/wife-swap/SH5539547/VDKA0_lgk9v6h5/avery-lamb--martin
http://schoolsucksproject.com/208-whole-parents-with-dayna-martin/
Dayna Martin: What is Radical Unschooling?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiHyzS26N0Y
Unschooling: What is Deschooling? (Dayna Martin)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9meP3a64MzY
Dayna Martin: Common Unschooling Questions Answered
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-NheCjqDMM

http://dirtywars.org/jeremy-scahill
http://reason.com/reasontv/2013/06/13/jeremy-scahill-dirty-wars
[154] Dirty Wars: Terror Begets Terror | Jeremy Scahill Breaks the Set
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_fq-20h5Sw
The Stream : Uncovering America's 'dirty wars'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCRMDBk13PI

NVC teleconference - http://a-path-with-heart.net/level1/
Dominic Barter's site - http://www.restorativecircles.org/

Google Personal Growth Series The New Science of Mindsight by Dan Siegel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gr4Od7kqDT8

bumper music "Empathy" by Jaysways
http://jayswaysmusic.com/

Tom de Lorenzo's new book New World Rising: The quest for human freedom in the 21st century
http://tzopress.blogspot.com
Tzo's STR archives
http://www.strike-the-root.com/user/345
http://www.strike-the-root.com/slavespeak-part-i
http://www.strike-the-root.com/slavespeak-part-ii

School Sucks Podcast
167: Logic Saves Lives Part 5 - The Stolen Concept
http://schoolsucks.podomatic.com/entry/2012-10-20T20_31_41-07_00
http://schoolsucks.podomatic.com/enclosure/2012-10-20T20_31_41-07_00.mp3
168: Breaking Free
http://schoolsucks.podomatic.com/entry/2012-10-23T23_10_48-07_00
http://schoolsucks.podomatic.com/enclosure/2012-10-23T23_10_48-07_00.mp3
169: Carrots and Sticks Roundtable With Mark Edge and Ian Freeman
http://schoolsucks.podomatic.com/entry/2012-10-28T17_45_50-07_00
http://schoolsucks.podomatic.com/enclosure/2012-10-28T17_45_50-07_00.mp3

Breaking Free by Nathaniel Branden
http://books.google.com/books/about/Breaking_free.html?id=2U8dAQAAMAAJ

The Questions:

1. Were you encouraged to be open in the expression of your emotions and desires? Or were your parents' behavior and manner of treating you such as to make you fear emotional self-assertiveness and openness, or to regard it as inappropriate?

http://happinesscounseling.com/2012/07/the-nature-of-needs-especially-psychological-needs/
http://voluntaryvisions.blogspot.com.au/2012/09/voluntary-visions-podcast-interview.html
Nonviolent Communication Live With Marshall Rosenberg - Session 1 - Oct 4th 2011 - CNVC.org
http://youtu.be/9E7lQlwNdgk
Nonviolent Communication Live With Marshall Rosenberg - Session 2 - Oct 26th 2011 - CNVC.org
http://youtu.be/uB6N5NOxabA
Marshall Rosenberg on Nonviolent Communication - CNVC.org
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ori6308ilQ

2. Did your parents' manner of dealing with you tend to develop and strengthen your sense of your masculinity or femininity? Or to frustrate and diminish it? Or neither?

Bumper music "Polonaise in A-Flat Major" by Frederic Chopin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polonaise_in_A-flat_major,_Op._53_(Chopin)

to comment, please go to http://completeliberty.com/magazine/category/91697

Breaking Free by Nathaniel Branden
http://books.google.com/books/about/Breaking_free.html?id=2U8dAQAAMAAJ

The Questions:

1. Did your parents respect your intellectual and physical privacy?

2. Did your parents project that what a person made of his life, and what you specifically made of your life, was important?

3. Did your parents encourage in you a fear of the world, a fear of other people? Or were you encouraged to face the world with an attitude of relaxed, confident benevolence? Or neither?

Bumper music "Etude in C Major" by Frederic Chopin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Étude_Op._10,_No._1_(Chopin)

to comment, please go to http://completeliberty.com/magazine/category/91697

Breaking Free by Nathaniel Branden
http://books.google.com/books/about/Breaking_free.html?id=2U8dAQAAMAAJ

The Questions:

1. Was it your parents' practice to punish you or discipline you by striking or beating you?

2. Did your parents project that they believed in your basic goodness? Or did they project that they saw you as bad or worthless or evil?

3. Did your parents project that they believed in your intellectual and creative potentialities? Or did they project that they saw you as mediocre or stupid or inadequate?

4. In your parents' expectations concerning your behavior and performance, did they take cognizance of your knowledge, needs, interest and context? Or were you confronted by expectations and demands that were overwhelming and beyond your ability to satisfy?

Please download this very helpful 14page PDF about nonviolent communication:
http://happinesscounseling.com/NVC_Intro.pdf

bumper music "Fantaisie-Impromptu" by Frederic Chopin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantaisie-Impromptu

to comment, please go to http://completeliberty.com/magazine/category/91697

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/11/13808173-dead-gitmo-detainee-was-cleared-for-release-in-2009?lite
http://completeliberty.com/magazine/read/episode-69---governmental-prison-injustice-immorality-and-insanity-of-war-virtue-of-independence-and-achievement_61.html

Breaking Free by Nathaniel Branden
http://books.google.com/books/about/Breaking_free.html?id=2U8dAQAAMAAJ

The Questions:

1. Did your parents treat you with respect?
Were your thoughts, needs, and feelings given consideration?
Was your dignity as a human being acknowledged?
When you expressed ideas or opinions, were they treated seriously?
Where your likes and dislikes treated seriously? (Not necessarily agreed with or acceded to, but nonetheless treated seriously?)
Were your desires treated thoughtfully and respectfully?

2. Did you feel that you were psychologically visible to your parents? Did you feel real to them?
Did your parents seem to make a genuine, thoughtful effort to understand you?
Did your parents seem authentically interested in you as a person?
Could you talk to your parents about issues of importance and receive interested, meaningful understanding from them?

3. Did you feel loved and valued by your parents, in the sense that you experienced yourself as a source of pleasure to them? Or did you feel unwanted, perhaps a burden? Or did you feel hated? Or did you feel you were simply an object of indifference?

bumper music "Ocean Etude" by Frederic Chopin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Étude_Op._25,_No._12_(Chopin)

to comment, please go to http://completeliberty.com/magazine/category/91697

The Questions:

1. Were you encouraged to think independently, to develop your critical faculty? Or were you taught to be obedient rather than mentally active and questioning?
Did your parents project that it was more important to conform to what other people believed than to discover what is true?
When your parents wanted you to do something, did they appeal to your understanding and give you reasons for their request? Or did they communicate in effect, "Do it because I say so"?

2. Did you feel free to express your views openly without fear of punishment?

3. Did your parents communicate their disapproval of your thoughts, desires, or behavior by means of humor, teasing, or sarcasm?

I invite you to participate in an eight-week therapy group of at least five persons (each weekly session will be 1.5hrs)--please email me at wes@happinesscounseling.com, and we'll fine-tune the program.
http://happinesscounseling.com/group-sessions-2/

Anarcho-Syndicalism: A Recipe for Ruin by Daniel James Sanchez
http://mises.org/daily/5590

Links to the CLP series on Unconditional Parenting here...
http://happinesscounseling.com/happiness-resources/

bumper music "Polonaise #3 in A, Op. 40 No. 1" by Frederic Chopin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polonaises_Op._40_(Chopin)

to comment, please go to http://completeliberty.com/magazine/category/91697

Some points of light in the mainstream...
http://www.andersoncooper.com/2012/06/21/the-most-controversial-parenting-methods
http://www.andersoncooper.com/2012/03/07/unschooling-is-one-moms-solution-to-adhd/

Breaking Free by Nathaniel Branden
http://books.google.com/books/about/Breaking_free.html?id=2U8dAQAAMAAJ

The Questions:

1. Did your parents deal with you fairly and justly? Did your parents resort to threats in order to control your behavior--either threats of immediate punitive action on their part, or threats in terms of long-range consequences for your life, or threats of supernatural punishments, such as going to hell? Were you praised when you performed well? Or merely criticized when you performed badly? Were your parents willing to admit it when they were wrong? Or was it against their policy to concede that they were wrong?

2. Did your parents' behavior and manner of dealing with you tend to produce guilt in you?

3. Did your parents' behavior and manner of dealing with you tend to produce fear in you?

4. Did your parents project that it was desirable for you to think well of yourself, to have self-esteem? Or were you cautioned against valuing yourself, and encouraged to be humble?

5. Did your parents encourage you in the direction of having a healthy affirmative attitude toward sex and toward your own body? Or a negative attitude? Or neither?

I invite you to participate in an eight-week therapy group of at least five persons (each weekly session will be 1.5hrs)--please email me at wes@happinesscounseling.com, and we'll fine-tune the program. Here is the information page:
http://happinesscounseling.com/group-sessions-2/ 

bumper music "Nocturne #2 in E flat, Op. 9" by Frederic Chopin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nocturnes,_Op._9_(Chopin)#Nocturne_in_E-flat_major.2C_Op._9.2C_No._2

to comment, please go to http://completeliberty.com/magazine/category/91697

Breaking Free by Nathaniel Branden
http://books.google.com/books/about/Breaking_free.html?id=2U8dAQAAMAAJ

The Questions:

1. When you were a child, did your parents' manner of behaving and of dealing with you give you the impression that you were living in a world that was rational, predictable, and intelligible? Or a world that was bewildering, contradictory, incomprehensible, unknowable?

2. Were you taught the importance of learning to think, the importance of developing your mind, the importance of becoming a rational being? Did your parents provide you with intellectual stimulation and convey the idea that the use of your mind can be an exciting pleasure?

http://nathanielbranden.com

Explore your subconscious emotional psychology
http://happinesscounseling.com/happiness-resources/

Participate in my group therapy program:
http://happinesscounseling.com/group-sessions-2/ 

"Parents most potent tool of teaching is through example" N.B.

bumper music "Waltz in C-sharp minor" by Frederic Chopin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waltz_in_C-sharp_minor,_Op._64,_No._2_(Chopin)

to comment, please go to http://completeliberty.com/magazine/category/91697

The need for courage, integrity, and certainty, to resolve the personal side of ethical and political contradictions in our relationships
Episode: 947 The Next Thing (Part 1) by Stefan Molyneux
http://www.podnova.com/channel/392694/episode/26/
Implications of the "against me" argument
927 Ron Paul and Politics versus Personal Liberty by Stefan Molyneux
http://youtube.com/watch?v=0z-fhCFkISM
http://www.freedomainradio.com/Traffic_Jams/FDR_927_Ron_Paul_Politics_and_Personal_Freedom.mp3
http://www.podnova.com/channel/392694/episode/47/
The political contradiction of Objectivism's politics, which hinges on a collectivistic notion of a coercive monopoly; a couple extensive refutations:
The Facts Of Reality: Logic And History In Objectivist Debates About Government by Professor Nicholas Dykes
http://www.libertarian.co.uk/lapubs/philn/philn079.htm
Laissez-faire, A More Enlightened View Of Capitalism—And Its Contradictions
http://www.logicallearning.net/libertylaissez-f.html
Disproving the State: Four arguments against government by Stefan Molyneux
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/molyneux4.html
Separating the messages from the messengers in the early Objectivist movement
The Passion of Ayn Rand by Barbara Branden
http://www.noblesoul.com/orc/books/other/passion.html
I read my paper titled: Who is Nathaniel Branden?
Psychologist/Psychotherapist: http://www.nathanielbranden.com
His books, in order of most recent:
Self-Esteem at Work (treatise that contains psychotherapeutic exercises)
A Woman’s Self-Esteem (treatise that contains psychotherapeutic exercises)
Self-Esteem Every Day (collection of thoughts on self-esteem)
The Art of Living Consciously (treatise that contains psychotherapeutic exercises)
Taking Responsibility (treatise that contains psychotherapeutic exercises)
The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem (treatise that contains psychotherapeutic exercises)
The Art of Self-Discovery (psychotherapeutic workbook; my favorite:)
The Power of Self-Esteem (shorter book on the topic)
My Years with Ayn Rand (revised edition of Judgment Day)
How to Raise Your Self-Esteem (psychotherapeutic workbook)
Honoring the Self (treatise)
If You Could Hear What I Cannot Say (psychotherapeutic workbook for relationships)
What Love Asks of Us (with Devers Branden) (question and answer book)
The Psychology of Romantic Love (treatise)
The Disowned Self (treatise)
Breaking Free (compilation of vignettes from therapy)
The Psychology of Self-Esteem (seminal work on the subject)
Who is Ayn Rand? (deals primarily with Rand's novel moral code)
Overview of his biocentric psychology, in relation to objective philosophy
Volition as essential component in self-esteem and value-judgments
Emotions as indicators of "for me" or "against me"
The nature of the subconscious and automatization
Comprehensive framework of Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism, from metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics, to politics and esthetics
Branden's revolutionary refinement of the concept of self-esteem, which can be seen as an integrated sum of self-confidence and self-respect; choice quotation from The Psychology of Self-Esteem: "To understand a man psychologically, one must understand the nature and degree of his self-esteem, and the standards by which he judges himself"
Man's mental health depends on being able to deal with reality--in particular, his internal reality--in an unblocked fashion
The Pillars of self-esteem:
The practice of living consciously
The practice of self-acceptance
The practice of self-responsibility
The practice of self-assertiveness
The practice of living purposefully
The practice of personal integrity
Branden's humanistic focus on the methods by which to acquire and maintain self-esteem stands as the ultimate tribute to the human soul
The respective roles of philosophy and psychology; inspecting the problematic modern dichotomy
The nature of psychotherapy and its challenges, both inside and out
To choose to change, even when change is often frightening
As Branden has noted, we need not be prisoners to yesterday's thinking and decisions
bumper music "Piano Concerto in A Minor, 1st Movement, Allegro Molto Moderato" by Edward Grieg
Pianist Pawel Mazurkiewicz: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NF0WaXEf0xM
Pianist Arthur Rubinstein: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dxzpy1b1_BY
Pianist Leif Ove Andsnes (best sound, imo): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sL_DT4DRxVA

to comment, please go to http://completeliberty.com/magazine/category/91697