“In fact, there are many facilitators around the world working in global ‘hotspots’ on issues of conflict and reconciliation, bringing together members of hostile communities — Palestinians and Israelis, Serbs and Croats, Irish Catholics and Protestants — and finding ways for them to recognise their shared humanity and start to communicate(n1). …..

This is what the well-known psychotherapist Arnold Mindell calls ‘deep democracy’, which, he says, rests on ‘that special feeling of belief in the inherent importance of all parts of ourselves and all viewpoints in the world around us’(n2). As Mindell emphasises, deep democracy is an ancient and universal concept and experience; it is surely also central to what therapy is all about, both with individuals and with groups. Perhaps, then, we have something to offer the wider world as it struggles to deepen democracy on every level, to move from ‘majority rule’ — or even ‘money/power rule’ — to control over our own lives. This struggle seems to me even more urgent in the light of the ecological crisis and the threat of climate change: not only do governments need to listen to their peoples, but human beings need to listen to the voices and needs of other species and the whole planetary ecosystem: deep democracy means deep ecology(n3).”