The Even Exchange: Negotiating Human Agreements In A World of Role Play

by Ph.D. Steven Clarfield

"This is a book about Even-ness, particularly the feeling of Even-ness or Uneven-ness that we experience through a lifetime of exchanges. It is a deeply held belief of the author and part of my core sense of Even-ness with the reader that I explain my modus operandi as I begin. Books, for the most part, have historically been written in a linear form. The reader was expected to begin at the beginning and proceed to the end, page by page, as the author's message unfolded in a thoroughly orderly, unchangeable sequence. The electronic age, coupled with a mass experience of chemically induced and/or non-chemically induced altered or expanded states of consciousness, has spawned a generation conditioned to receive information faster than can be comprehended rationally. At the heart of these non-conscious, non-linear presentations is an awareness that humans make sense of the material at levels of consciousness which do not necessarily follow the rules of linear logic. As clinician for a number of clients who have experienced expanded or altered consciousness, I have found that numerous aspects of the clients' lives have been permanently affected by these experiences. Mu own sojourn into non-chemically induced altered states has certainly influenced my writing toward non-linear directions. In this sense, I consider myself in the recent tradition of R.D Laing and Aldous Huxley, among others, who chose to bring the reader into their non-linear worlds rather than drastically alter their writing to match a linear format." Steven Clarfield, Ph.D.

120 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1987