TILDE
Transformative and Inclusive Leadership
from Deep Democracy

Deep Democracy is a philosophical and sociological approach that is applied worldwide to facilitate conflicts in small and large groups, communities, organizations, as well as interpersonal relationships.

It is based on the belief that democracy as normally understood – the democracy of the majority – needs to include and to add the awareness of all
voices, feelings and more subtle experiences that are present in the interactions between people within a group, moment by moment.

The Deep Democracy approach suggests to notice and give value to different levels and dimensions crossing group experiences: the CR (consensus reality) level, the most visible and tangible reality that we experience and that we all can agree on; the dreamland level, where we can find dreams and marginalized or double signals, deep goals and basic visions of individuals and organizations; the essence level, the realm of subtle experience and feelings that can hardly be expressed in words.

All these levels are equally important in the perspective of deep democracy.
Moreover, it is important to take into account the diversity of rank and power dynamics, to allow all voices to be fully expressed, and to make visible unintentional communication signals as well as the subtle and sentient experiences that can hardly be talked about.

When all these aspects emerge, individuals or groups can acquire new awareness and find more creative solutions to their problems.

Deep democracy approach to conflict facilitation comes from Process oriented psychology, also called Process Work, that has come out from the research studies of Arnold Mindell in 1988, a physicist and a jungian follower, who combined the post-jungian philosophy with quantum physics, taoism, shamanism, transpersonal psychology and somatic psychology.

The term process refers to the flow of information and changes in perception and signals that occur within a group or in an individual, moment by moment. Process-oriented facilitation is a phenomenological approach that focuses on sensing and respecting the flow of events, starting from the underlying belief that within each problematic situation, even the most difficult, lies the solution of the problem itself.
In a group we can look at what occurs in a certain energy field, which patterns we can observe and how we can become aware of them.

Process work is applied not only in therapeutic contexts but also in working with people in groups and organizations.

Typical applications are working with dream analysis, body awareness experiences and also the applications to how things work in the world. Process work also deals with social inequality, diversity themes, conflict and leadership.