In his work Uncommon Ground: Harmonizing Psychotherapy and Community to Enhance Everyday Living (2006), Dr. Erving Polster proposes the creation of what he calls the "Life Focus Community." These communities would exist lifelong, and "be guided through the pathways of everyday living by the consideration of principles and procedures inherent in psychotherapy."
Polster asserts that with the special guidance found in psychotherapy, individuals can achieve depth of focus in their lives. Further, the amplification of life focus is obtained in examination of the arts, such as poetry, music, painting and dance. Sanctification of life focus, he notes has largely been the work of religion. The Life Focus Community creates an ongoing connected group of individuals who would share in the harmonization of these elements of focused attention, amplification and sanctification in conversations marked by depth, freshness and vitality.
As Polster writes "I envision a new communal accessibility for people to develop clarity, to feel commonality of experience, and to follow their own pathway with needed guidance. People will have an ongoing forum in which they listen to each other, tell each other stories of their lives, sing together, dance together, and anticipate the continuity of opportunity to be witness as well as participant in the unfolding of their lives." From UnCommon Ground by Erving Polster
Erv Polster shares his ideas with us at a Mindful Life Focus Community Meeting.