Help us Grow
the Center for Real Dialogue
Polarization, stereotyping, and destructive rhetoric are everywhere. We see it in government, schools, workplaces, places of worship, and even our neighborhoods. Addressing this is urgent. How we talk to one another matters. How we listen matters even more. Engaging in healthy disagreements supports kinder and better-informed personal lives, higher-functioning groups and organizations, democratic processes in our communities, and more effective government.
Your gift to the Center for Real Dialogue makes this critical work possible.
With your generous support we will:
Invest in a Public Education Series. The Center provides programs and trainings to help individuals from every walk of life develop the skills and methods of Real Dialogue.
Establish a permanent home for the Center. A permanent home will increase the public’s access to Real Dialogue workshops and mental health professionals’ access to intensive trainings as well as the Center’s ability to conduct necessary research.
Develop strategic partnerships. Demand for Real Dialogue is growing in Vermont and across the country. The Center is pursuing partnerships, including developing postsecondary curricula for educational institutions and creating a video series of Real Dialogues that illustrate two sides discussing timely and divisive current issues.
Create a scholarship fund. Stewarding talent by providing funding for fellowships will allow the Center to attract and train future mental health professionals with expertise in Real Dialogue skills and methods.
There are many ways to give, and all donations are tax-deductible to the full extent of the law. Gifts can be made online, through credit card transactions, personal checks, or from a Donor-Advised Fund.
Make gifts payable to:
Center for Real Dialogue
195 Calais Road
Worcester, VT 05682
EIN: 93-3507894
For more information about making a gift, please contact: Paula Emery at donate@realdialogue.org for assistance.
Our Impact
“We live — politically and psychologically — in a world of deaf ears, isolated silos, and grotesque caricature. For democracy to survive, we need to find ways to listen deeply, see others’ points of view, respect differences, and generate creative dialogue…. Dialogue Therapy and Real Dialogue have implications that extend far beyond couple therapy to conflict resolution and political change."
Jeremy Holmes, MD, Psychoanalyst and Attachment Researcher, University of Essex, UK
“I think Real Dialogue is extremely useful in helping people understand each other and navigate difficult situations. When you start getting curious about other people and their points of view, it helps everyone understand each other better. I think Polly has done an excellent job of boiling down what Real Dialogue is: a wonderful three-way skill— speaking for yourself, listening mindfully, and remaining curious. I keep (those points) on my counter at home, so my kids can see them.”
Kristina Von Trapp Frame, Director, Trapp Family Lodge
Susan Lillich, PhD, Clinical Psychologist, Director of Clinical Training for Dialogue Therapy
“[Real Dialogue] is about…a state of openness and caring that relies on the powerfully articulated three C’s of commitment, constraint, and containment. We…honor and respect our differences with a commitment to them, a constraint in how we come to communicate with clarity and calm, and a containment of extremes of our emotions and impulses. We can view such a container of connection as built from the foundation of something called integration, the cultivation of differences while also creating connections. Integration gives rise to harmony; its blockage leads to chaos or rigidity.”
Daniel J. Siegel, MD, psychiatrist, Founder of Mindsight Institute, author of Brainstorm
“A real therapy for the human heart cannot start with a directive for improvement, but must thoroughly understand and transform the reasons why the default outcome of human interaction is usually a failure of joy and connection. [Dialogue Therapy and Real Dialogue] have just that magical formula. [They] bring an incredible range of knowledge to the ongoing, felt and ailing interactions between people. In lucid description, Dialogue Therapy and Real Dialogue outline the primary mechanisms of relationship problems, as well as a stepwise and robust way out. Their unique incorporation of centuries of wisdom about the human condition with practical application can give practitioners and anyone in any relationship a distinct method for creating connections that are sustainable and vibrant."
Beth Jacobs, PhD, psychologist, Zen teacher and author of The Original Buddhist Psychology
The point of engaging in dialogue with another’s beliefs is not to undermine or invalidate them, but to bring understanding to the process of how our views are constructed — and therefore how other views, differently constructed, can be equally valid even if we don’t share them.
— Venerable Tenzin Priyadarshi, President & CEO of the Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values, MIT