Former Whitworth college president, Edward Lindaman,  formerly director of programming for the Apollo space project, helped me organize "Toward a theory of family violence: its antecedents, treatment and prevention". He taught that when confronted with a problem for which old thinking and procedures fail to accomplish tasks, start thinking in the future tense.  He used an example of building a system that would get a man on the moon and return him safely to earth. They did not have the fuels, plastics, metals, navigation equipment or even the nuts and bolts and a lot of other things needed to accomplish their mission. They started with what they had, imagined and created what they needed for the future and then built the rockets and manned space capsules. They thought in the future tense. 

Gathering information for my masters' degree, I was totally overwhelmed by the amount of data I collected in support of my theses, in spite of the fact there were no books on the subject in city or county libraries or in any of the local colleges and universities. I did find journal articles buried in the stacks of Psych and Soc abstracts.  My interviews with physicians, psychiatrists, ministers, counselors, therapists, teachers, emergency room doctors and nurses and personnel, and police resulted in 18,000 3x5 cards of date.  

Overwhelmed by the amount of information gathered from primary sources and literature reviews, I asked Ed Lindaman for help and in 90 minutes we developed a framework, an outline, a non-biased way to present findings so that I could be free of the accusation of bias. My thesis completed and put into the college thesis library system, I received both praise and condemnation.

Working on my doctoral dissertation at a Roman Catholic University, I wrote "A Splendid Heresy", about abuse, faith,  prayer, marriage and divorce, child rearing, contraception, abortion. With each written topic I received valuable and appreciated criticisms from priests and professors because they forced me to dig deeper and wider into my thinking of such things as family, religion, cultural norms, power/powerlessness, agency/helplessness, independent/dependent behaviors, consequences of attitudes, beliefs, customs, traditions, and values. In the end I failed to earn a Ph.D. because I was "biased."

Think carefully about the role of education: is it to indoctrinate or explore?

Guide to the Edward B. Lindaman Papers 
1965-1982

http://nwda-db.wsulibs.wsu.edu/ark:/80444/xv40359

Thinking in the Future Tense, Edward B. Lindaman.

http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Future-Tense-Edward-Lindaman/dp/0805...