Ira Progoff (1921–1997)

I gave this book a try roughly twenty-five years ago and soon put it aside. I now realize what the problem was. This is one of those books that reads like the script Progoff may have used in a live workshop setting. A speaker often restates the same point in various ways to make sure that point has gotten across. A writer doesn’t need to. When he does anyway, he risks having his reader’s eyes glaze over, and the reader risks missing valuable material.
The primary beneficiaries of this book, then, would be those who attended a Dialogue House workshop, where Progoff or another facilitator introduced intensive journaling. Having this text would be a handy way of refreshing its method for continued work on the journal after the workshop.
Nevertheless, there is useful material here for those of us who are on our own as we work with the raw material of our lives to detect its movement through time with the hope of integrating its varied facets and experiences. The book reflects throughout Progoff’s conviction that each individual life is a potential work of art.
This may sound solipsistic, even narcissistic, but balanced against it is an image Progoff uses that I found enlightening: Our exploration of our lives, with its excavation of ever-deeper layers, is like going down a well. When we reach the bottom, we discover that this well is fed by the same underground springs as many other wells. We come away from this experience not only with a deeper recognition of the unique course of our personal lives but also its connectivity with the rest of humanity.… (more)