Virtual Tea with Taos
By the Taos Institute Associates Council (TIAC):
Robin Cooper, Garbine Delgado, Lois Holzman, Tomas Horak, Bruno Lenzi, Tamara Richter, and Sally St. George
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What happens when we gather people from around the world, pour a cup of tea, and create a space where anything can happen?
That’s the spirit behind Virtual Tea with Taos, a new series of informal online gatherings hosted by the Taos Institute Associates Council (TIAC). These sessions are designed to offer a playful and reflective space where associates can connect across time zones, share stories, and converse without the structure of an academic frame.
So far, we’ve shared two tea dates, one in April and one in May. Each offered at two different times to welcome participants from around the globe. Our aim is simple: to hold space for connection, curiosity, and community.
In April, we left the invitation open: just come as you are, bring a warm drink, and let’s play. As the conversation unfolded, we found ourselves drawn to the theme of time: how we experience it, how it shapes our lives, and how it shows up in our work and relationships. What began as a casual conversation became a rich exploration of temporality, culture, and meaning.
For our second tea in May, we invited participants to share their origin stories, how they found their way to the Taos Institute, and to the ideas of social construction. The session became a moving tapestry of personal journeys, unexpected turns, and deep resonances. Despite our different geographies and paths, we discovered how interconnected we are through shared values, questions, and commitments to relational ways of being.
The sense of ease and authenticity has been most striking in both sessions. Without formal presentations or agendas, people have shown up with openness and a willingness to listen and share. The result has been heartening: a genuine sense of community and creative exchange that reminds us why we’re part of this network in the first place.
We’re brewing ideas for our third tea; we don’t yet know where it will take us, but that’s part of the fun. Each session emerges from who shows up and what they bring with them.
We hope you’ll join us next time. Bring your tea, your story, and your whole self.
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New Self-Paced Course, Start Anytime
Provocative, unsettling, liberating, inspiring…all have been applied to the dialogues on the social construction of knowledge. The ideas have swept across the academic world and into personal and professional life. For many, they contain the ingredients for a promising life together on this planet.
We are pleased to introduce the Taos Institute's first online self-paced course! In six modules, each with 3 short videos and questions for reflection, Ken Gergen introduces basic premises of social constructionist theory and how they apply to professional practices in all domains as well as everyday life. More details here.
| | Includes six modules with videos by Taos Institute Co-founder & President Ken Gergen! | | |
With Robyn Penman, Australia
August 4, 6:00-7:00pm EST
Even though justice is such an enduring concept for judging the quality of our relations with others, so many of our stories about justice are based on outmoded assumptions and narrow views that are simply not appropriate for guiding us in the complex social world of the 21st century. We need a new imagination of justice and this is what the author does: Robyn Penman develops a new story of justice as something we make together in the dynamic process of relating and communicating, with all its uncertainties and open-endedness.
Join us in imagining justice-in-the-making and new possibilities for co-creating a relationally responsible justice that can contribute to the construction of a social world that, relationally-speaking, is better.
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August 19, 1:00-1:30pm EST
Whether you are new to the Taos Institute Commons online community or already a member (it's free and easy to join!), you are invited to this informal gathering to meet others in our global network to share stories of how you are applying (or hoping to apply) social constructionist, relational and appreciative approaches in your work and life. Stop by to say hello, we would love to meet you.
| | | *You will be prompted to join, or sign in to, the free Taos Institute Commons online community to access these events. | | | |
Join with over 2600 members from around the world in the Taos Institute Commons online community (free) as we explore social constructionist, relational, and appreciative theory and practices. You will instantly get access to free webinars, free books, event replays, announcements, workshops and courses, special interest and language groups, and meaningful connections with others interested in creating more promising futures, one conversation at a time.
Join in the Taos Institute Commons — it's free, quick and easy, to become a part of our global family!
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TIE is a center of gravity for researchers, practitioners and other like-minded people in Europe, who challenge the known and frozen paradigms of understanding, to build a better world for tomorrow. Join the TIE group in the Taos Institute Commons online community (free) to meet other relational practitioners in Europe.
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TILAC serves as a regional and language hub to strengthen networks of cooperation and support among Spanish- and Portuguese-speakers; share and validate the unique knowledge and practices emerging from these regions; and contribute to the promotion of social constructionist thought. Join the Spanish or Portuguese group in the Commons (free), follow TILAC on Facebook or email tilac@taosinstitute.net.
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The mission of TIJ is to build a network of collaboration and support led by Taos Institute Associates in Japan; to create a forum for dialogue centered on theory, to gather interesting cultural practices in Japan, and to disseminate them both domestically and internationally; and to contribute to the dissemination of social constructionist theory by translating foreign literature and organizing seminars. In addition to their Facebook page, you are invited to join the new Taos Institute Japan group in the Commons, and the TIJ Festival, October 25-26, 2025!
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The RRN is a global initiative to explore, share, learn, and create practices and processes for doing research from a relational perspective. Online presentations featuring relational research projects will continue through the spring. Visit the Relational Research Network group in the Commons (free) for announcements. You may also explore their video series.
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Taos Associates represent a network of more than 850 scholars and practitioners around the world, who have demonstrated exceptional talents, research, practices, and dedication relevant to the Taos Institute’s mission. You can find Taos Associates in your area on our website.
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The ICCP Network, co-hosted by The Houston Galveston Institute and The Taos Institute, is an interdisciplinary program that provides an intensive, in-depth study of postmodern-social construction-relational theory and the possibilities for personal, organizational, and social transformation. ICCP partners with organizations in 15 countries and regularly host multilingual workshops. Visit their website for details.
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Now I See A Person Institute
August 10, 1:00-5:00pm EST
This conference features young adults, adults, and families—including those previously diagnosed with severe mental health conditions—who advocate for a deeper, contextual understanding of emotional suffering and call for de-medicalizing responses to life events and trauma. Also highlighted are the professionals who work and advocate alongside them. Humanizing ourselves as practitioners and advocates prevents the dismissal of lived experience and helps both clinicians and consumers shift the paradigm—transforming how people with symptoms are seen and how we define our roles as providers. Details.
| | One way the Taos Institute carries out its mission to create brighter futures through social construction is by creating and disseminating a wide variety of resources for scholars, practitioners, and students interested in dialogic and relational approaches. These free resources span many disciplines and languages. To suggest a resource, email info@taosinstitute.net. | | | | |
This month's feature:
A Guide to Formulation in Coaching
In this book, David A. Lane, Sarah Corrie, and Louise C. Kovács examine the nature and purpose of formulation and how to develop effective formulations that can inform and improve practice. It combines theoretical perspectives with case studies illustrating its use in different coaching contexts to provide a comprehensive and accessible account of the purpose, perspectives and processes used in formulation. More details.
| | | | The Taos Institute is a non-profit educational organization. We strive to keep our offerings free or at low cost to make social constructionist, relational, and appreciative ideas available to as many people as possible around the globe. Please consider supporting our mission of creating brighter futures through social construction by making a donation. For small, convenient monthly contributions, consider becoming a sustaining donor. | | | | |
