Professional Memberships
- Association for the Advancement of Gestalt Therapy
Presentations
- (2012, August-November) Selected to participate in Nonviolent Action Institute for Church Reform: Changing Power Relationships. American Catholic Council. Participatory research project to change organizational leadership model. Concluding Conference, Washington, DC.
- Leahy, M. (2010, June ). Gestalt coaching. Presentation at the National Colloquium, Capella University, Arlington, VA.
- Leahy, M.J., & Magerman, M. (2005). The reach and responsibility of O D consultants. Presentation at the New York Institute of Gestalt Therapy.
- Leahy, M.J., & Magerman, M. (2005). Action research: A methodology for change in organizations. Presentation at the Annual conference, National Association of Social Work, Pennsylvania chapter.
- Gilly, M.S., Leahy, M.J., and Wyatt, D.B. (2005, January). Forms of knowledge in a community of inquiry. Paper presented at the Splendor of Knowledge Symposium, Fielding Graduate Institute, Santa Barbara, CA.
- Leahy, M.J. (2004, September). Leadership and management when the stakes are high. Three talks on leadership, Annual Conference of The National Catholic Development Conference, Orlando, FL.
- Leahy, M.J. (2003, July). Community of inquiry: Conversations between persons about ideas. Day long experiential presentation of dissertation research findings, The Fielding Graduate Institute Summer Session, Washington, D.C.
- Cavanaugh, P. E. & Leahy, M.J. (2001). Being consultative. Federal Occupational Health National Conference, St. Augustine, FL. Keynote Presentation: Being Consultative
- Leahy, M. J. & Fisher-Yoshida, B. (2000). Society for Research in Adult Development, Annual Symposium, New York, NY. Presentation: Teambuilding in a Multicultural Pharmaceutical Company.
Publications
- Magerman, M., & Leahy, M. (Eds.). (2009). The lone ranger is dying: Gestalt coaching as challenge and support. [Special issue on coaching]. International Gestalt Journal, 32(1).
- Leahy, M., & Magerman, M. (2009). Awareness, immediacy, and intimacy: The experience of coaching as heard in the voices of Gestalt coaches and their clients. The International Gestalt Journal, 32(1), 81-144.
- Leahy, M. & Gilly, S. (2009). Learning in the space between us. In J. L. Kincheloe & S. Steinberg (Series Eds.) & B. Fisher-Yoshida, K. Geller, K., & S. Schapiro (Vol. Eds.), Innovations in transformative learning: Space, culture, and the arts. Volume 341. Studies in the postmodern theory of education. New York: Peter Lang.
Community Involvement
- Catholics4Change- www.catholics4change.com
- American Catholic Council- http://americancatholiccouncil.org/
Recent pro bono work included working a with a small group of national civil rights and education leaders to design Toward Education Equity, a three day summit to create campaigns for education equity in CO and NC; sponsored by the Leadership Council on Civil Rights; Educational Testing Company (ETS); Berkeley Law School's Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute for Race, Ethnicity, and Diversity; Education Law Center; and the National Center on Time & Learning. Subsequently, facilitated this meeting of 60 state (CO, NC) and national civil rights and education leaders at the ETS campus in Princeton.
My approach to teaching is dialogical: facilitating a conversation that is between persons and about ideas (Arnett, 1992). For me, this requires a commitment to: meeting (Buber) other persons (Rogers); to reflect critically on our concerns, in order to realize our ontological vocation to name the world (Freire). There are many kinds of knowing: representational, interpretive, relational, and participatory (Peter Park). Knowledge has purposes beyond prediction and control, these include: meaning making, establishing mutual relations, and liberating those who are oppressed.
My research and consulting interests are also dialogical. I work and inquire with people who are committed to making time and creating space to operate in “the between (Buber),” that is, the realm of the interhuman. This requires managing the contentions between speaking and listening, differing and connecting, questioning and knowing, reflecting and acting. Groups who can stand the heat, sometimes transcend either-or’s, and discover “both/and” solutions.