Strephon Kaplan-Williams Died Of Lung Cancer At Age 75 In Nijmegen, Netherlands
Well known author Strephon Kaplan-Williams died of lung cancer at age 75, in Nijmegen, The Netherlands. His right lung was impacted with a 15 cm tumor which was too big to operate on. He had the use of only one lung, but he still was able usually to take a few hours a day writing his blog at http://strephonsays.com/blog/ .
Strephon’s Books
He was best known for his Dream Cards which became a best seller in the 1990’s through Simon and Schuster at 80,000 copies and through 8 translations at 150,000.
Strephon Kaplan-Williams left California to first live and teach dreamwork psychology in Britain and Europe in 1988. Then he continued his teaching in Europe but moved to Norway. From Norway he moved to the Netherlands and continued teaching dreamwork psychology in Europe.
The Netherlands was his last home. Kaplan-Williams moved to the Netherlands in 1993 and continued his writing and teaching in English.
Strephon recently got married in the Nijmegen old town hall, to formalize a relationship of 6 years with Stefania Marian Williams in the Netherlands. Local friends from Stefania and Strephon came out for the marriage ceremony.
Kaplan-Williams On The Dutch
From his work as a dreamwork psychologist and teacher in the Netherlands he was sometimes asked what Dutch people are like.
He replied, “Dutch people are very relational. I find Dutch men as open as Dutch women in general. Both sexes show their feelings and act upon them. This is the country of the countries I have lived and taught in where the women and the men seem equal partners with equal rights. This is the country where family counts and children are mostly let to express themselves, which can be a bit much sometimes.
But adults grow up more or less free, guided but not controlled. In the Netherlands you have the courage to be yourself. Women don’t look down as they walk, like women do in the United States. There is a lot less fear here and more caring and helping each other, unlike in Norway where I also lived and where people are supposed to be independent and self-sufficient.
The Dutch have some interesting customs that I don’t understand, like announcing they are going to use the toilet before doing so. Why don’t they just go? Americans cannot even say toilet or bodily functions. Americans say “going to the bathroom,” which is not right. So they Dutch have it better in just being honest and open about what they are doing, but they also talk about everything so they are always willing to give you personal feedback, not always positive”.
Kaplan-Williams Has Published Over 400,000 Books
Altogether author Kaplan-Williams had sold over 400,000 copies of his books and taught and lived in California, Britain, Norway, The Netherlands, and taught also in Romania and Canada his dreamwork psychology processes for working with dreams.
He had been characterized as giving new knowledge in working with ones dreams equal to what Freud gave. Strephon was more a Jungian and an applier of dream discoveries. Freud of course with the breakthrough original discover, and C.G. Jung also of a difference psychology.
Founder Of The First International Society Whose Focus Is Dreams
Kaplan-Williams is the originating founder of the International Association for the Study of Dreams by enrolling three other founders besides himself, including the famous author on dreams, Patricia Garfield. Their conferences get several hundred attendees each year.
Also, he founded in the last years of life the International Dream and Dreamwork Psychology Association - IDPA (www.dreamworkpsychology.com), introducing ” dreamwork psychology” as a new branch of psychology and developing the first training curricula in dreamwork psychology, in partnership with the Romanian Dreamwork Center.
Authored The First Dreamwork Manual Of A Full Collection Of Methods
Kaplan-Williams published the first comprehensive dreamwork manual ever, the Jungian-Senoi Dreamwork Manual in 1977, expanded in 1980.
Kaplan-Williams is the first author ever to create the genre of dream cards, which combine his interest in universal, archetypal images via dreams primarily with insights to help personal growth to heal ones self and others.
His other books include the newer Dreamworking, The Elements of Dreamwork, The Practice of Personal Transformation, and the best selling Dream Cards in eight languages.
First Ever Dreamwork Institute
Kaplan-Williams also formed the first teaching and research institute devoted to working with dreams, but not from any one psychology, founded in Berkley, California, 1977. This later evolved to his founding also a new field of psychology, dream and dreamwork psychology, which is just developing.
Dreamwork psychology focuses on working with dreams for personal growth. Other types of psychology may use certain methods for working with dreams, yet it is only dreamwork psychology with the focus on the dream itself as clinically used that is universally oriented.
Training Dreamwork Psychologists
Strephon Kaplan-Williams has helped train and establish dreamwork psychologists in California, Britain, Norway, Netherlands, and Romania by giving long-term trainings to psychologists there. He has also worked as a dreamwork psychologist helping individuals and couples in a psychological practice in Berkeley, California and in the countries he has lived and taught in.
Kaplan-Williams has also originated the dreamwork techniques: Objectifying Dreams, Following The Dream Ego, Dream Reentry, Symbol Immersion, and Dream Tasks.
He has trained in professional programs of a year or more around 200 psychologists, teachers and counselors in California, Britain, Norway, The Netherlands and Romania.
Personal Life
Strephon is the only son of poets, Gene Derwood and Oscar Williams. Oscar Williams was famous in his day in the United States as the best poetry anthologist of his time. When he died in 1964 he had 2 million poetry anthologies in circulation. Strephon carried on the heritage of love of writing but as an applied psychologist in his own field of dreamwork psychology.
Kaplan-Williams originated the Jungian-Senoi Dreamwork Institute in Berkeley, California to develop Jungian-Senoi Dreamwork, which many psychologists and lay people practice to this day.
Strephon fathered two daughters with his second wife, Helen Saul. His marriage with his first wife, Laurie Williams, failed after three years. He has had a few other significant living together relationships in the countries he has lived in and taught in. In the last years, Strephon was married to his third wife, Stefania Marian Williams, with whom he had been relating and living together for six years in the Netherlands.
Strephon has been an enthusiastic tennis player until he got cancer at age 75. He did not realize that the exhaustion he got after playing an hour of tennis was due to developing cancer, and not aging making him weaker. So his tumor grew beyond the chance to be surgically removed when small. “Bad luck!” says Strephon. But he also adds, “I have lived 75 good years with no major sicknesses at all, so I cannot complain, can I?”
Strephon passed away on October 22, 2009.
http://strephonsays.com/blog/
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In Strephon’s memory
by Patricia Garfield, Ph.D.
27 October 2009
I was glad to have to opportunity this past June at the annual conference of the International Association for the Study of Dreams in Chicago, to bear witness to the value of Strephon Kaplan-Williams work, especially to say that it was by the invitation of Strephon that the four of us who became co-founders, later joined by another two people, that we first met on Thursday, November 11, 1982 and began the discussions that lead to the creation of the organization that became IASD. Although we all contributed our parts, it was Strephon’s initiative and idea that led to the group’s formation.
Aside from leading to the group’s development, Strephon contributed with his own writing, particularly the Jungian-Senoi Dreamwork Manual. One of my favorites of his from later times is his Dream Cards. Strephon has made valuable contributions to the field of dreams and will be well remembered beyond his immediate loved ones.
Patricia Garfield, Ph.D.
Author of Creative Dreaming
Co-founder and President (1998-9), The International Association for the Study of Dreams
www.patriciagarfield.com
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