He
co-founded the nonprofit Stepfamily Association of Illinois, Inc. (SAI) with interested
others in 1981. Shortly after that, he was invited to join the
Board of
Directors of the
(SAA) by its founders, Drs. John and Emily Visher. He later served on the
SAA
Advisory Council, and was invited to rejoin the Board in March, 2002 by
President Marjorie Engel.
Since 1981,
Peter has taken over 3,000 calls on the Stepfamily inFormation "warm-line."
He moderated the "Stepfamily Issues" forum at
Divorcenet.com for two years, and has
answered over 500 online stepparenting questions at
AllExperts.com.
He's
learned from hundreds of typical stepfamily co-parents from
all walks of life, in over 18,000 hours of personal consultations, classes,
and workshops. He has published his learnings in these (evolving) non-profit Web
pages, several magazines, and a series of
guidebooks for lay and
professional readers. Peter was also a
contributing editor for the recent e-magazine Your Stepfamily Online.
Gerlach
has designed a series of online
PowerPoint presentations on key topics in this nonprofit site. He also
has created a seven-session, 17-hour
for stepfamily co-parents, and led versions of it for dozens of groups in
the Chicago area.
He's also taught a half-day portion of a family-life
weekend seminar for 40 groups of remarrying couples. One module
is a unique three-hour stepfamily
for groups of 12 or
more people to help raise their awareness experientially.
Gerlach has also led over 400 classes and seminars for adults and teens on interpersonal commun-ications
healthy
divorce recovery; effective single paren-ting; and
from
-childhood
His sponsors have included the State of Illinois;
Cook County States Attorney's Office, the Catholic Diocese (Family Life
Office) of Rockford, Mothers Without Custody, major
Chicago-area businesses; Governors State, Northeastern Illinois, and Northern
Illinois universities; and many local schools, churches, and mental-health agencies. He has
appeared on local and national radio and NBC television speaking on these topics.
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As the son of two functional alcoholics, Peter has been in proactive "ACoA" recovery since 1986.
This has led to adopting and using
to promote individual clients'
from up to six "false self"
related to growing up in
childhoods.
|
Work with over 1,000 average Midwestern-US clients suggests that
over 80% of the adults in typical
troubled relationships and families are
(GWCs) and don't (want to) know it, or what it probably
to them and their kids. All this work has led him recently to promote
preventing the unremarked [wounds +
unawareness]
that seems to be spreading in and weakening our culture now.
Peter has been adapting to diabetes and an incurable muscle-wasting disease
that increasingly limits his physical abilities. He has years of personal experience as a step-grandson, adult stepson,
stepfather of two girls, stepbrother of four, step-cousin, and
step-uncle-in-law. He retired from his physical private practice in January
2006, and does
now
from Portland, Oregon (USA).
To contact Peter go here.
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![Break the inheitred [wounds + unawareness] cycle!](../art/hdr-cycle.gif)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR of this web site and
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