User:Rosslaird

Ross A. Laird is an interdisciplinary scholar and creative artist. He is a best-selling author, psychotherapist, university professor, addictions and trauma specialist, poet, and craftsman in wood and stone.

Dr. Laird is a recipient of the Union Institute&#8217;s Sussman Award for Academic Excellence for &#8220;ultimate academic achievement at the doctoral level.&#8221; His doctoral dissertation on creativity, which subsequently was adapted into book form as Grain of Truth, was shortlisted for the 2001 Governor General&#8217;s Award (the highest literary award in Canada) and the BC Book Prize. Grain of Truth was also voted one of the 100 most important books of 2001 by the Globe and Mail.

Dr. Laird&#8217;s second book, A Stone&#8217;s Throw explains the origins of the mythologies of Egypt, Israel, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. Laird demonstrates how these mythologies have become the source of the most pressing conflicts in the contemporary world, from the Palestinian uprisings to September 11 to the war on terror. A Stone&#8217;s Throw continues the themes of creativity and spirituality explored in Grain of Truth. Traversing five thousand years of history, and from the perspective of Laird as a craftsman sculpting stone in his shop, A Stone&#8217;s Throw follows the evolution of sacred mythologies from the pharaohs and their pyramids to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the sacred Kaaba stone in Mecca, the Washington Monument, and the World Trade Center. A Stone&#8217;s Throw offers readers a means of understanding the contemporary world with greater depth and clarity. Laird lays bare the shared heritage of religions, of peoples, of the essential themes of human nature.

A new book on addictions will be released in early 2007.

Dr. Laird is a professor and instructor in counselling, psychology, and creative writing at the following institutions:  Simon Fraser University Vancouver Community College The Vancouver Art Therapy Institute The Union Institute 

He also provides consulting services to professional artists and graduate students in multiple disciplines, to addictions counsellors, to social service agencies and to corporations and educational institutions. He has been a frequent speaker at the Pacific Institute on Addictions and has presented at many conferences. He is a registered member of the BC Association of Clinical Counsellors and is the 2003 recipient of the Association&#8217;s Communications Award.

Dr. Laird's essays have appeared in The Globe and Mail, Canadian Geographic, and Pacific Yachting, for which he is a regular contributor.

Ross Laird's home on the web is http://www.rosslaird.info