Quotes from Diana Leafe Christian

Community does involve psychology stuff — which, in my opinion, is why roughly 90 percent of new communities fail. Forming a community is deeply psychological. Emotional pain and hidden expectations exert a powerful pull on people, and community founders are no exception. Put a group of people in a community visioning session, and you have dozens of different needs and expectations, known and unknown, ricocheting invisibly around the room.

First, living in community cannot erase buried emotional pain. When people find that after living in community they're still yearning for something valuable and elusive (although they may not know what it is), they tend to feel angry and disappointed.