Harlene Anderson, Ph.D., is founding member of the Houston Galveston Institute, the Taos Institute, and Access Success. She is recognized internationally as being at the leading edge of postmodern collaborative practices as a thinker, consultant, coach, and educator. 

She takes her tools — her insights, her curiosity, her engaging conversational style, her leadership skills and her keen interest — to help professionals turn theory into new and often surprising possibilities for their clients, students, and organizations. She embodies her own belief in learning as a lifelong process — inviting, encouraging and challenging people to be inquisitive, creative, authentic, and open to the ever-present possibilities for newness in others — and in themselves.

Harlene has authored and co-authored numerous professional writings including her book Conversation, Language, and Possibilities — A Postmodern Approach to Therapy. She is a member of the editorial review boards of several journals, has presented at numerous national and international conferences and has consulted with a variety of organizations.

Among her many awards are the prestigious 2000 Outstanding Contributions to Marriage and Family Therapy Award from the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy and the 1998 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Texas Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. In 2024, Harlene was recognized by the Institute of Psychology at the China Academy of Sciences with an Award for Distinguished Contribution to Collaborative-Dialogic Practices in China, presented at the 8th Annual Conference on Traditional Chinese Culture and Postmodern Psychology.