Mindell's work is playful, supportive and permissive rather than confrontational.” Another commentator writes: “Mindell … exemplifies both the good and bad of contemporary dreamwork. On the first score: there is a bit of flim-flam about Mindell. And he conspicuously overemploys the first person singular while extolling non-ego functions. Also, he interprets disease processes so positively that they begin to lose their catagogic authenticity. But on the second score: he is inventive, creative, intuitive, holistic, and affirmative. He breaks down prevailing categories and finds authentic meanings where our culture traditionally does not. And he helps people.” In 1995 Mindell extended the dreambody concept to a theory and practice of working with people in coma and near death states; this work inspired a UK theatre production by Improbable theatre. In his 1988 book, City Shadows: Psychological Interventions in Psychiatry, Mindell presented his approach to psychiatric disorders, drug addiction and mental retardation. The book provides verbatim case studies describing interventions focused on the meaning of the patient's unusual communication, including non-verbal signals. Mindell's 1990 book, Working on Yourself Alone: Inner Dreambody Work, presents a meditation practice that focuses attention on subtle body experiences and amplifies them to reveal unexpected information and meaning for the meditator. It provides a model for creative spiritual practice involving inner reflection and personal development. In the 2002 work, Dreaming while Awake: Techniques for 24-hour Lucid Dreaming, Mindell built on ideas of lucid dreaming, indigenous traditions and Zen Buddhism to create an awareness practice for daily life: paying attention to thoughts and perceptions that are normally dismissed, which he calls ‘flirts’ from the ‘Dreaming.’ Mindell has also published books dealing with large group conflict resolution and leadership, notably The Leader as Martial Artist: An Introduction to Deep Democracy (1992) and Sitting in the fire: Large Group Transformation Using Conflict and Diversity (1995). Mindell advances a concept and principle he calls ‘deep democracy' and the approach has been compared to the work of Danaan Parry. Mindell's group conflict work has been reported within a business setting and within large community forums working with racism and other social tensions. Mindell's concept of 'rank,' published in his book Sitting in the Fire, has been used to support greater gender awareness in mediation training. Mindell's work is known for proposing analogies between the concepts of mathematics, classical and quantum physics and psychological experiences; his books include simple exercises to guide the reader to