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Abstracts
Abstracts are listed below in the
same sequence as their source articles appeared in the issue.
Note: Interviews and short works rarely have
abstracts; thus, this list does not include all issues' content.
Vol. 5, No. 2, Abstracts (2009)
Vol. 5, No. 1. Abstracts (2009)
Vol. 4, No. 2. Abstracts (2008)
Vol.
4, No. 1. Abstracts (2008)
Issue 5, 2007 Abstracts
Issue 4, 2007 Abstracts
Issue 3, 2006 Abstracts
Issue 2, 2006 Abstracts
Issue 1, 2005 Abstracts
As an added convenience, you may
wish to browse the following summary documents
(current through Vol. 4, No. 1):
Summaries of Works Published
By Author And
By Issue
Vol. 5, No. 2 - Abstracts
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The Coherent Heart:
Heart–Brain Interactions, Psychophysiological
Coherence, and the Emergence of System-Wide Order
|
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Rollin McCraty, Mike Atkinson, Dana Tomasino, and Raymond Trevor Bradley
|
|
Abstract: This article presents theory and research on the
scientific study of emotion that
emphasizes the importance of coherence as an optimal psychophysiological
state. A
dynamic systems view of the interrelations between psychological,
cognitive and
emotional systems and neural communication networks in the human
organism provides
a foundation for the view presented. These communication networks are
examined from
an information processing perspective and reveal a fundamental order in
heart-brain
interactions and a harmonious synchronization of physiological systems
associated with
positive emotions. The concept of coherence is drawn on to understand
optimal
functioning which is naturally reflected in the heart’s rhythmic
patterns. Research is
presented identifying various psychophysiological states linked to these
patterns, with
neurocardiological coherence emerging as having significant impacts on
well being.
These include psychophysiological as well as improved cognitive
performance. From
this, the central role of the heart is explored in terms of biochemical,
biophysical and
energetic interactions. Appendices provide further details and research
on;
psychophysiological functioning, reference previous research in this
area, details on
research linking coherence with optimal cognitive performance, heart
brain
synchronization and the energetic signature of the various
psychophysiological modes.
|
|
Keywords: Cognitive performance, coherence, emotion, heart rate
variability, heart-brain
interactions, neurocardiology, psychophysiological coherence, quantum
holographic
principles. |
The Ethics of Promoting and Assigning Adult Developmental Exercises:
A Critical Analysis of the Immunity to Change Process
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Sofia Kjellström |
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Abstract: The Immunity to Change (ITC) process devised by Robert
Kegan and Lisa
Laskow Lahey is promoted as an influential technique for creating
individual and
organizational change. A critical analysis of the ITC process applied in
university settings
and organizational contexts show that an unintended result is the
unwillingness and
inability of some participants to participate adequately. Significant
theoretical and ethical
implications arise in the interplay between three interrelated variables
(a) the role and
competence of the facilitator, (b) expectations and capabilities of the
participants, and (c)
the mental demands and assumptions of the process. The inquiry
illustrate that the ITC
process is probably built upon an implicit assumption that change into
greater mental
complexity is always good and right, and its inherent structure creates
demands that can
put participants “in over their heads.” The main conclusion is that
developmentallyaware,
ethical approaches to using transformational practices such as the ITC
should
meet at least three demands: they should be conducted as voluntary
activities on the part
of well-informed participants, they should integrate an adult
developmental perspective
into the process itself, and they should openly allow the possibility
that it is the
organizations that may also need to change.
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Keywords: adult development, ethics, organizational change,
teaching.
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Reliability and Validity Tests of the Harthill Leadership Development
Profile
in the Context of Developmental Action Inquiry Theory, Practice and
Method
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William R. Torbert and Reut Livne-Tarandach
|
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Abstract: In this paper, we describe how the Harthill Leadership
Development Profile
(LDP), a language-based instrument has evolved from Jane Loevinger’s
Washington
University Sentence Completion Test (WUSCT), and has been redesigned to
assess and
offer feedback about adults’ action logics in work or educational
settings, in the context
of Developmental Action Inquiry (DAI) theory, practice, and method (Torbert,
1972,
1976, 1987, 1991; Torbert & Associates, 2004). Next, we challenge a
recent critique of the LDP as a soft measure unsupported by published,
quantitative psychometric reliability and validity studies (Stein &
Heikkinen,2009) and present both previously unpublished and previously
published-but-not aggregated studies illustrating Harthill LDP as a
well-calibrated measure of adult ego development. Because the DAI
approach to social inquiry and social practice invites us all to
interweave first-, second-, and third-person inquiry and everyday
action, the validity studies reported tend to concern field-based
experiments seeking to generate developmentally transforming change in
adults, including the researchers and/or interventionists, as well as in
the organizations in which they participate. In our conclusion, we
briefly consider what a social science and a social practice based
on the developmentally late action-logics will look like, once social
science is recognized
as embracing, not just 3rd-person empirical positivist research “on”
subjects, but also 1st-,
2nd-, and 3rd-person research and action with co-participants in live
settings.
|
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Keywords:
Action-logic, developmental action inquiry (DAI), Harthill leadership
development profile (LDP), reliability, validity.
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Toward
Integral Higher Education Study Programs in the European Higher
Education Area: A Programmatic and Strategic View
|
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Markus Molz
|
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Abstract: This essay
somehow arbitrarily freezes my ongoing attempt to grasp the
present situation and future possibilities of higher education courses,
programs,
institutions and initiatives that are inspired by integral and
likeminded approaches. The
focus in this essay is on the European Higher Education Area and its
specifics, whereas
some implicit or explicit comparisons with the USA are made. My
reflections are
triggered by the recurrent observation that in Europe there seems to be
i) more demand
than offer of integrally oriented higher education programs, ii) an
imbalance between
overused but little successful and underused but potentially more
promising strategies to
implement such programs, iii) little or no learning from past failures,
and iv) little mutual
awareness, communication and collaboration between different activists
and initiatives in
this field.
The context for this essay is i) the current societal macroshift, ii)
the unfolding of
academic level integral and likeminded research worldwide, and iii) the
large scale
reform of the European Higher Education systems brought about by the
Bologna process,
its (false) promises and the potential it nevertheless has for realizing
examples of a more
integral higher education. On this basis the consequences for attempts
to overcome a
relatively stagnant state of affairs in Europe are discussed. Given
that; most past attempts
to implement programs inspired by an integral worldview have failed from
the start, or
disappeared after a relatively short period, or are marginalised or
becoming remainstreamed, this essay aims to devise a potentially more
promising strategic corridor
and describes the contours of the results that could be brought about
when following a
developmental trajectory within this corridor. This futurising exercise
is inspired by
principles shared by many integral and likeminded approaches, especially
the
reconsideration, integration and transcendence of premodern, modern and
postmodern
structures and practices of higher education.
This essay is programmatic and thus deliberately combines facts and
values, past and
future, summaries of first person observations and third person factual
information,
without the burden of systematic referencing required by scholarly
writing. It does not
claim to replace empirical surveys which, however, are still lacking to
date regarding the
actual state of affairs of higher education inspired by integral and
likeminded approaches
in Europe. Accordingly, at this stage, the essay is an exercise of
awareness-raising to
stimulate more and better collaboration across streams, disciplines and
countries between
those scholars, students and activists who are already inspired by
integral and likeminded approaches and interested or already engaged in
developing and sustaining higher
education programs according to a more integral spirit.
|
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Keywords: Andragogy,
European Higher Education Area, higher education,
implementation, integral and likeminded approaches, knotworking,
learning
communities, macroshift, project-based learning, service learning,
strategy, study
programs, transformation, vocation.
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Consciousness in Evolution: Sketch for a New Model – A Speculation
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Donald F.
Padelford
|
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Abstract: It is
hypothesized that hierarchically negentropic systems (defined herein),
including organisms, are associated with partially non-local
information/probability fields
which, a) entail or express interiority, b) engender “entangled
learning” with similar
negentropic systems, and c) cause otherwise random processes, including
mutation in
biotic systems, to become somewhat non-random. These effects, which are
believed to be
driven by quantum interactions, modify those identified with the Modern
Evolutionary
Synthesis. A series of tenets, or broad organizing principles, related
to such systems and
their associated fields, are enumerated. An empirical test which could
potentially falsify
certain aspects of the hypothesis is given.
|
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Keywords: Adaptive
mutation, consciousness, directed mutation, entanglement,
entropy, evolution, falsification, information / probability fields,
interiority, natural
philosophy, negentropy, non-locality, non-random, reductionism.
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A
Leadership Journey: Personal Reflections from the School of Hard Knocks
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R. Scott
Pochron
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Abstract: The following paper chronicles the evolution of the
author’s thinking on
leadership through the course of his work experience. Leadership is
viewed as a
dynamical process involving both formal and informal roles. The process
is initiated as
an individual identifies opportunities and feels pulled to respond to
emerging patterns and
initiate action to enable positive change. The dynamics between formal
and informal
leadership structures and leadership as a state of mind are discussed. |
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Keywords: Adversity,
complexity, fundamental state of leadership, leadership, requisite
organization, self transcending construction.
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A
Practitioners’ Perspective on Developmental
Models, Metrics and Community
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Chad Stewart,
Zach Smith and Norio Suzuki
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Abstract: This article
builds on a paper by Stein and Heikkinen (2009), and suggests
ways to expand and improve our measurement of the quality of the
developmental
models, metrics and instruments and the results we get in collaborating
with clients. We
suggest that this dialogue needs to be about more than stage development
measured by
(even calibrated) stage development-focused, linguistic-based,
developmental psychology
metrics that produce lead indicators and are shown to be reliable and
valid by
psychometric qualities alone. The article first provides a brief
overview of our
background and biases, and an applied version of Ken Wilber’s Integral
Operating
System that has provided increased development, client satisfaction, and
contribution to
our communities measured by verifiable, tangible results (as well as
intangible results
such as increased ability to cope with complex surroundings, reduced
stress and growth
in developmental stages to better fit to the environment in which our
clients were
engaged at that time). It then addresses four key points raised by Stein
and Heikkinen
(need for quality control, defining and deciding on appropriate metrics,
building a system
to evaluate models and metrics, and clarifying and increasing the
reliability and validity
of the models and metrics we use) by providing initial concrete steps
to:
• Adopt a systemic value-chain approach
• Measure results in addition to language
• Build on the evaluation system for instruments, models and metrics
suggested by
Stein & Heikkinen
• Clarify and improve the reliability and validity of the instruments,
models and
metrics we use.
We complete the article with an echoing call for the community of
Applied
Developmental Theory suggested by Ross (2008) and Stein and Heikkinen, a
brief
description of that community (from our perspective), and a table that
builds on Table 2
proposed by Stein and Heikkinen.
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Educational
Crises and the Scramble for Usable Knowledge
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Zachary Stein
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Abstract:
Quality-control efforts in the field of applied developmental psychology
are
just beginning. In this paper I set these efforts in a larger context to
frame their
significance and guide their direction. I argue that the challenges
arising in the current
post-national constellation are best understood as educational crises.
The task demands of
the global problem space increasingly outstrip available human
capabilities. This
situation is leading to a scramble for usable knowledge about
education—defined broadly
as any process intentionally undertaken to promote human development.
There is a
growing demand for techniques and technologies that catalyze the
transformation of
human capabilities; and this demand exceeds available supplies.
Education becomes a
growth market as specific types of human capabilities come to be
recognized as scarce
but valuable resources. This pressing global demand for innovative
educational solutions
and approaches has the potential to systematically distort the
production of relevant
usable knowledge. I present a set of general quality-control challenges
that face the field
of applied developmental psychology as it strives to meet the demands of
a globalized
crisis-ridden educational marketplace. I argue that the field should
overcome temptations
to circumvent peer review processes by going directly to consumers. I
suggest adopting a
general stance of epistemic humility so that research and collaboration
are promoted and
argumentative strategies that insulate approaches from criticism are
avoided. Finally, I
argue that more careful attention should be paid to the normative
dimensions of
educational enterprises, as they involve the creation of new values and
raise ethical
questions about the shape of what life ought to be like.
|
Keywords: developmental psychology, education, post-modern global
society, quality
control, usable knowledge. |
Vol. 5, No. 1 - Abstracts
|
Models, Metrics, and
Measurement
in Developmental Psychology
|
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Zachary Stein and Katie Heikkinen
|
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Abstract: Developmental psychology is currently used to measure
psychological phenomena and by some, to re-design communities. While we
generally support these uses, we are concerned about quality control
standards guiding the production of usable knowledge in the discipline.
In order to address these issues precisely, we provide an overview of
the discipline's various facets. We distinguish between developmental
models and developmental metrics and relate each to different
types of quality-control devices. In our view, models are either
explanatory or descriptive, and their quality is evaluated in
terms of specific types of disciplinary discourse. Metrics are either
calibrated measures or soft measures, and their quality is
evaluated in terms of specific psychometric parameters. Following a
discussion on how developmentalists make metrics, and on a variety of
metrics that have been made, we discuss the two key psychometric
quality-control parameters, validity and reliability. This
sets the stage for a limited and exploratory literature review
concerning the quality of a set of existing metrics. We reveal a
conspicuous lack of psychometric rigor on the part of some of the most
popular developmental approaches and invite remedies for this situation.
|
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Keywords: developmental assessment, developmental psychology,
epistemology, meta-theory, psychological technologies, psychometrics,
quality control, usable knowledge.
|
Establishing Second-Person Forms of Contemplative Education:
An Inquiry into Four Conceptions of Intersubjectivity
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Olen Gunnlaugson
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Abstract: Four accounts of intersubjective theory are explored as a
means for providing distinctions that support the development of
second-person approaches to the emerging field of contemplative
education. I examine Martin Buber’s conception of the interhuman, Thich
Nhat Hahn’s interbeing, Christian De Quincey’s three modes of
intersubjective engagements, in addition to Wilber’s five categories of
intersubjectivity with consideration for how each will contribute to
further outlining second-person dimensions of contemplative education. I
then locate intersubjectivity in a broader epistemological terrain and
propose the notion of critical second-person contemplative education
as a type of pedagogy and approach to learning within contemplative
education.
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Keywords: consciousness, contemplative, intersubjective,
second-person education.
|
The Status and Relevance of Phenomenology for Integral Research:
Or Why Phenomenology is More and Different
than an “Upper Left” or “Zone #1” Affair
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Wendelin M. Küpers
|
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Abstract: The specific treatment that Ken Wilber gives phenomenology
in his model of integral theory requires a critical investigation.
According to Wilber's model, different methodologies are situated in
distinct quadrants or "domains of knowing," namely the subjective,
objective, intersubjective and interobjective domains, labeled by their
position in the model's matrix illustration, upper left, upper right,
lower left, lower right. In this model, phenomenology is isolated in the
UL quadrant, and even more specifically as the inside perspective of
this subjective domain. What this means is that, according to Wilber's
classification, phenomenology is an exclusive, rather than inclusive,
approach that limits its field of inquiry and therefore its range of
knowing also to an inside exploration of the subjective.
In contrast to this positioning, a critical reflection on the current
status and usage of phenomenology in integral theory is provided. The
goal of this undertaking is to show that phenomenology--particularly in
its more advanced forms--is more and different than something to put
merely into “upper left” quadrant or to understand only as a “Zone 1”
affair suggested in the conventional integral model.
In the first part the paper outlines an introductory understanding and
examines classical (Husserlian) phenomenology as well as illustrates
some of its limitations. Based on various critiques and further
developments of phenomenology, the status and usage of phenomenology in
integral (AQAL) theory is discussed critically. Particularly, this
concerns the ordering of phenomenology into a separate realm or zone,
the status of consciousness, including the debate related to its
structure and states, and inter-subjective dimensions as well as the
relation to contemplation and meditation.In a second part the paper
introduces the more advanced phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty that
overcomes the limitations of the previous versions of phenomenology.
Advanced phenomenology entails a strong proto-integral potential and as
such contributes to compensating for some of the weaknesses and
limitations of integral theory.
Furthermore, a third part proposes that such advanced phenomenology
provides the foundations for an “adequate phenomenology” in integral
research. Based on the specific ontological, epistemological, and
methodological considerations, this final part and the conclusion
outline some perspectives on what is called integral “pheno-practice.”
The explicated criticism and the proposed pheno-practical approach might
enrich integral research, improve its theory building and empirical
testing by offering perspectives of a more inclusive, coherent and
relevant nexus of ideas and possibilities for integrative theory and
practice.
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Keywords: Adequate phenomenology, integral theory, Merleau-Ponty,
phenomenology.
|
What is the Integral
in Integral Education?
From Progressive
Pedagogy to Integral Pedagogy
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Tom Murray
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Abstract: Integrally-informed educational approaches have much in
common with progressive (including reform, alternative, holistic, and
transformative) approaches, and share many of the same values. One
function of the integral approach is to provide an overarching model
within which to coordinate different progressive methods. Though
integral adds much more than that, descriptions of integral education
sometimes sound like progressive educational principles recast with new
terminology. This essay attempts to clarify what the integral approach
adds over and above progressive educational theories. After an overview
of progressive pedagogical principles, the integral approach is
discussed in terms of integral as a model, a method, a community, and a
developmental stage. Integral as a type of consciousness or
developmental level is elaborated upon as consisting of
construct-awareness, ego-awareness, relational-awareness, and
system-awareness, all important to the educational process. Finally,
challenges and support systems for realizing integral education are
discussed.
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Keywords: Education, integral, pedagogy, progressive/alternative,
second tier.
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Paranada: Beyond
Beyond
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Hector Currie with Juan Pacheco
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Abstract: “Paranada: Beyond Beyond” represents the culmination of
the author's research findings of geometric evidence in the Pythagorean
design of the temple and theatre complex of the ancient Greek Temple of
Delphi. Rather than a dualistic moral judgment, Delphic rites sought a
dynamic equipoise between Apollonian and Dionysian psychic forces,
transcending the self/boundless dichotomy. The temple has a deflection
of 7.5 degrees—1/12th the 90-degree gravitational fall of all existents,
the gravitational factor in music theory (as in the Pythagorean "harmony
of the spheres") in each note's descent in the 12-tone scale's octaval
fall. Significantly, this means that the Delphic design encapsulates a
space/time concordance. The design reveals that Pythagoras' epochal
concept of a transcendent kosmos is realized in both space (the
sacred site's cosmic plan) and in time (the nightly celestial whirl of
constellations above it). “Paranada” traces this discovery of a divine
order at the Delphic center to the sages of the kingdom of Bharat in
ancient India and the birth of speculation on the meaning of existence
in their most sacred Rig Vedic "Creation Hymn" X. 129. “Paranada”
thus suggests that the Western cultural tradition is derived not
ultimately from Greece, but from India, and contemplates the
significance such ancient visionary philosophical insight might have for
the daunting challenges continually confronting us. This work
constitutes an eclectic integration of transdisciplinary insights into
the known and the unknown, the arts and the sciences, and science and
religion. In descriptive and poetic forms, “Paranada” seeks to find
vital correspondences and affinities among Pythagorean geometry;
numerology; cosmology; ancient psychologies; nature philosophy and
mysticism; Greek mythology; Greek, Shakespearean, and modern tragedy;
quantum physics and astrophysics; and transcendent cosmic consciousness.
|
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Keywords: Anaximander, cosmology, equipoise, gravitational factor,
Greek, harmony of the spheres, integration, nature philosophy, quantum
physics, Pythagoras, Shakespeare, Temple at Delphi, tragedy,
transcendence.
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Vol. 4, No. 2 - Abstracts
|
“Such a
Body We Must Create:” New Theses on Integral Micropolitics
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Daniel Gustav
Anderson
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Abstract: This essay proposes
a rigorously postmetaphysical integral praxis, defines what this means
and how such an intervention may be premised, and demonstrates
throughout some methodological and practical advantages this approach
may have over extant metaphysically-oriented integral theories.
Beginning with an interpretation of post-Hegelian historical and
dialectical materialisms informed by the Buddhist dialectical tradition
of Madhyamika, a series of coordinated and interrelated theses address
problems proper to fields such as phenomenology, hermeneutics,
semiotics, historiography, and subaltern studies. The claimed purpose of
this project is to coordinate subjective (psychological, spiritual) and
objective (social, political, economic) transformational imperatives
into a coherent, non-ontological “counterproject.” It takes as its aim
the production of a radically democratized, responsible, and sane
subjective and objective space, where responsibility is characterized as
critical clarity, competence, creative consciousness, and compassion.
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Keywords: Buddhism, causality, consciousness, counterproject,
Deleuze, dialectics, ecocriticism, integral praxis, Krishnamurti, Marx,
Nagarjuna, nonduality, postmetaphysical, radical democracy,
responsibility, semiotics, Spiral Dynamics, subjectivity,
transformation, Wilber
|
Validation of Theory: Exploring and
Reframing Popper’s Worlds
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Steven E. Wallis
|
|
Abstract:
Popper’s well-known arguments describe the need for advancing social
theory through a process of falsification. Despite Popper’s call, there
has been little change in the academic process of theory development and
testing. This paper builds on Popper’s lesser-known idea of “three
worlds” (physical, emotional/conceptual, and theoretical) to investigate
the relationship between knowledge, theory, and action. In this paper, I
explore his three worlds to identify alternative routes to support the
validation of theory. I suggest there are alternative methods for
validation, both between, and within, the three worlds and that a
combination of validation and falsification methods may be superior to
any one method. Integral thinking is also put forward to support the
validation process. Rather than repeating the call for full Popperian
falsification, this paper recognizes that the current level of social
theorizing provides little opportunity for such falsification. Rather
than sidestepping the goal of Popperian falsification, the paths
suggested here may be seen as providing both validation and
falsification as stepping-stones toward the goal of more effective
social and organizational theory. |
|
Keywords: Falsification, metatheory, philosophy of science, theory
of theory, three worlds, validation of theory
|
The Toxic Effect on Children of a Degraded U.S. Society, Family, and
Educational Context: How Will This Nation Respond?
|
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Carol Hoare
|
|
Abstract:
This paper explores the relationship among conditions in U.S. society
and families and U.S. educational achievement data. Such information,
along with related data from 30 OECD countries, shows a marked decline
in the U.S. as a context for child development and learning. The focus
of the paper is on indicators of decline. Data from the 2008-2009
Measure of America Human Development Report of the Social Science
Research Council, as well as related economic and educational data, are
highlighted. A point elaborated throughout is that schools are but a
microcosm of society, and that they alone cannot rectify educational
deficits. In the concluding section questions are posed about the will
of U.S. citizens and representative institutions and groups to engage in
serious change efforts. |
|
Keywords: Achievement rates,
American competitiveness, human development, literacy, school drop-out
rates, foreign competition
|
Advanced Change Theory Revisited: An Article Critique
|
|
R. Scott
Pochron
|
|
Abstract: The complexity of life in 21st century society requires
new models for leading and managing change. With that in mind, this
paper revisits the model for Advanced Change Theory (ACT) as presented
by Quinn, Spreitzer, and Brown in their article, “Changing Others
Through Changing Ourselves: The Transformation of Human Systems” (2000).
The authors present ACT as a potential model for facilitating change in
complex organizations. This paper presents a critique of the article and
summarizes opportunities for further exploring the model in the light of
current trends in developmental and integral theory. |
|
|
Vol. 4, No. 1 - Abstracts
|
Integral Time and the Varieties of
Post-Mortem Survival
|
|
Sean M. Kelly
|
|
Abstract:
While the question of survival of bodily death is usually
approached by focusing on the mind/body relation (and often with the
idea of the soul as a special kind of substance), this paper explores
the issue in the context of our understanding of time. The argument of
the paper is woven around the central intuition of time as an
“ever-living present.” The development of this intuition allows for a
more integral or “complex-holistic” theory of time, the soul, and the
question of survival. Following the introductory matter, the first
section proposes a re-interpretation of Nietzsche’s doctrine of eternal
recurrence in terms of moments and lives as “eternally occurring.” The
next section is a treatment of Julian Barbour’s neo-Machian model of
instants of time as configurations in the n-dimensional phase-space he
calls “Platonia.” While rejecting his claim to have done away with time,
I do find his model suggestive of the idea of moments and lives as
eternally occurring. The following section begins with Fechner’s
visionary ideas of the nature of the soul and its survival of bodily
death, with particular attention to the notion of holonic inclusion and
the central analogy of the transition from perception to memory. I turn
next to Whitehead’s equally holonic notions of prehension and the
concrescence of actual occasions. From his epochal theory of time and
certain ambiguities in his reflections on the “divine antinomies,” we
are brought to the threshold of a potentially more integral or
“complex-holistic” theory of time and survival, which is treated in the
last section. This section draws from my earlier work on Hegel, Jung,
and Edgar Morin, as well as from key insights of Jean Gebser, for an
interpretation of Sri Aurobindo’s inspired but cryptic description of
the “Supramental Time Vision.” This interpretation leads to an
alternative understanding of reincarnation—and to the possibility of its
reconciliation with the once-only view of life and its corresponding
version of immortality—along with the idea of a holonic scale of selves
leading from individual personality as we normally experience it,
through a kind of angelic self (a reinterpreted “Jivatma”), and
ultimately to the Godhead as the Absolute Self. Of greater moment than
such a speculative ontology, however, is the integral or
complex-holistic way of thinking and imagining that is called for by
this kind of inquiry.
|
|
Keywords:
Aurobindo, Barbour, complex holism, complexity, death, Fechner, Gebser,
integral, Morin, Nietzsche, reincarnation, soul, survival, time,
Whitehead |
Using
Developmental Theory: When Not to Play Telephone Games
|
|
Sara Nora
Ross |
|
Abstract: As a powerful way to help understand the behaviors of
people and social groupings of all kinds, developmental stage theory
attracts attention and use outside of purely academic environments.
These uses take the form of written materials and many kinds of
interventions. The level of accuracy of developmental theory information
generated and used outside of academe demonstrates wide variety. This
variety is reflected in materials and interventions. The information
used in materials and interventions becomes increasingly distorted as it
becomes further removed from original theoretical sources. This has
major implications for the ethics and expertise issues that are inherent
in applied developmental theory. A classification scheme of
information-use behaviors, many of which contribute to distortion
processes, is used to code actual cases of creating and disseminating
distorted developmental theory information, invoking the metaphor of
telephone games. Case evidence indicates that casual, illustrative
figures in a 2006 book by Wilber were used by others for various serious
and theoretical purposes, and resulted in major distortions of
developmental theory. Wilber’s figures represent problematic issues and
errors, including distortion of theory, if they are used—as they indeed
were—for any purpose more serious than his original purpose. Stemming
from those issues and errors, a highly distorted picture of cognitive
development and a pseudo-version of Commons and Richards’ Model of
Hierarchical Complexity theory emerged, telephone game-like, in the
cases discussed. Errors were widely propagated on the internet. Because
outside of academe, specialized expertise in developmental theory is
difficult to acquire, the sub-field of applied developmental theory
requires not only accurate information but also strong communication
ethics to govern behaviors of information providers. Such providers need
to protect themselves at the same time they protect and inform consumers
of their information. This process of knowledge sharing and knowledge
building can be shaped by adopting guidelines and a basic operating
principle proposed here. Guidelines and principles, without
institutionalization, are insufficient support. A new Institute of
Applied Developmental Theory could provide the supports, standards, and
effectiveness the sub-field of applied developmental theory needs if its
power to address 21st century challenges, which sorely need
it, is to be realized.
|
|
Keywords:
Applied
developmental theory, behaviors, classifications, cognitive development,
Commons, communication ethics, developmental theory, Institute for
Applied Developmental Theory, knowledge-building, Model of Hierarchical
Complexity, Richards, stages, Wilber
|
How Then Do We Choose to Live?
Facing the Climate Crisis and Seeking
“the Meta Response”
Jan Inglis
|
|
Abstract: The author observes that a sense of hopelessness appears
to be forming in our culture in response to recent descriptions of the
impact of climate crisis. This reaction is compared to the way people
respond to diagnoses of life threatening illness. Stages of reactions to
difficult news are known to accompany such responses. The author shares
her own sorting of responses as an example of stage transitions in the
process of grappling with the difficult news of climate crisis.
Transitions from one stage to the next are developmental. The importance
of bringing resources from the field of adult development into the field
of public deliberations to address the climate crisis is emphasized. A
meta approach, “the Gaia approach,” is proposed, as are many questions
for individual and public reflection.
|
|
Keywords: Adult development, climate crisis, deliberation,
developmental, Gaia approach, meta approach, stage transition processes,
complexity
|
Issue 5, 2007 Abstracts
|
The Evolution of
Consciousness as a Planetary Imperative:
An Integration
of Integral Views
|
|
Jennifer Gidley
|
|
Abstract:
In this article I aim to broaden and deepen the evolution of
consciousness discourse by integrating the integral theoretic narratives
of Rudolf Steiner, Jean Gebser, and Ken Wilber, who each point to the
emergence of new ways of thinking that could address the complex,
critical challenges of our planetary moment. I undertake a wide scan of
the evolution discourse, noting it is dominantly limited to
biology-based notions of human origins that are grounded in scientific
materialism. I then broaden the discourse by introducing integral
evolutionary theories using a transdisciplinary epistemology to work
between, across and beyond diverse disciplines. I note the conceptual
breadth of Wilber's integral evolutionary narrative in transcending both
scientism and epistemological isolationism. I also draw attention to
some limitations of Wilber’s integral project, notably his undervaluing
of Gebser's actual text, and the substantial omission of the pioneering
contribution of Steiner, who, as early as 1904 wrote extensively about
the evolution of consciousness, including the imminent emergence of a
new stage. I enact a deepening of integral evolutionary theory by
honoring the significant yet undervalued theoretic components of
participation/enactment and aesthetics/artistry via Steiner and Gebser,
as a complement to Wilber. To this end, I undertake an in-depth
hermeneutic dialogue between their writings utilizing theoretic
bricolage, a multi-mode methodology that weaves between and within
diverse and overlapping perspectives. The hermeneutic methodology
emphasizes interpretive textual analysis with the aim of deepening
understanding of the individual works and the relationships among them.
This analysis is embedded in an epic but pluralistic narrative that
spans the entire human story through various previous movements of
consciousness, arriving at a new emergence at the present time. I also
discuss the relationship between these narratives and contemporary
academic literature, culminating in a substantial consideration of
research that identifies and/or enacts new stage(s) or movements of
consciousness. In particular, I highlight the extensive adult
developmental psychology research that identifies several stages of
postformal thinking, and recent critical, ecological and
philosophical literature that identifies an emerging planetary
consciousness. In summary, my research reveals an interpretation of
scientific and other evidence that points beyond the formal, modernist
worldview to an emerging postformal-integral-planetary
consciousness. I posit that a broader academic consideration of such an
integration of integral theoretic narratives could potentially
broaden the general evolution discourse beyond its current biological
bias. The article concludes with a rewinding of narrative threads,
reflecting on the narrators, the journey, and the language of the
discourse. Appendixes A and B explore the theoretical implications of
the emergence of postformal-integral-planetary consciousness for a
reframing of modernist conceptions of time and space. Appendix C holds
an aesthetic lens to the evolution of consciousness through examples
from the genealogy of writing.
|
|
Keywords:
Aesthetics, evolution of consciousness, futures, Gebser, integral
theory, language, macrohistory, narrative, participation, planetary,
postformal, Steiner, Wilber, space, time, writing |
Towards an Integral Critical Theory
of the Present Age
|
|
Martin
Beck Matuštík |
|
Abstract:
A new model of a critical theory that is integral is introduced. It adds
a seventh stage to a six-stage model of critical theory. Building on the
model’s predecessors, from Kant, Hegel, and Marx to Habermas and Wilber,
this proposal is a three-pronged model of material, socio-political, and
spiritual critique of the present age. Each dimension is non-reducible
to the other. The current model echoes the attempts to bridge social and
existential perspectives by early Marcuse and Sartre, and the author’s
prior work that did this for Habermas and Kierkegaard. This model of an
integral critical theory introduces a self-transformational axis, the
integer or witness-self, complementing transversally the vertical stages
and horizontal states of consciousness.
|
|
Keywords:
Critical theory, Habermas, integral, model, Wilber
|
Developing Integral
Review:
IR
Editors Reflect on Meta-theory, the Concept of "Integral,"
Submission Acceptance Criteria, our Mission, and more.
|
|
Abstract: Over the
past three years our journey as editors of Integral Review has
been full of rich learning. The processes of providing authors with
feedback, going over reviews of articles as well as writing ourselves
have all contributed to our growth. The primary forum for this learning
has been the many conversations amongst us to deal with the various
issues that arise in publishing IR. Our intention in this brief piece is
to share some of our reflections on this learning journey with you.
These will take the form of contributions/reflections from individual
editors, allowing us to share with you the particular issues we feel of
value in this process.
By writing these short
pieces, we aim to provide additional resources for understanding how IR
works. While we have guidelines and criteria for submissions on our
website, it seems that narrative voices from individuals may add some
flesh to them. Relating how we perceive issues around writing for an
“integral” journal offers a supplement for engaging these criteria, and
will hopefully bring them to life. As well, we hope that our writing
provides insights into how and what we think about issues relevant to
IR’s mission. These pieces reflect the unique voices we have as editors
of Integral Review, and demonstrate some of the thinking and
passions behind this journal. |
|
|
Issue 4, 2007 Abstracts
|
Humanity, Forest
Ecology, and the Future
in a British Columbian
Valley: A Case Study
|
|
Stephan
Martineau
|
|
Abstract:
One of the most important and challenging issues facing humanity in the
21st century is the increasingly complex human-ecology interface. This
article suggests the potential that integral mediation and integral
ecology hold in addressing this interface. It distinguishes two
categories of ecological challenges, removed and local
tangible ones, and indicates that they require adapting
methodologies to address them. Using a local tangible challenge—a
35-year old conflict over land use issues in the Slocan Valley, British
Columbia, Canada—as an example, an integral mediation approach is
outlined. First, context is given, both historically and geographically.
Then the main capacities employed in the vision-building and mediation
process are outlined. The article presents the case in such a way as to
emphasize some generalizations, favoring these over a presentation of
many case details. It concludes with a brief description of perspectives
that are prerequisites in order to successfully apply integral solutions
to the human-ecology interface.
|
|
Keywords:
human-ecology interface, integral ecology, integral mediation |
Exploratory
Perspectives for an AQAL Model of Generative Dialogue
|
|
Olen
Gunnlaugson |
|
Abstract: Otto Scharmer’s generative dialogue model of the four
fields of conversation has been largely applied in organizational
settings with the intent of fostering conditions for groups to learn to
think together, generate new knowledge and solve the deeper problems
that pervade organizational culture. This article introduces elements of
Wilber’s Integral or AQAL paradigm as an interpretive framework for
advancing key distinctions within Scharmer’s account of generative
dialogue.
|
|
Keywords: consciousness, generative dialogue, integral,
presencing, reflective dialogue
|
How I Lost My Mind and
Found the Meaning of
“Life”
|
|
Herb Koplowitz
|
|
Abstract: By integrating philosophical rigor with practical
examples and personal history and revelation, the author shares how he
ended his quest to understand the concepts of life, mind, and soul and
resolved the mind-body problem. The article relates the key insight
garnered from Elliott Jaques that triggered a new, internally-consistent
conceptual framework or paradigm. Founded on a unitary organism model of
life, it replaced the mind-body-soul model. The paper is grounded in the
premise that our attempts to answer a question (e.g., "How do we think
and judge?") are hindered by accepting an entity (e.g., mind) whose only
evidence is that the question exists. The logic of the new conceptual
framework is developed through brief, methodical discussions that
juxtapose choice and judgement with calculation, Newtonian
physics, randomness, and self correction. On that foundation, unitary
arguments trace the author’s dissolution of concepts of mind, body, and
soul and the spiritual. General implications of this framework are then
applied to terminology and to the origin of life, abortion, and trading
one duality for another. In relating some personal implications of this
framework in daily life, the author makes the case for the value of
simplicity in conceptual frameworks and the clarity that can result.
|
|
Keywords: body, choice, dualism, Elliott Jaques, judgement, life,
mind, mind-body problem, organical, organism, organismic, soul, unitary
|
Modeling the demands
of interdisciplinarity:
Toward a framework for
evaluating interdisciplinary endeavors
|
|
Zachary Stein
|
|
Abstract:
I suggest there are two key factors that
bear on the quality of interdisciplinary endeavors: the complexity of
cognition and collaboration and the epistemological structure of
interdisciplinary validity claims. The former suggests a
hierarchical taxonomy of forms of inquiry involving more than one
discipline. Inspired by Jantsh (1972) and looking to Fischer's (1980)
levels of cognitive development, I outline the following forms:
disciplinary, multi-disciplinary, cross-disciplinary,
inter-disciplinary, and trans-disciplinary.
This hierarchical taxonomy based on
complexity is then supplemented by an epistemological discussion
concerned with validity. I look to a handful of philosophers to
distil the general epistemological structure of knowledge claims
implicating more than one discipline. This involves differentiating
between levels-of-analysis issues and perspectival issues. When all is
said and done, we end up with a “language of evaluation” applicable to
interdisciplinarity endeavors. Ultimately, this suggests an ideal mode
of interdisciplinary endeavoring roughly coterminous with Wilber's
(2006) Integral Methodological Pluralism.
|
|
Keywords:
cognitive development, epistemology, integral methodological pluralism,
interdisciplinary, language of evaluation, levels-of-analysis,
perspectival, transdisciplinarity
|
Integral Re-views Postmodernism:
The Way
Out Is Through
|
|
Gary P.
Hampson
|
|
Abstract: In this article I re-evaluate the potential contribution
of postmodernism to integral theory via integrally-derived perspectives.
I identify a premature foreclosure: the underappreciation of postformal
modes of thinking (cognitive development beyond Piaget’s formal
operations). I then enact certain forms of postformal reasoning in
relation to integral theory. This includes an engagement with such
perspectives as complexity theory, conceptual ecology, vision-logic,
dialectics, genealogy, critical theory, and construct-awareness. A major
theme concerns the dialectical relationship between reconstruction and
deconstruction—partly explored through a developmental assessment of
contra-indicative discourse by both Wilber and Derrida. Although the
territory is complex, the relationship between current Wilberian theory
and postmodernism is clearly problematised. I posit that a deeper
engagement with postmodernism can lead to an autopoietic deepening of
integral theory.
|
|
Keywords: autopoiesis, construct-awareness, critical theory,
Derrida, dialectics, Gebser, Green vMeme, integral theory, postformal,
postmodernism, recursion, vision-logic, Wilber |
|
|
Issue 3, 2006 Abstracts
|
Drei Avantgarde-Strömungen des heutigen US-Geisteslebens –
und ihre Beziehung zu Europa
|
|
Roland Benedikter
|
|
Zusammenfassung: Die heutigen USA gelten vielen als Vorreiter auf
dem Weg zur integrativen Erneuerung von Wissenschafts- und
Erkenntnisparadigmen. Dies vor allem im Bereich der traditionellen Kern-
und Grundlagen-Wissenschaft der neuzeitlichen Universität: der
Philosophie und der historisch aus ihr erwachsenen Psychologien. Seit
einigen Jahren ist in den USA in der Tat eine Entwicklung im Gang,
welche die Einseitigkeiten des nominalistisch-subjektivistischen
Paradigmas der „Postmoderne“, welches aus ideengeschichtlicher Sicht die
Epoche zwischen 1979 und 2001 geprägt hat, um einen neuen geistigen
Objektivismus ausgleichen und beide zu einem neuen, „subjektiv-objektiven“
Paradigma integrieren will. Diese Entwicklung findet ihren Ausdruck in
drei exemplarischen Avantgarde-Strömungen, die im vorliegenden
Beitragvorgestellt sowie auf Charakteristiken und Wechselbeziehungen
untersucht werden. Dabei erweist sich, dass die heutige
ideengeschichtliche Avantgarde der USA in Kernterminologie, historischer
Kontinuität und Ausrichtung stark pazifisch-asiatisch, aber noch zu
wenig atlantisch-europäisch geprägt ist. Das scheint mit ein Grund dafür
zu sein, warum diese Avantgarde-Ansätze trotz ihres hochwertigen
Anregungs- und Innovations-Potentials im Hinblick auf ein ganzheitlichen
Wissenschafts-Paradigma für das 21. Jahrhundert noch unübersehbare
Schwierigkeiten haben, den atlantisch-europäisch geprägten Hauptstrom
des Geistes-, Kultur- und politisch-sozialen Lebens ihrer Gesellschaft
zu erreichen. Es zeigt sich, dass der innere Ausgleich zwischen
pazifischen und atlantischen Ideen-Einflüssen eine der zentralen
Herausforderungen für diese Avantgarde-Strömungen, aber darüber hinaus
im Spiegelverhältnis auch für das europäische Kultur- und
Gesellschafts-Paradigma sowie für die Entwicklung der integralen
Bewegungen auf Weltebene insgesamt ist.
|
|
Schlüsselwörter: Integrale Bewegungen, Weltphilosophie,
Paradigmen-Erneuerung, Ganzheitliche Wissenschaft, Ideengeschichtliches
Verhältnis USA-Europa, Ken Wilber, Andrew Cohen, A.H. Almaas,
Freimaurerei, Rosenkreuzertum, Anthroposophie, Theosophie.
|
English abstract of original article in German
Three avant-garde currents within the contemporary
intellectual life in the United States – and in their relationship to
Europe
|
|
Roland Benedikter
|
|
Abstract: Many intellectuals consider the U.S.
of today a forerunner for an integrative renewal of scientific and
cognitive paradigms, particularly in the field of philosophy and
psychology. Indeed, since a few years there have been tendencies which
try to compensate the onesidedness of the nominalistic-subjectivistic
paradigm of “postmodernism”—which from a
historical point of view characterized the period between 1979 and
2001—by a new kind of intellectual objectivism, and to integrate both
into a new, “subjective-objective” paradigm. This trend is represented
by three exemplary avant-garde currents which are examined in their
characteristics and correlations. It turns out that the basic
terminology, historical continuity and orientation of these
intellectual-historical avant-garde currents in the U.S. are
characterized by Pacific-Asian influences rather than by
Atlantic-European ones. This seems to explain at least in part, why in
spite of their high-quality innovation potential these avant-garde
approaches, in view of a holistic science paradigm for the 21st
century, still have problems to reach the mainstream of the
intellectual, cultural and politico-social life of their society. It
becomes apparent that the harmony of Pacific and Atlantic influences of
ideas and intellectual traditions poses a central challenge to these
three avant-garde currents, but also to the European cultural and social
paradigm, as well as to the development of integral currents worldwide.
|
|
Keywords: A.H.
Almaas, anthroposophy, Andrew Cohen, freemasonry, holistic science,
intellectual-historical relationship U.S.-Europe, integral currents,
renewal of paradigms, rosicrucianism, theosophy, world philosophy, Ken
Wilber.
|
Of Syntheses and
Surprises:
Toward a Critical
Integral Theory
|
|
Daniel Gustav Anderson
|
|
Abstract: The central concern of this article is how the search
for formal structures with universal values functions ideologically,
addressing Zizek’s claim that East-West syntheses may represent the
dominant ideology par excellance of global capitalism. To this end, the
article offers a Foucaultian genealogy of Integral theory, tracing its
origins to the cultural and subjective contingencies of the British
Empire, primarily in the work of Integral theory’s foundational thinker,
Aurobindo Ghose. The article poses a primary critique of synthesis and
evolution as mythological keys to Ultimate Reality which suggests that
Zizek’s critique may have some validity, and offers the potential for a
“critical integral theory” as an alternative. Situated in Deleuze and
Guattari’s concept of becoming, and represented in the ideas and
practices of a constellation of thinkers inclusive of Gurdjieff,
Benjamin, and Trungpa, the article’s view of integration supports
radical democracy as presented in the writings of Laclau and Mouffe as a
model outcome for social and personal transformational practices.
|
|
Keywords: ideology, integral, critical, becoming-other,
transformational practice, Aurobindo, Deleuze, Guattari, Ziporyn,
Tarthang, Trungpa, Benjamin, Gurdjieff, Laclau, Mouffe, Zizek.
|
Measuring an Approximate g in Animals and People
|
|
Michael Lamport Commons
|
|
Abstract: A science of comparative cognition ultimately needs a
measurement theory, allowing the comparison of performance in different
species of animals, including humans. Current theories are often based
on human performance only, and may not easily apply to other species. It
is proposed that such a theory include a number of indexes: an index of
the stage of development based on the order of hierarchical complexity
of the tasks the species can perform; an index of horizontal complexity;
and measures of g (for general intelligence) and related indexes. This
article is an early-stage proposal of ways to conceive of g in animals
and people. It responds to Geary’s argument that domain-general
mechanisms are essential for evolutionary psychologists. Existing
research is used to enumerate domains, such as problem solving behavior
in pursuit of food, or behaviors in pursuit of mates and/or
reproduction, and itemize identifiable human social domains. How to
construct g, across domains and within domains, is described.
|
|
Keywords: comparative cognition, domains, evolutionary
psychology, hierarchical complexity, g, intelligence, IQ, measurement
theory
|
The Centrality of Human Development in
International Development Programs:
An Interview with
Courtney Nelson
|
|
By Russ Volckmann
|
|
Abstract: For over forty years Courtney Nelson was engaged in
projects in Africa, Asia and the Middle East that were focused on trying
to make a positive difference in the lives, work, and organizations of
people confronting rapid change, new demands on themselves and their
families, and worldwide economic and political forces that few
understood. Courtney’s integral perspective is evident here as he forges
a clear presentation of the relationships among variables in
development. |
|
|
A Process Model of
Integral Theory
|
|
Bonnitta Roy
|
|
Abstract: In this article I introduce a Process Model of integral
theory, combining Dzogchen ideas and Western works on process
philosophy. I make a distinction between Wilber’s notion of perspective
and the Dzogchen notion of view. I make the further distinction between
Wilber’s use of process in his writings from what I consider to be a
process view. I distinguish epistemological categories of knowing from
ontological ways of understanding and propose ways to integrate the
epistemological field with the ontological dimension by contextualizing
both the ways they are related, and the characteristics that distinguish
them. This article outlines the conditions of structural enfoldment and
shows how they can help contextualize the limits of structural
frameworks. I introduce how process models of cognition,
conceptualization and value can be integrated into the Process Model.
|
|
Keywords: Dzogchen, epistemological field, Guenther, integral
theory, microgenesis, ontological dimension, perspective, process model,
states of consciousness, structural enfoldment, structure-stages, view. |
|
|
Issue 2, 2006 Abstracts
|
The Springs of Leadership
|
|
Nathan Harter
|
|
Abstract: Leadership denotes activity, if not strenuous activity.
Yet in its own way contemplation is an activity—an activity arguably at
the root of leadership, which this meditation seeks to justify.
|
|
Keywords:
Activity, contemplation/meditation, ensimismamiento, leadership,
nature.
|
A Transdisciplinary Mind: An Interview with Ian Mitroff
|
|
By Russ
Volckmann
|
|
Abstract: Known more widely as the “Father of Crisis
Management,” University of Southern California professor Ian Mitroff
came to the work of Ken Wilber and integral theory over two decades ago.
No one else has brought an integral perspective to the fields of
management and organization theory for as long as Mitroff. In this
interview he talks about the development of his theories, the people he
has worked closely with, his spiritual development and the streams of
his work, including his research on spirituality in organizations. While
his involvement with Wilber’s Integral Institute is not what he would
like it to be, he sees there the potential to develop an institution
that addresses the politicization and failures of our institutions of
higher education. In the face of the crisis in leadership, integral and
transdisciplinary approaches have the potential for making a positive
difference as we are faced with the dissolution of distinctions that
underlie how we make meaning in the world.
|
|
Keywords:
crisis, integral, leadership, psychology, spirituality, systems,
transdisciplinary
|
Integrales Lernen in und von Organisationen
|
|
Wendelin Küpers
|
|
Abstract: Bezogen
auf das integrale Models von Ken Wilber untersucht der Beitrag die
Bedeutung des Lernens in und von Organisationen. Nach einer Darstellung
der Relevanz und des Grundverständnisses des Lernens im
Organisationskontext, werden integrale Dimensionen des Lernens
dargestellt. Im Einzelnen werden die verschiedenen Sphären eines
inneren-subjektiven und äusseren-„objektiven“ Lernens des Einzelnen als
auch ein gemeinschaftliches Lernen und Lernen im System auf der
kollektiven Ebene dargestellt sowie deren interrelationaler Zusammenhang
diskutiert. Schließlich beschreibt der Beitrag noch integrale
Lernprozesse sowie integrale Gestaltungsfelder zur Förderung des Lernens
in den verschiedenen Bereichen. Abschließend spricht der Artikel noch
Schwierigkeiten und Probleme an sowie nimmt im Fazit ein
perspektivischen Ausblick vor.
|
|
Keywords:
Integrale lernprozesse, integrale theorie, organisatorisches lernen.
|
|
Abstract:
Related to the integral model
of Ken Wilber,
this paper investigates the role of learning in and of organisations.
After describing the relevance and basic understanding of learning in
the context of organisations, integral dimensions of learning will be
outlined. In particular learning in the sphere of an inner-subjective
and exterior-objective learning of the individual and a communal
learning and learning within a system on the collective level as well as
its interrelations will be discussed. Afterwards integral learning
processes and various measurements for enhancing integral learning in
the different sphere will be discussed. Finally, difficulties and
problems will be addressed and in conclusion some perspectives and
implications are presented.
|
|
Keywords:
Integral learning processes, integral theory, organizational learning.
|
|
English Summary of this article is available in
PDF.
|
Voegelin’s
Ladder
|
|
Nathan Harter
|
|
Abstract: Leadership has non-logical aspects. One of these is
spirituality. Voegelin’s Ladder provides a context for studying
spirituality as a part of leadership. What it reveals is that
spirituality arises at the intersection of the human with the divine.
Spirituality expresses itself as purpose and aspiration, which a leader
embodies.
|
|
Key words:
Great Chain of Being, leadership, spirituality, Voegelin, Eric.
|
More Perspectives, New Politics, New Life: How a Small Group Used
The Integral Process For Working On Complex Issues
|
|
Sara Ross
|
|
Abstract: This article reports on a small research project with
citizens who wanted to address their community’s chronically adversarial
behaviors and atmosphere. It complements a longer research report on the
same project, which is also published in this issue of Integral
Review. The project used a structured public discourse process, The
Integral Process For Working On Complex Issues (TIP). This article
supplies background on TIP’s origins, then focuses on two areas. First,
it explains the process steps used in the project in conjunction with
the issue that participants developed by using them. Second, using
examples from participants’ experiences of transformative impacts from
their work in the project, it reports on two themes that underlie the
main impacts and outcomes. The group worked on an issue about how its
own intentions and tones needed to be chosen carefully if participants
wanted to improve the adversarial local culture. The article includes
links to “products” the group created in the course of its work. The
themes were about dissolving “us versus them” mindsets and behaviors,
and the liberation of being able to use multiple perspectives (as
compared to only one point of view). This article is aimed at a diverse
audience of individuals and organizations interested in promoting
healthy individual and social change by addressing complex public issues
and relationships. A brief epilogue sketches how TIP embeds criteria of
integral theory.
|
|
Keywords:
action inquiry, complex issues, deliberation, decision-making, group
process, political culture, public discourse, public relationships,
replicable, The Integral Process For Working On Complex Issues,
transformative.
|
Plain and Integral: An Interview with Karen Kho
|
|
By
Jonathan Reams
|
|
Abstract: Karen Kho describes her work in the Alameda
County Green Building Program. She covers the application of an integral
framework to working with a variety of stakeholders in the residential
building industry. This work includes a stakeholder analysis, rating
program, educational materials and guidelines. How the program expanded
beyond Alameda County is also covered.
|
|
Keywords: Green building, integral, residential home
building.
|
Le Peer to Peer:
Vers un Nouveau Modèle de Civilisation
|
|
Michel
Bauwens
|
|
Abstract: Le « peer to peer »
est la dynamique intersubjective caractéristique des réseaux distribués.
Le but de cet essai est de montrer qu'il s'agit d'une véritable nouvelle
forme d’organisation sociale, apte à produire et échanger des
biens, à créer de la valeur. Celle-ci est la conséquence d'un nouvel
imaginaire social, et possède le potentiel de devenir le pilier d'un
nouveau mode d'économie politique, voire d'un nouveau type de
civilisation. Pour cela, nous allons d'abord définir le P2P, décrire en
bref ces manifestations, et le différencier d'autres modalités d'échange
intersubjectif tel que le marché, la hiérarchie, l'économie du don.
Comme principale modalité P2P nous distinguons: Les
processus de production P2P, comme troisième mode
de production, qui n'est ni géré par un mode hiérarchique ou par l'état,
ni répondant à des impératifs de profit ou qui sont modulés par le biais
des prix. Les processus de gouvernance P2P, qui gouverne ces
processus de production. Les formes de propriété P2P,
qui sont destine a empecher l’appropriation prive
de cette production pour le commun.
Afin d’examiner les characteristiques de cette
nouvelle dynamique sociale, nous utilisons la typologie intersubjective
de l’anthropologue Alan Page Fisque, qui distingue: 1. l'échange
égalitaire (Equality Matching), c..a.d l’economie du don. 2. La relation
d’autorité (Authority Ranking) tel qu’elle s’exprime dans le mode
hierarchique. 3. le marché (Market Pricing). 4. la participation commune
(Communal Shareholding).
En conclusion, nous examinons les possibilites
d’expansion de ce nouveau mode sociale et son insertion dans l’economie
capitaliste, en nous nous posons la question: le P2P peut-il etre concu
comme alternative sociale et economique aux modeles existants.
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Keywords: capitalisme, cognitif, Economie,
Internet, Politique, Societe de l'information, Reseaux.
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Abstract:
"Peer to peer" is hypothesized as a new social formation with
intersubjective dynamics characteristic of distributed networks. This is
shown to have profound implications for the transformation of our
current form of market economy. To demonstrate this, I initially will
define P2P, and carefully distinguish it from other modes of production
and governance such as reciprocity-based gift economies, markets etc..
Peer to peer dynamics are associated with a series of important
processes: Peer production as a third mode of production, peer
governance, and Universal common property regimes.
In order
to examine characteristics of this new social dynamic, I use the
intersubjective typology of the anthropologist Alan Page Fisque, who
distinguishes: 1. leveling exchange (Equality Matching), the gift
economy. 2. The relation of authority (Authority Ranking) such as it is
expressed in the hierarchic mode. 3. The market (Market Pricing). 4. The
common participation (Communal Shareholding).
In the
end, I look into the possibilities of expansion for this new social
formation,
which holds great promise for a reform of our polity towards more
participation. I conclude the article with an examination of the
integrative nature of P2P.
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Keywords: Capitalism, cognitive, economy, internet, policy.
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English Summary of this article is available in PDF.
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Perspectives On Troubled Interactions:
What Happened When A Small Group
Began To Address Its Community’s Adversarial Political Culture
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Sara Ross
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Abstract: This study investigated fostering political development
(as defined in the report) through an integration of adult development,
public issues analysis, and structured public discourse. Entitled The
Integral Process For Working On Complex Issues, that multi-session
discourse methodology includes issue analysis and framing, deliberation,
and organizing systemic action. Its issue-framing template helps users
generate multiple approaches to issues that reflect different levels of
complexity and incorporate the conceivable human and institutional
perspectives and environmental life conditions. The small group used the
discourse process to select a public issue of concern and to begin to
address it. It was about how to change the community’s adversarial
political culture. They conducted a deliberative action inquiry into
their own tones and intentions toward that issue as the starting point
to address it, and did deliberative decision-making on that basis. The
political reasoning and culture of the group developed during the study,
evidenced by the group’s work and changes that participants experienced.
The study is the first of its kind in several respects, which are: (a)
to use this public discourse process as part of the research
methodology, (b) to perform this kind of empirical research on public
discourse and deliberation, and (c) to foster political and adult
development while addressing complex issues. This extended length
research report departs from traditional journal article formats not
only by its length but also by integrating its report of findings with
analyses of the processes that resulted in the findings. It is
complemented by a shorter article in this issue of Integral Review,
which describes the steps of the process and the major themes evident in
participants’ experience.
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Key words: action inquiry, adult development,
hierarchical complexity, perspectives, political culture, political
development, transformative learning.
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Collaborative Knowledge Building and Integral Theory:
On Perspectives, Uncertainty, and Mutual Regard
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Tom Murray
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Abstract: Uncertainty in knowing and communicating
affect all aspects of modern life. Ubiquitous and inevitable
uncertainty, including ambiguity and paradox, is particularly salient
and important in knowledge building communities. Because knowledge
building communities represent and evolve knowledge explicitly, the
causes, effects, and approaches to this “epistemological indeterminacy”
can be directly addressed in knowledge building practices. Integral
theory's approach (including “methodological pluralism”) involves
accepting and integrating diverse perspectives in ways that transcend
and include them. This approach accentuates the problems of
epistemological indeterminacy and highlights the general need to deal
creatively with it. This article begins with a cursory analysis of
textual dialogs among integral theorists, showing that, while integral
theory itself points to leading-edge ways of dealing with
epistemological indeterminacy, the knowledge building practices of
integral theorists, by and large, exhibit the same limitations as
traditional intellectual discourses. Yet, due to its values and core
methods, the integral theory community is in a unique position to
develop novel and more adequate modes of inquiry and dialog. This text
explores how epistemological indeterminacy impacts the activities and
products of groups engaged in collaborative knowledge building.
Approaching the issue from three perspectives--mutual understanding,
mutual agreement, and mutual regard—I show the interdependence of those
perspectives and ground them in relation to integral theory’s concerns.
This article proposes three phases of developing constructive
alternatives drawn from the knowledge building field: awareness
of the phenomena, understanding the phenomena, and offering some
tools (and some hope) for dealing with it. Though here I focus on
the integral theory community (or communities), the conclusions of the
article are meant to be applicable to any knowledge building community,
and especially value-oriented groups who see themselves fundamentally as
working together to benefit humanity.
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Keywords: Applied epistemology, cognitive psychology, ethics,
integral theory, knowledge building.
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Integral
Review
and its
Editors
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Sara Ross,
Reinhard Fuhr, Michel Bauwens, Thomas Jordan,
Jonathan
Reams, and Russ Volckmann |
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Abstract: In this introduction to Integral Review’s
inaugural issue, we explain the meaning we give to the title of this
electronic journal which is open-access, both refereed and
peer-reviewed, and why that meaning is important for us in today’s
world. The draft of the basic article, which was intensely discussed
among the members of the editorial committee, was written by Sara Ross
and Reinhard Fuhr,* and following it, other members of the editorial
committee added their personal emphases in reference to the integral
paradigm as well as their (critical) evaluation of the premises made in
the basic article. Thus Thomas Jordan offers a set of categories and
criteria for integral qualities which turned out to be most important in
practice and evaluation processes. Michel Bauwens makes distinctions
about the multi-perspectival nature of the integral paradigm, points out
ways to avoid four different kinds of reductionism, and highlights
layers of awareness. Russ Volckman emphasizes the connection between the
diversity of worldviews and methodologies, which allow us to also
integrate recent developments in behavioral approaches in his
professional field of organization and leadership development. Jonathan
Reams emphasizes the new, transcendent quality of an integral approach
that enables us to use different qualities of “reflection” flexibly and
- as we have a meta-framework of human perceptions and values - to
recognize everybody's truth and feel compassionate with it. We then
close with a discussion of the relationship between Integral Review
and the mission of its non-profit publisher, ARINA, Inc.
Editor’s note: Sara
Ross is president of ARINA, Inc. and coordinator of IR, Reinhard Fuhr is
editor-in-chief of IR |
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Key words: change agents, complexity, consciousness development,
Gebser, integral, integration, paradigm, research, social change,
transformation, Wilber |
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Jean Gebser: Das Integrale Bewusstsein |
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Kai
Hellbusch
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Zusammenfassung: Um den Begriff des integralen Bewusstseins bei
Jean Gebser deutlich werden zu lassen, werden die Bewusstseinsstrukturen
in ihrem konzeptionellen Stellenwert erläutert, bevor jede einzelne
vorgestellt wird. Die Kenntnis der bisherigen Bewusstseinsstrukturen ist
Voraussetzung für die Kenntnis des integralen Bewusstseins, das sich
aber nicht in der Integration des Früheren erschöpft, sondern seine
eigene Aufgabe hat: die Realisierung der Zeit, also die Konkretion der
den Bewusstseinsstrukturen zugehörigen Zeitformen. Dadurch entsteht eine
neue Freiheit, die als bewusste Annäherung an das Göttliche, den „Ursprung“,
zu verstehen ist. |
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Schlüsselwörter:
Bewusstseinsstrukturen, Mutation, integrales Bewusstsein,
Konstitutionstheorie, neue Wirklichkeit, Zeit.
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Jean Gebser: The Integral
Consciousness
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Kai
Hellbusch
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Abstract: The
Swiss-German philosopher Jean Gebser is introduced as the first to
describe the integral worldview in detail. The author sketches Gebser's
biography, explains his basic assumption of a universal consciousness
from which basic structures of consciousness emerge, and describes the
different stages of consciousness development from archaic to magic to
mythic to mental to integral. The integral structure of consciousness is
presented in its main characteristics as an attitude towards the world,
to ourselves and in particular to time. |
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Key words:
Structures of consciousness, mutation, integral consciousness, universal
origin (Ursprung), new reality, time |
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English Summary of this article is available in
PDF. |
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Complexity
Intelligence and Cultural Coaching:
Navigating the Gap Between Our Societal Challenges and Our Capacities |
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Jan
Inglis and Margaret Steele |
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Abstract:
In this article, we present the term complexity intelligence as a
useful moniker to describe the reasoning ability, emotional
capacity and social cognition necessary to meet the challenges of our
prevailing life conditions. We suggest that, as a society and as
individuals, we develop complexity intelligence as we navigate
the gap between our current capacities and the capacities needed to
respond to the next stage of complex challenges in our lives. We further
suggest that it is possible to stimulate and support the emergence of
complexity intelligence in a society, but we need a new form
of social change agent - a cultural coach, to midwife its
emergence. |
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Key
words:
complexity, reasoning ability, emotional capacity, social cognition,
adult development, social change, cultural coach |
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The Development of Dialectical Thinking
As An Approach to Integration
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Michael Basseches
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Abstract: This article offers a description of dialectical
thinking as a psychological phenomenon that reflects adult intellectual
development. While relating this psychological phenomenon to the various
dialectical philosophical perspectives from which the description is
derived, the article conceptualizes dialectical thinking as a form of
organization of thought, various aspects of which can be identified in
individual adults' approaches to conceptualizing a range of problems,
rather than as one particular stream of intellectual history. The
article provides a range of examples of dialectical analyses,
contrasting them with more formalistic analyses, in order to convey the
power, adequacy, and significance of dialectical thinking for the sorts
of challenges that this journal embraces. It suggests that events in all
areas of life demand recognition of the limitations of closed-system
approaches to analysis. Approaches based instead on the organizing
principle of dialectic integrate dimensions of contradiction, change and
system-transformation over time in a way that supports people's
adaptation when structures under girding their sense of self/world
coherence are challenged. Higher education and psychotherapy are
considered as examples of potential contexts for adult intellectual
development, and the conditions that foster such development in these
contexts are discussed. The article as a whole makes the case for
consciously attempting to foster such development in all our work as an
approach to integration.
Key words: dialectic, development, transformation, constitutive
relationships, interaction, multiple systems, open systems,
metasystematic, epistemic adequacy, dialectical thinking, dialectical
philosophical perspective, dialectical analysis, psychotherapy, higher
education |
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Toward
An Integral Process Theory Of Human Dynamics:
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Sara Ross
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Abstract: This article is an outline toward developing a fuller
process theory of human dynamics aimed at practical applications by a
diverse audience. The theory represents a transdisciplinary synthesis of
a universal pattern and integrates humans’ projection dynamics with
complex systems dynamics. Five premises, presented in lay language with
examples, capture basic elements involved in the meta process of human
development and change: reciprocity, projection, development’s
structural limits, oscillations, and structural coupling. Based on a
fractal dialectical pattern that shows up wherever complex systems are
involved, the theory’s applications are scalable. It could be useful for
personal development, public policy design, issue analysis, and systemic
action on intransigent issues. It may be a complementary adjunct to
developmental stage theories because it deals in an accessible way with
the processes involved in stage transitions. Throughout the article, its
practical relevance at some individual, social, and political scales is
illustrated or mentioned. Readers interested in individual and social
change may gain a sense of the human dynamics involved in it, and thus
the potential usefulness of a process theory that describes what goes on
in human change and development.
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Key words: developmental process, dynamics, fractal, human
development, integral, meta pattern, meta process, metasystems,
oscillations, physics, processes, process theory, projection,
psychology, public policy, public issues, reciprocity, reciprocal
interaction, social change, structural coupling, systems, tango,
universal |
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Timely
and Transforming Leadership Inquiry and Action:
Toward Triple-loop Awareness |
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Anne Starr and Bill Torbert
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Abstract: Drawing from situations in business, art, leadership
education, and home life, this essay experiments with diverse ways to
communicate the experience of triple-loop awareness. Contrasting it with
single- and double-loop feedback in a person’s awareness, the
triple-loop supposedly affords the capacity to be fully present and
exercise re-visioning, frame-changing timely leadership. The essay
presents an encompassing theory of time and of its relationship with our
own capacity for awareness. The experiment concludes with the reminder
to readers that a first reading is like walking around the base of a
mountain. The authors invite readers to try out one of the uphill paths
of being with these experiments with a different kind of attention.
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Key words: action-logic, awareness, inquiry, leadership,
learning, re-visioning, timely action, theory of time, transformation,
triple-loop |
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Good,
Clever and Wise:
A study of political meaning-making among integral change agents
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Thomas
Jordan in an Interview with Russ Volckmann
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Abstract: Thomas Jordan discusses the intellectual and research
foundations that have led to his creation of a consciousness development
model. In interview research that he conducted among selected personnel
in Swedish defense and security agencies, Jordan has focused on three
key skill sets: consciousness skills, self-awareness and embeddedness or
identification. From this he has identified seven characteristics that
show up in various patterns among those he interviewed. The first
three—good, clever, and wise—are key characteristics. The next four
follow from them: curious, inventive, modest and handy. These show up in
variable combinations among these integral change agents involved with
promoting change within political institutions.
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Key words:
Integral, change agent,
consciousness, skills, political, meaning-making |
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What’s
Integral about Leadership?
A Reflection on Leadership
and Integral Theory
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Jonathan Reams
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Abstract: This article provides an introduction to the idea of
integral leadership. It describes the basic premises of integral theory,
focusing on the four quadrants, levels or stages of development, and
lines or streams of development. It briefly examines the relationship of
consciousness to leadership, and then provides an overview of the
history of leadership theory from an integral perspective. It then
suggests a distinction between an integrally informed approach to
leadership and integral leadership, and closes with questions deserving
further inquiry. |
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Key words: integral, leadership, consciousness, development,
transpersonal
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Ein
Integraler Gestalt-Ansatz
fuer Therapie und Beratung
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Reinhard Fuhr & Martina
Gremmler-Fuhr |
|
Zusammenfassung: In diesem Text stellen wir
unseren Ansatz für Psychotherapie und Beratung auf dem Hintergrund des
integralen Paradigmas dar. Wir erläutern zunächst kurz vier
Anforderungen an ein integrales Konzept in diesem professionellen
Bereich: Umgang mit Komplexität und Vielperspektivität, Berücksichtigung
gerichteter, vieldimensionaler Entwicklung, Orientierungs- und
Sinngebungsfunktion, Realisierung relationaler Qualitäten in der Arbeit.
Nach einer Begriffsbestimmung von „Therapie“, „Beratung“ und „Bildung“
charakterisieren wir das seit vielen Jahren von uns entwickelte Konzept
für den Integralen Gestalt-Ansatz unter den Fragen nach (1) den
Intentionen und Aufgaben von Therapie und Beratung, (2) der Gestaltung
der Kommunikation und Beziehung, (3) der Art der Problemdefinition und
dem Umgang mit Diagnostik sowie (4) den Strategien und Methoden - alle
unter Rückkopplung an die zuvor erläuterten Anforderungen an ein
integrales Konzept. |
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Schlüsselwörter:
Psychotherapie, Beratung, intentionaler Dialog, Gesprächszyklus,
Beziehung, holarchische Entwicklung, Phänomenologie, Hermeneutik,
Problemidentifikation, Diagnostik |
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An Integral Gestalt Approach for
Psychotherapy and Counseling |
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Reinhard
Fuhr & Martina Gremmler-Fuhr
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Abstract: In this text we
present our approach to psychotherapy and counseling on the background
of the integral paradigm. We shortly explain four major requirements for
such an integral concept: handling complexity and multi-perspectivity,
considering directed and multi-dimensional development, offering
orientation and meaning, relational qualities. After defining the terms
„psychotherapy“, „counselling“, and „education“ we present our concept
for the Integral Gestalt Approach which we have developed and evaluated
for many years by dealing with four questions: (1) the intentions and
tasks of therapy and counselling, (2) the formation of communication and
relationship, (3) the specific way of defining problems and using
diagnostics, and (4) the strategies and methods - all related back to
the major requirements of an integral concept. |
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Key words: therapy,
counseling, intentional dialogue, cycle of contact, relationship,
holarchical development, phenomenology, hermeneutics, disidentification,
problem identification, diagnostics.
English Summary of this article and its figures is
available in
PDF.
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