CODA: Keith E. Rice, Knowing Me, Knowing You:
An Integrated SocioPsychology Guide to Personal Fulfillment & Better Relationships, Trafford Publishing, 2006
Here is a highly professional treatment of an approach to understanding ourselves and other people. The use of the term “SocioPsychology” serves as a clue that the author integrates the work of Clare Graves, Don Beck and Chris Cowan into his approach. So here we have a serious approach to integrating Spiral Dynamics with Neuro-Linguistic Programming, the work of Robert Dilts’ treatment, after Bateson, of levels of mind and neurology, Eysenck’s biological approach to personality, Wilber’s spirituality and many others. In that sense, this is a book after Ken Wilber’s heart and in the intellectual tradition of Ken Wilber whose research based work is so heavily footnoted.
At the same time, this is a self-help book in the sense that the author is often very personal in his writing style and offers steps and techniques that one can use in one’s development. One example is his presentation of Eysenck’s dimensions of personality, which includes these examples:
- Unstable-Introvert: anxious, unhappy, pessimistic, serious, thoughtful, unsociable;
- Stable-Introvert: quiet, careful, peaceful, persistent, contented, calm.
- Unstable-Extravert: restless, egocentric, optimistic, hot-headed active, histrioic; and
- Stable-Extravert: playful, outgoing, sociable, lively, hopeful, and (interestingly) leadership.
The concept of leadership is not elaborated.
He then follows with questions like:
- “which of the characteristics in the Dimensions describe your termperament(s)?” and
- “how far from the central intersection would you put yourself on the Introversion-Extroversion, the Stability-Instability and the Impulse Control-Psychoticism axes?”
And he provides a mini-test to help you develop scores for answering this last question.
Rice’s treatment of Graves/Beck/Cowan and Spiral Dynamics seems rather thorough. It includes an interesting comparison between various developmental models between these and Maslow, Heard, Loevinger, Harvey, Hunt and Schroeder, Kohlberg, Weber and Marson. The comparisons are interesting in that he places elements of others’ theoretical works into the developmental levels of the spiral.
A treatment of the “mechanics of change” compares the “Gestalt Cycle” of Fritz Perls with the Gamma trap-Delta model of Spiral Dynamics. In the case of the latter therapy and NLP are offered as ways of escaping the Gamma trap. He closes the first part, Knowing Me, with 13 tips for psychological health. Here are a couple of examples:- Accept the way you are temperamentally. That is just you and there isn’t a huge amount you can do the change ‘you’. Don’t try to be something you can’t be; so relax and be who you are.
- Don’t assume that your perceptions are correct; they are simply schematic maps you have formed, based mainly on your vMEMES accepting the memes others have exposed you to.
From here, the author turns toward “Knowing You…” We can build on the work of knowing ourselves to help us understand others. Here NLP makes a stronger appearance through meta-modeling—“the use of language to explore another’s ‘inner world’.” And he adds to that the idea of Meta Programs as developed by Bandler, Bailey and Charvet, all framed in terms of the Spiral. For example, “People Who Move Away From problems avoid things w3hich threaten their success.” He then applies all of this to such topics as strategies for healthy relationships, conflict management, sex in human relationship, love, parents and children/teenagers and the workplace. And there are tips for managing cisharmony in relationships, for example:
- When you are dissatisfied with a relationship, check whether the cuase of the dissatisfaction is due to you, the other person(s) or both of you/more than one of you. When doing so, beware of your own attribution style and the attribution style of the other(s)…
- Be careful of projecting something you dislike about yourself onto the other(s) and then finding fault with them for it…
- Recognise when a relationship is at its end. Don’t keep on trying to save something that can’t be saved…
This book is a significant contribution to SocioPsychology approaches to life and learning. It goes far beyond the typical self-help book in its sophistication and seems to be aimed at individuals with fairly high levels of cognitive development. A brief treatment such as this hardly does it justice. Anyone who is interested in development will find it a challenge worth taking.
Brad Reynolds, Where’s Wilber At? Ken Wilber’s Integral Vision in the New Millenium. St. Paul, MN, US A: Paragon House, 2006.
Whether in conversations with individuals or in groups the question often arises as to whether there is one book that someone can read to get started understanding Ken Wilber’s work. I have heard people suggest Ken Wilber’s Theory of Everything: “It is a good summary of what Wilber is about.” Other’s have suggested Frank Vissar’s Ken Wilber: Thought as Passion: “He has organized Wilber’s work into understandable phases so you get to understand the evolution of Wilber’s ideas and integral theory and practice.”
An now we have Brad Reynold’s work, a Wilber-acceptable discussion of Wilber’s approach and integral theory, practice and where it is all headed. Reynolds presents a highly sympathetic discussion of Wilber’s work, grounded in a shared spiritual understanding.
Reynolds clarifies, contextualizes and interprets the implications of Wilber’s work. This includes the spiritual orientation, the integration of spirit and science, integral modeling (holons, holarchies, lines, stages, stages, types—AQAL). He lays out the developmental patterns of individuals. The metatheoretical and methodological pluralism, as Wilber says,
Integral Methodological Pluralism…means that we allow (and rely on) every major mode of acquiring experience—every major methodology, paradigm, injunction, exemplar technique, and so on, because each of them, without exception, is delivering some important piece of the overall puzzle….Integral methodological pluralism…includes the most amount of truth from the most number of sources based on the most amount of evidence in the most holistic fashion possible…and for [that] simple reason it honors and includes more truth than any of the alternatives.
Wilber’s pluralistic and integral exploration of the development of knowledge, understanding and effective developmental action is one of his most important contributions. It leads to many of the points that Reynolds presents regarding integral development, a developmental process from the individual to the world.
He describes the Integral Operating System, lays out the elements of Integral Life Practice and includes a discussion of Wilber’s clarification of the notion of paradigm that goes beyond simply theories and mental models to practice and action.
Wilber’s vision includes an integral world governance that is a “genuine World Federation.” This is not a domineering new world order, but “a tolerant ’celebration of diversity,’ one that leads to a genuine Unitas Multiplex of ‘unity in diversity.’” So here is the theme that runs through all of the levels and contexts of integral development: it is fundamentally about integrating the diversity within us and in the world. Read the book and enjoy the richness of presentation of a very complex set of ideas.
