Dr. Keith Witt on the psychological mechanisms that animate evolution. All living processes exist in a rhythm of opposing forces which create conflict, resolving into either cooperation or domination. This dynamic of tension is the subtext of most human activity.
We humans take the drives and turn them into art, and arguably the oldest art forms we have are the mythic stories beginning with the ancestral tribes. I believe the human pair bond is the fundamental driver of much mythology.
We feel observed all the time. We feel observed by our conscious selves and our inner critics. We feel observed by others–by our real and imagined tribes, by the people we pass on the street—because we are tribal beings, evolved to need each other.
The Warrior, the Healer, and the Man of Wisdom are universal archetypes that inform our personal evolution in countless ways. They are intertwined in our adaptive unconscious–our Shadow selves.
Let’s focus mostly on therapists’ growth as human beings. I believe that such an emphasis is a new paradigm for developing mastery in psychotherapy.
We live in a relational universe. Our lives revolve around relationships with others, nature, the world, the past/present/future, and our countless interior selves, memories, and habits.
If you want enduring bliss, you need to know how to repair injuries back to love! This of course begs the question, “What are the secrets of successful relational repair?”
If we feel that we want a life partnership with a person, the commitment needs to shift from, “I’ll stay as long as,” to “I’ll do what it takes to make us work.” This is a massive change in commitment!
Integral parenting is simply parenting mostly from integrally informed perspectives. Being Integrally informed helps you be a superior parent, but you don’t have to know Integral to be a great parent.
Integral theory is a meta-theory that creates a scaffolding within which all other theories are organized. Integral psychotherapy is any therapy that takes into account a global understanding of the Kosmos. Objective/subjective, individual/collective, states of consciousness, lines of development, stages of development, spiritual/temporal, and types of individuals are core dimensions of Integral understanding. Any healing approach that practically utilizes these perspectives as cross-validating, mutually influencing forces is by definition Integral psychotherapy.