The Promises & Pitfalls of Developmental Models

In this episode, Dr. Sally and Dr. Jen take a look at the benefits and limitations of developmental models, theories and maps. 

Transcript

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1:22 Sally says Episode 15 describes transformation as a process of change in our ‘meaning-making’ capacities, throughout our life. This is our ‘development’. So Episode 16 is an overview of developmental models. Humans don't stop developing at childhood, but potentially develop into old age. These stages have now been ‘mapped”. We can find out where we are in the human potential spectrum. We've got 80 years to grow, and we can go the whole way in one lifetime. And we can actively engage in our transformation, as opposed to ‘letting it just happen’ to us. We believe the meaning of life is about transformation and growth. Humans cannot live by bread alone. We have to have meaning, and our ability to make meaning changes as we mature. Our ability to ‘see’ reality more clearly changes as we mature. In the west, psychology is only about 100 years old. And we've had some spectacular players in the last couple of decades. But some of our maps are ancient. In India we had developmental maps for 3000 years in how to become ‘enlightened’ as they called it. We've discussed the chakras, which is an embodied map of how our motivations change as we mature. In Kabbalah, we have a map from the 13th century, of how the soul can develop and change through a series of levels of maturation, to becoming completely in union with the Divine. The West did not invent developmental maps. As long as people have been around, we've had simple ideas of good and evil - basic early developmental maps of moral hierarchies. This idea of ‘good and bad’ then developed into maps like the 10 commandments, ethical codes, or a system of law, where if you transgress, you are punished. We've taken this much further now, than just basic notions of good and evil, to maps of changing motivations and values. What was called ‘enlightenment’, we now call our ‘full potential’.

8:29 Jen says she’s a huge fan of developmental models. Humans have this tendency to want to grow, develop and progress, and be aligned with that momentum of transformation. But there are also limitations to those maps, and she will discuss those. At the core of transformation is progress, which is development. Developmental models allow us to quantify and dissect that momentum of progress into more manageable bites. Maps can help us grow through this journey more efficiently and consciously. Every different field of study and their respective disciplines have their own kind of developmental model, from the transpersonal to the scientific. She describes these. They are all exploring ‘progression’. She can go into any map, and can find herself within it. It helps her pinpoint where she can improve. And we're not alone. Maps give reassurance that we’re in this together. At the same time, those markers can come with some pitfalls, like comparing ourselves with others. Yet this can open the door to the support that we need, that will bolster our growth. We can use these developmental models in our own life; to create programs, policies, and opportunities that encourage transformation.

15:17  Sally says after the Industrial Revolution kids were brought in from the farms and sent to school for the first time ever. Victorians treated kids quite harshly, dressed them like mini adults, chastised them if they failed to be mature. Then Piaget said kids are at a different ‘stage’ from adults, that we need to respect their growth. Then schools started gradating the development of children. Education faculties studied the ability of humans to learn in stages, to respect the development of consciousness, particularly in small humans. In the last couple of decades, psychologists realized we don't stop developing at grade 12, and lots of developmental maps have come about. Ken Wilber for example was the first to look at all the maps, and find common trends, despite the slight differences. Sally then describes some progressions common to all the maps. Suzanne Cook Greuter would say that 80% of adults stop half way. But there's further potential. Sally gives examples, including the movement from ego-centric, to ethno-centric, to world-centric, to cosmo- centric. We include more in our circle of care, as we develop, including our ability to take multiple perspectives, and our shifts in identity. We develop an ability to understand that we are a ‘process’, of 4 billion years, that evolution itself is working through us. That is a complete identity shift. 

24:20 Jen says we needed new maps that are not just for children, but for adults, who are really pushing the edges. Those shifts in consciousness and identity are not reserved for kids, or the elite, religious folks. These shifts in consciousness and identity are for all of us. That's our birthright. But there are drawbacks too. Whenever we stick to these stages as rigid constructs, we lose our flexibly. Developmental maps are good at simplifying complexity. But that simplification comes at a price, of truly appreciating each individual as a complex system, a field of transformation, existing within fields of transformation. We are recognizing that we cannot be forced into tight binary boxes. We cannot be understood in terms of right and wrong. Black and white dualistic thinking no longer fits our experiences. Our inner world and sense of self are deeply nuanced. Models that take a more rigid, categorical view of us are failing to recognize our greater complexity. These models can be rife with a lot of cultural biases and blind spots that are not applicable to all people, or all unique individuals, those who fall outside of the margins of the dominant frame. We need to take into account socio economic status, environmental factors and cultural influences, and how these impact development. People can be labeled and stigmatized, as wrong or bad, and to us, that's an ethical concern, because discrimination then arises. So it's important to look at both sides and be a conscious participant with these models. 

31:16 Sally suggests listeners look at a model called Spiral Dynamics if they are interested in going deeper, and finding out where they ‘are’, or why their relationships may be difficult. But it’s not our job to diagnose people because we are not their therapists. But therapists are now using these maps compassionately. She also suggests the work of Ken Wilber and his Integral Psychology. He pulled out the transformative mechanisms of how we move from stage to stage - “include and transcend”. When we transform we expand – ‘including’ the previous stage, and then ‘transcending’ to the next stage. Transformation is a process of slowly expanding over a lifetime, to have more complexity, taking in more perspectives, and learning how to relate to people where they're at. Robert Keegan, a developmental educator in the US, pointed out that the actual mechanism for growth is that the previous stage, which you felt very ‘subjectively’ when you were immersed in it, can now be seen as an ‘object’. Sally describes how this happens. As we mature, we can see the previous stages clearly and they're objective. We believe the opposite is equally true though. As we develop, and the more rational and hyper objective we become, we also have to turn the objective into the subjective. Imagining the sentience of other beings is critical to our future. This is our personal contribution to developmental maps. This is the ultimate ‘pair of ducks’, or paradox. Sally then describes Suzanne Cook Greuter’s stages of ego development, and quotes her definition of transformation.

41:16  Jen says as we transform, our circle of care becomes larger and larger, and ego’s restrictive hold on us becomes less. And ultimately, our own development is in service to the development of the planet, and the future. We need to assume that any developmental model isn't going to account for our full complexity. Mindfulness is the key. We pay attention to our own patterns, so that we can then pay attention to the patterns around us. That's what self awareness is all about. We add tools to our healing toolbox. We cannot be reduced or simplified. We understand that everyone we're engaging with is at their own stage of development, and that brings forward compassion, not judgement. And the process of development is dynamic, multifaceted, nonlinear, messy, changing. There is no shame if we don't fit into the expectations of a particular model. Jen then cites Alfred Korzybski “the map is not the territory”. The maps are not who we ‘are’. 

46:28  Sally says some maps are 1000s of years old, but we're becoming more sophisticated in our description of the stages. We are all living at the cutting edge of evolution, as consciousness keeps expanding. We don't know where we're going next, the maps could be out-dated, very shortly, because we've only mapped up to a certain stage. Let's always keep an open mind. One of the reassuring things is the research has been done in every culture. Not only are the maps helpful in families, but in different countries, too. Nations have ‘centers of gravity’. You can understand the politics better. Sally then describes how each life’s unfolding is an iteration of the whole of humanity's unfolding over time, a movement from pre- modern, to modern, to post-modern, and now perhaps to meta-modern. In 80 years we cover the same journey as the whole of humanity’s journey through time. We are iterative fractals. The next couple of episodes will look at some of these maps in more detail.