iNtegral Psychology

Part 1
\In"te*gral\
 a. 1. Lacking nothing of completeness;
complete; perfect; uninjured; whole; entire.
(Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary)

 “comprehensive, balanced, inclusive, essential

for completeness.” (dictionary)

•2
\Psy*chol"o*gy\

 The science of the human soul;

specifically, the systematic or
scientific knowledge of the powers
and functions of the human soul.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary

•3
“Psychology is the study of human
consciousness and its
manifestations in behavior.”
(Wilber, p. 1)

•4
 Problem with psychology is
 The different schools of psychology that have
historically developed have often reduced
consciousness to only one of its many aspects and
proclaim it the most important or only aspect
worth study.

•5
For example, the following schools have
reduced consciousness to

 Behaviorism:its observable, behavioral

manifestations
 Psychoanalysis:structures of the ego and
their impact on the id
 Existentialism:
its personal structures and
modes of intentionality (freedom,
meaning, choice, creativity, etc.)

•6
 Transpersonal: altered states of
consciousness (“spiritual states”)
 Asian psychologies: transformations
from personal to transpersonal
 Cognitive: objective neural
functions and cognitive process
(attention, perception, memory,
language, etc.)

•7
Integral Psychology

 “Endeavors to honor and embrace

every legitimate aspect of human
consciousness.”

 Drawing on premodern, modern and

postmodern sources

•8
 Who is kEN WILBER?
 Born in 1949 in Oklahoma City, Ken
Wilber lived in many places during his
school years, due to his father being in
the Air Force. He completed high
school in Bellevue, Nebraska, and
started Medicine at Duke University.
However, during his first year he lost all
interest in science, and started to
read in psychology and philosophy,
both West and East. He went back to
Nebraska to study biochemistry, but
after a few years dropped out of the
academic world (with a major in
biochemistry) to devote all his time to
studying his own curriculum and writing
books.
The Quadrants
Upper Left (UL) Upper Right (UR)

Interior Behavioral
(Non-physical aspect of the (physical aspect of the
individual) individual)
(Mind,psyhe,soul.spirit) (body and behavior)
(Subjective) (Objective)

Lower Left (LL) Lower Right (LR)

(Non-physical aspect of the Social

collective) (Physical aspects of the
(Shared beliefs, values, collective)
concepts, emotions) (Shared behavior)
(intersubjective) (Interobjective)
•(C) Rodney H. Clarken, 2004 •10
 Upper Left (UL) Upper Right (UR)
o Psychology o Physics
o Cognitive Psychology o Chemistry
o Psychoanalysis
o Depth Psychology o Biology
o Developmental Theories o Psychology
o Cognitive o Behavioral Psychology
o Moral
o Psychosocial o Physical Anthropology
o Psychosexual
o Ego-Identity
o Consciousness Studies
o Philosophy of Mind
o Spiritual Traditions
Lower Left (LL) Lower Right (LR)
o Psychology o Psychology
o Social Psychology o Social Psychology
o Native Psychology (Filipino Psychology) o Group Dynamics
o Environmental Psychology o Environmental Psychology
o Cultural Anthropology o Sociology
o Hermeneutics
o Semiotics
o Organizational Theory
o Linguistics o Systems Theory
o Religion o Human Ecology
o Literature
o Mythology
•(C) Rodney H. Clarken, 2004 •11
 Upper Left (UL) Upper Right (UR)
Sigmund Freud Neil Bohr
Carl Jung
Jean Piaget James Watson and Francis
Lawrence Kohlberg Crick
Erik Erikson
Jane Loevinger John B. Watson
Noam Chomsky B.F. Skinner
William James
Immanuel Kant Ivan Pavlov
Plato Franz Boas
Habermas
Siddhartha Gautama
Sri Aurobindo
Plotinus
St. Theresa de Avila

Lower Left (LL) Lower Right (LR)

Charles Horton Cooley Herbert Spencer
George Herbert Mead August Comte
Margaret Mead Max Weber
Virgilio Enriquez Niklas Luhmann
Hans-George Ganamer Gustave Le Bon
Ferdinand de Saussure William McDougal
Joseph Campbell Kurt Lewin
Karen Armstrong
•(C) Rodney H. Clarken, 2004 •12
•13
•(C) Rodney H. Clarken, 2004 •14
•(C) Rodney H. Clarken, 2004 •15
Cognitive development

 Isnecessary, but not sufficient for other

developments, such as moral, ego,
artistic, affective and self development

•16
•17
 Vision-Logic
 Thinking wholes
 Metasystematical reasoning allows freeing
from being helplessly embedded in one
particular perspective.
 You can then tolerate and learn from
paradoxes and logically incompatible
notions.
 If metasystematical reasoning is applied to
your own interior, it opens the door for an
organic integration of mind and body, of
thinking and feeling.
•(C) Rodney H. Clarken, 2004 •18
 Vision-Logic

 Parables, images, metaphors are found to be far
more useful for capturing very subtle and
abstract notions.
 Post-conventional, world-centric,
Multiperspective
 Vision Logic, thinking wholes, feels just like
thinking. What anyone would recognize when
they think about thinking. But it thinks
holistically. It thinks from one whole to the
next. It doesn’t see individual ideas, but
networked ideas, holistic ideas, big pictures,
things that are hooked together intrinsically.
•19
 Illuminded Mind
Seeing wholes
Shift of emphasis from "thinking" to
"seeing" (witnessing) in higher
levels of consciousness
development.
Dissolution,of the embeddedness in
the subject-object relationship;
mind starts being an object

•20
 Intuitive Mind
 Feeling wholes
 It presents itself as a feeling awareness.
 Instead of just thinking something or
seeing something from a distance in a
third-person stance, it’s feeling it
directly and immediately.
 It’s
an interesting type of cognition
because it’s one of the first that’s
anchored in an enduring subtle
apprehension. It’s starting to see
wholeness from the subtle domain. •21
  Overmind
 Permanent ultimate subjectivity
 Overmind is where the witness becomes
a permanent subject.
 You become the everpresent
witness/awareness
 Supermind
 Subject and object becomes one
 Non-dual state

•(C) Rodney H. Clarken, 2004 •22