Spiral Dynamics
Spiral Dynamics (SD) is
a fresh perspective that reveals the hidden codes that shape
human nature, creates global diversities, and drives organizational
change. SD is based on the pioneering work of Dr. Clare W. Graves
in emergent thinking systems and value structures with memetics,
the exciting new science of ideas and their movements. SD is
a theory of human development introduced in the 1996 book Spiral
Dynamics by Don Beck and Chris Cowan.
SD posits that human nature
is not fixed: humans are able, when forced by life conditions,
to adapt to their environment by constructing new, more complex,
conceptual models of the world that allow them to handle the
new problems. Each new model includes and transcends all previous
models. According to Beck and Cowan, these conceptual models
are organized around so-called vMemes: systems of core values
or collective intelligences, applicable to both individuals
and entire cultures. The term Meme refers to a core value system,
acting as an organizing principle, which expresses itself through
self-propagating ideas, habits, beliefs, or cultural practices.
Within the SD model, individuals
and cultures do not fall clearly in any single category. Each
person/culture embodies a mixture of the value patterns, with
varying degrees of intensity in each. There are infinite stages
of progress and regression over time dependent upon the life
circumstances of the person/culture, which are constantly in-flux.
Attaining higher stages of development is not synonymous with
attaining a 'better' or 'more correct' values system. All stages
co-exist in both healthy and unhealthy states, whereby any stage
of development can lead to undesirable outcomes with respect
to the health of the human and social environment.
SD sees eight Meme structures
that have developed over the past 50,000 years. The first six
are called First Tier and are primarily centered around existence/subsistence,
and include almost all of the worldviews, cultures, belief systems
and mental attitudes up to today. New, more complex systems
build on adaptations of previous levels and seek to solve problems
created by living in those earlier ways. Two Meme levels beyond
the first six are termed Second Tier, and are seen as emerging
levels that gradually move away from a focus on subsistence-level
concerns of the First Tier, and towards a being-level existence,
centered on meaning, fulfillment and connection.
In my work with clients
I offer the SD Values Test as a way to identify how an individual
blends seven of the Memes within their own perspectives. This
helps me better understand the client and allow for more direct
and deep dialog. I received certified training in SDi One and
Two from Don Beck in 2007. If you would like to learn more about
SD, please contact me here: info@evolvetomeaning.com.
If you would like to take the online Values Test, click
here.
Video
by Don Beck and Ken Wilber on Spiral Dynamics
Spiral
Dynamics article from WIE Magazine
"Briefly,
what I am proposing is that the psychology of the mature human
being is an unfolding, emergent, oscillating, spiraling process,
marked by progressive subordination of older, lower-order
behavior systems to newer, higher-order systems as man's existential
problems change."
- Clare W. Graves
