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Keith E Rice's Integrated SocioPsychology Blog & Pages

Aligning, integrating and applying the behavioural sciences

Christensen’

Fare Thee Well, Don Beck!

Don Beck – or ‘Dr Don E Beck’ or ‘Dr Don Edward Beck’ as he frequently preferred to style himself – passed on Tuesday 24 May. He had been relatively inactive for at least a year or so prior to his death. After my father, he was almost certainly the man who has influenced me most in my life.  Yet I wasn’t close to him nor a confidante to any significant degree. I wouldn’t have called him a friend, more a professional acquaintance. However, his influence on my life has been truly profound. In my tribute to his one-time business partner Chris Cowan – see Fare Thee Well, Christopher Cowan – who died in 2015, I recalled my first meetings with Don & Chris and how their Spiral Dynamics model transformed my life. It not only lead to resolutions of major issues in my own life but reignited and refuelled (with accelerant!) my interest in Psychology and the behavioural sciences. From there I took a deep dive into Psychology and Sociology, becoming an A-Level teacher in both disciplines. However, my explorations of the behavioural sciences were always underpinned by the first thing Don said that caught my attention at the first… Read More

Influences, Acknowledgements & Gratitude

Update: 25 October 2019 Along the way, certain people have been particularly influential in terms of career progression and/or personal development; so it’s appropriate to acknowledge as many as I can remember. So here goes… Close friends and relatives My parents Ted & Betty Rice, of course. My uncle George Chandler who, playing guitar in a nightclub jazz trio and building a yacht to sail around the world, epitomised ‘cool’ to an impressionable 10-year-old. Rita Smith, always the aunty I was closest to and her daughters Norma (now Norma Klunder) and Maureen (now Maureen Williams) who embodied the mysteries of ‘teenage girl’ to their younger, only child male cousin. Ex-wives Linda Rice and Jane Rice inevitably have left their marks on me – as have ex-fiancees Jennie Beasty and Val Horsfall. Liz Olson was an American and a fellow Jefferson Starship fan who flew across the Atlantic to challenge some of my precepts! My 2 oldest friends, Chris Scurrah and David Burnby have been hugely influential in very different ways – Chris for inspiring me and supporting me to become a musician and Dave for supporting me in applying the Gravesian approach to real life. My stepdaughter Viki Harris has sometimes forced me to think about things differently… Read More

The 5Ps

SDi MeshWORKS: how Diverse Stakeholders transform Complex Challenges by Fred Krawchuk 16 July 2018 I am honoured to publish this ‘guest feature’ on the MeshWORKS concept by the remarkable Fred Krawchuk. A former colonel with US Army Special Forces, Fred has used the Gravesian approach as a key conflict management tool in several extremely difficult and highly dangerous situations – not least in undermining the insurgency in Iraq 2006-2007. This is discussed in part in The Sons of Iraq – a Step towards Stratified Democracy? (Fred’s somewhat controversial appearance at Don Beck’s workshops at the Integral Centre in Boulder, Colorado, in March 2009 and the challenge that presented to my own thinking is discussed in the Blog post Don Beck’s got Who at His Workshop This Weekend…?!?!?!). After his military career Fred consulted with the RAND Corporation. He also began teaching leadership, negotiation, and strategy at IESE Business School. He has led high-performing teams in over 30 different countries. Fred’s feature originally appeared in  Innovative Development: Emerging Worldviews and Systems Change (Integral Publishers, August 2015), edited by the late Tom Christensen. It is reproduced here with Fred’s permission. With the exception of some minor formatting changes, it is reproduced exactly as it appeared in… Read More

Citizen-Driven Community and Nation Building

by Bjarni Snæbjörn Jónsson 7 June 2018 I am honoured to publish this ‘guest feature’ on the MeshWORKS conecept by the remarkable Bjarni Snæbjörn Jónsson.  His main research interests lie in large systems development through public participation.  He was a founding member of The Anthill in Iceland which organized a cross-sectional National Assembly in 2009 involving abt. 1000 randomly sampled citizens which were physically joined for a day to formulate the Icelandic nation‘s future superordinate goals, following the financial crisis of 2008 which hit Iceland particularly hard. These goals were at the centre of the drive for constitutional reform which has dominated Icelandic politics since. Bjarni’s feature originally appeared in  Innovative Development: Emerging Worldviews and Systems Change (Integral Publishers, August 2015), edited by the late Tom Christensen. It is reproduced here with Bjarni’s express permission and encouragement. With the exception of some minor formatting changes and a several links added, it is reproduced exactly as it appeared in ‘Innovative Development’. To maintain the integrity of the piece as published, I have retained Bjarni’s use of the SDi terminology. However, for the purposes of this site, readers should effectively susbstitute ‘Gravesian’ for ‘SDi’. The truth is not to be found in books, not even good books. The truth… Read More

Tom Christensen : a Tribute

I’d barely been back in the UK 24 hours – following my participation in the wonderful Spiral Dynamics Summit on the Future in Dallas when I learned of the sudden and unexpected death of Tom Christensen on 23 April. To say I was shocked and saddened would be quite an understatement. To my knowledge, Tom didn’t have a serious/terminal illness and he was only 4-5 years older than me. I believe Tom’s last comments on Facebook were less than a couple of days before his passing was announced. I had been emailing with Tom and also exchanging views with him via the Spiral Dynamics integral elist and Facebook groups for several years. He was a staunch advocate of the Gravesian approach and was a well-known and well-respected contributor to a number of Integral forums. We first started emailing directly in January 2013. Looking back on those first posts, when he had just (sort-of) retired and was in a very what’s next mode, he was infused with a passion for Graves and was like a sponge absorbing and mapping anything to do with Graves and complementary theory and research. He was particularly interested in exploring consciousness and cognitive complexity in relationship to the Gravesian approach. He had already… Read More

Lives on the Spiral

Personal Reflections On The Influence Of SDi ‘Lives on the Spiral’ is one of 2 contributions commissioned from me by Tom Christensen for his compendium, Developmental Innovation: Emerging Worldviews and Individual Learning (Integral Publishers, August 2015). Originally the work was to be entitled ‘SDi Applied’ as Tom wanted to present chapters which reflected Don Beck’s ongoing development of Clare W Graves’ research. Accordingly, Tom wanted the primary term used to be SDi rather than Spiral Dynamics or the ‘Graves Model’. Although I readily acknowledge my debt to Don Beck (and Chris Cowan, for that matter), I have never operated under the SDi umbrella, preferring to use terms such as the Gravesian approach. To maintain the integrity of the piece as published, I have retained the SDi terminology. However, readers should know that effectively I mean ‘Gravesian’. Tom ended up with so many strong contributions – including from the likes of Said E Dawlabani, Elza Maalouf, Barbara N Brown and Fred Krawchuk – that he and Integral Publishers split the material into 2 volumes: the first on Systems Change and the second on Individual Learning. Both my contributions are in the second book. I’ve had an interest in Psychology since my first year at… Read More

What They’ve said…

…about This Book Newest comments at the top; oldest at the bottom. “Thankyou for this gem of a book!!! I actually came across it I think around 2007. When just starting out in Paul CHEK’s Self Mastery course. I’ve ever let go of the book! I only got half way through it and knew one day I would pick it up and finish it! Reading it again it makes more sense now. And again feel grateful for your hard work bring it together! My Mother found your book while I was starting to go through Paul’s Self mastery course. She passed it on to me and then Paul heard about it through me. Exciting how the universe works. Like myself at first, your book buyers  may not finish the work of the book, and like Paul’s How To Be Heathy book, get put back on the shelf, half read. But, that said, they won’t ever forget it and it will never be thrown out. Instead your book waits patiently as a guide ready to be read with eyes and hearts wide open. – Josette Curry, Canada, January 2021 (Josette is a personal fitness trainer and life coach.) “…a word of big… Read More

Social Change #3

PART 3 Lower Right Quadrant Here we will look at some key structural factors which create pressures for social change… Pandemic The single biggest factor in the short-term is the Coronavirus crisis. At the time of writing, the European Centre for Disease Prevention & Control has recorded  infections and  deaths. With no reliable vaccine in sight, the virus running rampant across the United States and much of the less developed world and even European countries battling to contain spikes in infections, there is no way of knowing how long the virus will run, how many people will be killed or sustain long-term harm to their health and what the damage will be economically and socially. What is possible in democracies, especially those that have swung to the right in recent years, is that voters may seek to throw out those leaders who have proved hopeless incompetent in efforts to battle the virus. Donald Trump is the first major leader who will face such a test in November 2020. Other factors which can influence change are:- Population Growth and Composition Changes in the size and composition of the population can have important effects for other aspects of a society. One example of… Read More

Bibliography P-Q

A    B    C    D    E    F    G    H    I    J    K    L    M    N    O    P-Q    R    S     T     U    V    W    X-Y-Z Pakko, Michael & Susan Pollard (2003): ‘Burgernomics: A Big Mac™ Guide to Purchasing Power Parity’ (Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis Review) https://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/review/ (Accessed: 01/12/11) Palmer, Bill  (2017): ‘Confirmed: Russia put up Millions of Dollars to fund French Presidential Candidate Marine Le Pen’ (Palmer Report) http://www.palmerreport.com/politics/russia-marine-le-pen-french-president/2425/ (Accessed: 14/06/17) Palmer, Emma & Clive Hollin (1998): ‘A Comparison of Patterns of Moral Development in Young Offenders and Non-Offenders’ in Journal Of Legal & Criminological Psychology #3 Palmer, Stephen & Ray Wolfe (1999): ‘Integrative and Eclectic Counselling and Psychotherapy’ (Sage Publications) Pannell, Ian & Darren Conway (2013): ‘Syria Crisis: Incendiary Bomb Victims “like the walking dead” (BBC News) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-23892594 (Accessed: 29/08/13) Papez, James (1937): ‘A Proposed Mechanism of Emotion’ in Archives of Neurology & Psychiatry #38 Paquette, Daniel (2004): ‘Theorizing the Father-Child Relationship: Mechanisms and Developmental Outcomes’ in Journal of Human Development #47 Parke, Ross (1981): ‘Fathers’ (Harvard University Press) Parker, Howard (1974): ‘View from the Boys’ (Ashgate, Aldershot UK) Parker, Kandis Cooke & Donald Forrest (1993): ‘Attachment  Disorder: an Emerging Concern for Shool Counsellors’ in Elementary School Guidance &… Read More

Bibliography C

A    B    C    D    E    F    G    H    I    J    K    L    M    N    O    P-Q    R    S     T     U    V    W    X-Y-Z Cadoret, Remi, William Yates, Edward Troughton, George Woodworth & Mark Stewart (1995): ‘Genetic-Environmental Interaction in the Genesis of Aggressivity and Conduct Disorders’ in Archives of General Psychiatry #52 Cadwalladr, Carole (2017): ‘Robert Mercer: the Big Data Billionaire waging War on Mainstream Media’ in The Observer (26 February) Cairns, R B, D J McCombie & K E Hood (1983): ‘A Developmental-Genetic Analysis of Aggressive Behaviour in Mice I: Behavioural Outcomes’ in Journal of Comparative Psychology #97 Caledonian Foundation (2013): ‘Engaging Discussions at So Say Scotland’ https://www.caledonianfoundation.org/index.php/news/44-engaging-discussions-at-so-say-scotland  (Accessed: 2015) Callaway, Ewen (2009): ‘Murderer with ‘aggression genes’ gets Sentence cut’ in New Scientist (3 November) Calvert, Jonathan, George Arbuthnott & Jonathan Leake (2020):  ‘Coronavirus: 38 Days when Britain sleepwalked into Disaster’ in Sunday Times (19 April) Camber, Rebecca (2011): ’Supergran Unmasked: Pensioner who saw off Hammer Raiders speaks out… as Friend reveals She has spent Ten Years fighting Violent Crime’ in Daily Mail (9 February) Cameron, David & Dylan Jones (2010): ‘Cameron on Cameron: Conversations with Dylan Jones’ (4th Estate, London) Cameron, Catherine, Stuart Oskamp & William Sparks  (1977): ‘Courtship American… Read More