Living System Psychology – Key Concepts

This outline of Key Concepts for Living System Psychology extends the discussion of the Foundation Principles I outlined in Part 1 of this series of posts.

- Living System Psychology, its Human Psyche System and its structural stage process of human evolution are the knowledge foundation for understanding and implementing Living System Life and Work – Individual and collective. They are the tools for understanding what the current World Human Transformation is, how it evolved in human affairs, and where it is now going.

- The Human Psyche System is a non-physical energy system that organizes as a nodal network of psyche stage sub-systems and operates as a partially open Living System whose evolution progresses through a specific sequence of phases and stages – For a human individual through a lifetime and for human collectives through history.

- The Human Psyche System for an individual contains four sub-systems: The Personal Conscious; The Personal Unconscious; The Collective Conscious; The Collective Unconscious

- The Human Psyche System stages are like “Themes” that underlie human lives, groups and organizations. Human differences – individual and collective – at a given stage of evolution are like variations on the basic underlying “Themes”.

- Each Human Psyche System stage is a complete pattern of human conscious and unconscious life - a Life Paradigm. These stage Paradigms are shared human “Morphic Fields” that underlie individual diversity and local geographical collective differences worldwide.

- Human Psyche System stages are the underlying sources and driving forces for all that materializes in human affairs. So far in human life – individual and collective – seven stages have appeared on Earth. The seventh stage is just emerging and beginning to drive the current World Human Transformation to Living System Life and Work.

- Each individual Human Psyche System stage Paradigm has its own underlying pattern of emotions, thinking, motivation and behavior.

- Each collective Human Psyche System stage Paradigm has its own pattern of collective purpose, leadership/management, organization and entrepreneurship.

- Throughout the world at a given time, not all individuals and collectives are equally evolved. They live in different psychological spaces as determined by their Human Psyche System stage profiles.

- Individuals and collectives evolve through Human Psyche System stages in a specific sequence of stages and in a bi-polar cyclical process. One pole is Inter-Stage Transformation and the other pole is Intra-Stage Development.

- For Inter-Stage Transformation, individuals evolve by a discontinuous, non-linear leap from one psyche stage to the next at critical times in their life. These psychological leaps are usually traumatic, often painful, but lead to greatly enhanced human capacity.

- For Intra-Stage Development, individuals evolve by continuous, gradual, quasi-linear change within a given psyche stage until they experience stressful conditions their current stage cannot deal with. This leads to transformation to the next stage.

- Individual psyche system evolution usually continues through life, but it can stop, or may appear to retrogress under extreme conditions.

- Individual Inter-Stage Transformation is the root cause and driving force for collective Inter-Stage Transformation. Collective transformation occurs when both a critical mass of transformed leadership within the collective and forces from outside are reached.

- Collectives also undergo Inter-Stage Transformation by discontinuous, non-linear leaps from one psyche system stage to the next.

- Collective Inter-Stage Transformations are the chaotic, crisis filled, traumatic, destructive periods of history as one era decays and another is born.

- Collectives also undergo Intra-Stage Development by continuous, gradual, quasi-linear change within a given psyche stage until they experience stressful conditions their current stage cannot deal with. This leads to transformation build up. Transforming individuals are catalysts for the collective transformation.

- Collective psyche system evolution has continued through history. It forms a grand pattern and process for human history. Collective transformations take much longer than individual ones.

- Human Psyche System stage evolution, like the stage evolution of all Living Systems, is irreversible. Psyche stage transformation irreversibly changes the nature of stages already functioning in a given Human Psyche System.

- Reversible retrogression to earlier stages of the Human Psyche System does not occur. Linear systems can be reversible – But living systems, like the Human Psyche System, are non-linear and irreversible. The overall patterns of previous stages remain, but the details of how they are experienced in emotions, thoughts, motivation and behavior are discontinuously changed.

- Individuals live and work at a given time as guided by the characteristics of more than one psyche stage, but usually with a different degree of intensity for each stage. However, one stage in their psyche system profile is usually dominant.

- There is no evidence that an individual or a collective can skip a stage along their evolution sequence.

- A new stage of leadership has emerged throughout history when the world had become stagnant or consumed with excesses – A time when the world critically needed qualitative transformation in structure and process if mankind was to continue to advance.

- Today, those conditions are present again. New leader/managers functioning in a new Human Psyche system stage are emerging. They are undergoing the most profound psyche transformation in human history.

- The most evolved collectives within world society are beginning their collective transformation, amid crisis and destructive disorder, to a new phase of life and work. These institutions and their leadership/management are beginning to be re-created – Because they must if they are to successfully lead the world into the needed new era.

- There is evidence that our Creator has in process a Grand Plan for our lives and for human history. Our time seems to be experiencing the most critical transcendent turning point in that plan since mankind first appeared on Earth.

John Clayton Caris

Links to other Posts in this series:

Living System Psychology Overview - Part 1 - Foundation Principles
Living System Psychology Overview - Part 3 - Review