A Systemic History of the Middle Way - Its Biological, Psycho-developmental, and Cultural Conditions - Robert M. Ellis

A Systemic History of the Middle Way - Its Biological, Psycho-developmental, and Cultural Conditions - Robert M. Ellis

Stages of Psychological Development

A Systemic History of the Middle Way - Its Biological, Psycho-developmental, and Cultural Conditions - Robert M. Ellis

Robert M. Ellis [+-]
Middle Way Society
Robert M Ellis has a Ph.D. in Philosophy and a Cambridge BA in Oriental Studies and Theology. Originally from a Christian background, he spent about 20 years practising Buddhism, including as a member of the Triratna Order. However, he now describes himself as a Middle Way practitioner without exclusive loyalty to any one religious tradition. Over the last 20 years he has developed Middle Way Philosophy, initially in his Ph.D. thesis. This is best described as a practical and integrative philosophical approach, incorporating many elements not only from Buddhism but also from psychology, neuroscience, and other aspects of Western thought. In 2013 he founded the Middle Way Society (www.middlewaysociety.org) to develop and apply Middle Way Philosophy beyond the limitations of the Buddhist tradition, both in theory and practice. Robert has earned a living for more than 20 years as a teacher and tutor of philosophy and related subjects. He has previously published both academic and introductory books about Middle Way Philosophy, and recently a parallel book on Christianity, ‘The Christian Middle Way’.

Description

My second, psychological, section follows the continuing impact of reinforcing and balancing feedback loops in the development of each individual human being in response to their culture and environment. The history in this section is thus once more a cyclic history, replayed as each of us grows. The reinforcing feedback process tends to make our development reach a series of plateaus as we reach a mode of thinking and behaving that works sufficiently well, given our bodily development and situation, for the moment. However, these temporary points of stability are disrupted by new conditions that begin to make our old mode frustrating, and trigger adaptive balancing loops. After a period of transition, these balancing loops then settle back into a new phase of relative stability. This punctuated equilibrium in human psychological development was first tracked by Piaget, and has more recently been pursued into adult development by Robert Kegan.

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Citation

Ellis, Robert. Stages of Psychological Development. A Systemic History of the Middle Way - Its Biological, Psycho-developmental, and Cultural Conditions. Equinox eBooks Publishing, United Kingdom. p. 72-117 Jun 2024. ISBN 9781800504493. https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/view-chapter/?id=46327. Date accessed: 03 May 2024 doi: 10.1558/equinox.46327. Jun 2024

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