Thank you for this description; it felt useful! I think you are approaching this the right way.
It reminds me a bit of how I use Freud; some ideas seem roughly correct, so I take them as a framework, but I don’t get obsessed over details. For example, I accept that there are multiple agents in mind, but I don’t think there are exactly three of them, nor that they exactly correspond to the “id, ego, superego”. But the idea of internal conflicts and internal forces outside of my attention or control, seems supported by experience. I specifically like the descriptions of defense mechanisms; not because I would think the list is complete, but because having names for multiple frequent patterns feels more useful than merely having a vague category called e.g. “irrational behavior”.
In other words, it’s not a package deal. You can learn from a person without copying their whole map.
Similarly, the lesson I take from your article is that there are multiple patterns of how people are seeing themselves, and what they expect from others. And those patterns seem to be ordered from simpler to more complex. Doesn’t mean the list is necessarily complete. Doesn’t mean that each specific experience needs to fit into exactly one category. Doesn’t mean that people must use this categories linearly, exactly one at a time. Okay, I would in general expect that the more complex categories are learned later in life, but I suppose that people who learn the new ways are still using the old ones quite frequently. Or that they compartmentalize in various ways, e.g. follow one pattern more frequently at home, and another one more frequently at work.
Maybe some experiences, such as playing role-playing games, allow a person to progress atypically, e.g. they may gain the insight of “playing a role” much faster than would correspond to their overall level of maturity. Actually, I would expect people to vary in their “Kegan levels” depending on whether at given moment they feel hungry, angry, lonely, or tired. That people are more likely to identify with their emotions at the moments when the emotions are strong. Or more likely to recognize a role as a role in situations where the role has a clear label and rituals for turning it on and off, such as wearing a uniform; so e.g. a policeman would be aware that “policeman” is just a role they sometimes play, but might not realize that e.g. “parent” is also a role.
As a strawmanned example, someone might say, “Oh, well you’re only on Kegan’s third stage, so of course it’d seem like that way to you…But me, I’m on the fourth stage, and I see it like this…”
Such person would obviously be on Kegan’s third stage, because they identify with a role. Even if it is a role of being, in their imagination, on a different Kegan stage. /s
Thank you for this description; it felt useful! I think you are approaching this the right way.
It reminds me a bit of how I use Freud; some ideas seem roughly correct, so I take them as a framework, but I don’t get obsessed over details. For example, I accept that there are multiple agents in mind, but I don’t think there are exactly three of them, nor that they exactly correspond to the “id, ego, superego”. But the idea of internal conflicts and internal forces outside of my attention or control, seems supported by experience. I specifically like the descriptions of defense mechanisms; not because I would think the list is complete, but because having names for multiple frequent patterns feels more useful than merely having a vague category called e.g. “irrational behavior”.
In other words, it’s not a package deal. You can learn from a person without copying their whole map.
Similarly, the lesson I take from your article is that there are multiple patterns of how people are seeing themselves, and what they expect from others. And those patterns seem to be ordered from simpler to more complex. Doesn’t mean the list is necessarily complete. Doesn’t mean that each specific experience needs to fit into exactly one category. Doesn’t mean that people must use this categories linearly, exactly one at a time. Okay, I would in general expect that the more complex categories are learned later in life, but I suppose that people who learn the new ways are still using the old ones quite frequently. Or that they compartmentalize in various ways, e.g. follow one pattern more frequently at home, and another one more frequently at work.
Maybe some experiences, such as playing role-playing games, allow a person to progress atypically, e.g. they may gain the insight of “playing a role” much faster than would correspond to their overall level of maturity. Actually, I would expect people to vary in their “Kegan levels” depending on whether at given moment they feel hungry, angry, lonely, or tired. That people are more likely to identify with their emotions at the moments when the emotions are strong. Or more likely to recognize a role as a role in situations where the role has a clear label and rituals for turning it on and off, such as wearing a uniform; so e.g. a policeman would be aware that “policeman” is just a role they sometimes play, but might not realize that e.g. “parent” is also a role.
Such person would obviously be on Kegan’s third stage, because they identify with a role. Even if it is a role of being, in their imagination, on a different Kegan stage. /s