From the backwaters to the mainstream

“The best moments in our lives are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times… The best moments usually occur if a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.” Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

When your river has run in the backwaters for any length of time it is always going to be a new and daunting experience to flow into the mainstream. When you are shaped by the backwaters that footprint will always stay with you; your river will always carry the memory of the hill streams and places of calm. At times you will crave the sanctity of the rocky beds and shallow banks.

English: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Resized, renamed, and cropped version of File:Mazlow’s Hierarchy of Needs.svg. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I was interested to listen to a programme on Radio 4 today about Abraham Maslow, and his humanist approach to psychology. At the time he was a pioneer because he looked for those things which made people “better” human beings. Rather than attempting to deconstruct the human mind he strove to build a vision of how we can achieve all that we are capable of. Maslow was not a strict clinician, much of his work lacked empirical data, and he did not always see eye to eye with his researchers. However, he did take an approach which promoted the notion of meaning, activity and “paved the way for the well-being agenda,” which should make him required reading for all occupational therapists, especially when considered as a forerunner to Mihalyi Czikszenmihalyi (see below)

There has been a few pieces of traffic coming my way recently on the importance of empirical data, evidence based practice and the pitfalls of “doing it your way” simply because it seems right. However, perhaps there is room for both. Perhaps we need both empiricism and intuition to provide a well rounded approach to social health and well-being. I see no reason why the thinkers, poets, visionaries, boat rockers and apple cart upsetters should not have a role to play in the development of a profession. Of course, this cannot become the norm otherwise we would never get anywhere amid the chaos of a million egos all vying for an editorial of their own. But we should recognise that we need these spirits in any profession to question the status quo, to extend our thinking and (most importantly of all) to remind us that we are human.

As we flow from the backwaters to the mainstream we should celebrate the likes of Maslow and all those self actualisers who have kept their river flowing through deep waters and into the open sea. We should remember that, although we must strive to deliver excellence through evidence, we must also strive to deliver empathy, open mindedness and compassion. 

Related articles

• Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs 😀
• Thoughts on Maslow, from a student of Adler
• Happy Birthday, Abraham Maslow: How Humanistic Psychology Shaped the Modern Self

From the River

I am looking forward to doing some more work with the Kawa Model as a tool for personal development and leadership skills. Although I have been focussing my attention on the more bread and butter aspects of life recently, the river is showing signs of broadening and deepening once more. Boulders that have sat in my path for some time are starting to loosen as the flow increases. Driftwood that has been caught on the rocks, lying idle and redundant, is freeing itself and running with the river.

I have been thinking about an exercise I learnt at an Evolving Minds meeting a few years ago. The exercise requires one to perceive objects, to hear sounds and use all sensory faculties to allow information to flow in. We were then coached to “shift focus,” (ie turn our attention elsewhere) as soon as we started thinking about the information being received. For example I might be looking at an object which is brown and has a warmth to its texture, which has long shapes underneath it and a flat surface on top; but as soon as I start thinking it is a “table” I shift focus to reset my cognitive function. The idea is to access our “pre cognitive” brain so that we can experience the moment with more clarity and definition, without the clutter of attaching abstract meaning. I have experienced similar exercises in theatre workshops (malapropism for example.) The exercise has been reported to help with psychosis because it encourages one to avoid thoughts in place of a flow of micro experiences which trigger a kind of meditative alertness.

When I relate this exercise to the Kawa model, I think of how we are constantly required to perceive, decode and respond to verbal language, which is often extremely unreliable as a vehicle for expressing experience in the moment. Physicality and musicality are far more efficient tools for the communication of meaning, but the decoding process requires specific knowledge – or does it?

Do we really need some kind of special training to understand musicality or the language of physical theatre (for example,) or have our synapses become so clogged with learned abstracts and constructs that we are blocked to the language of intuition and are thus unable to experience the exhilaration of FLOW. Keith Johnstone talks about the barriers to spontaneity, we build psychological defences that we develop to survive in a world of adversity and negativity. It is these defenses that shut down our intuitive communication skills and restrict our ability to access true creativity. If we were to bypass these social filters (which we do need at times) would we be able to communicate in a way that transcends language, where meaning goes beyond the confines of words and concepts and becomes a tangible entity.

Kawa is all about transcending the prescribed, and allowing different world views to connect and flow together so that they might find their own natural synergy. I am looking forward to playing with some of these ideas and working on “de tuning” participants so that they can get away from all the noise and clutter of prescribed cognition, and begin to access a more fluid and natural state of understanding. This is how we can best use the river as a communication tool, and as a knowledge framework – we have to first submit to the constant state of flux that is the river. From this point we can then begin to use the river as tool for creating “spheres” or shared experience, rather than the more usual hierarchical approach to leadership and development.