The Growth Spiral

The Growth Spiral, a slightly tweaked version of Kazimierz Dabrowski's Theory of Positive Disintegration that I've put together, is a powerful model for understanding and navigating personal growth & development. The spiral represents the idea that growth is not a linear process, but rather a cyclical one. I've found it to be a really useful framework for identifying, navigating, and reflecting on my own personal growth, as well as for helping others navigate their own journeys of self-discovery and transformation.

We explore two different binaries as we move through the spiral:

• Unilevel vs. Multilevel: In a unilevel mindset, we have a more surface-level understanding of who we want to be and what's important to us. In contrast, a multilevel mindset means that we've recognized which skills, values, and beliefs are truly important to us, and are aligning our actions with those principles.
• Integrated vs Disintegrated: Integrated thinking involves a sense of coherence and wholeness, where our thoughts, feelings, and actions are aligned. Disintegrated thinking, on the other hand, is characterized by a sense of fragmentation and confusion, where our thoughts, feelings, and actions are out of sync.

In the Unilevel Integration stage, the dominant motivator is maintaining our comfort and stability. We're basically just coasting through life, driven by habit and a desire for security, comfort, and social validation. We may have some general sense of who we want to be and what we want to achieve, but we mostly've outsourced most of that high-level decision-making responsibility to external authorities. We're happy to let others tell us who we should be and what we should do in the name of stability and comfort.

And that's probably all well and good for a while, but eventually we may start to feel restless or unfulfilled. We may see something new & different that we want to pursue. Or maybe we run in to some sort of challenge or change in our environment that makes us realize that the person we've been isn't a good fit for where we're at now. In any case, we've now entered the Unilevel Disintegration stage. This stage is often dominated by confusion, anxiety, and uncertainty as we begin to question our beliefs, values, and assumptions. This is not a comfortable place to be, and people will generally do whatever they can to avoid staying here for very long.

There are two ways out of Unilevel Disintegration. The path of least resistance is to retreat back to Unilevel Integration. Many people will choose this option in order to avoid the discomfort of leaning into whatever challenges or ambiguities they are up against. But this is the entrance to the Unilevel Loop of Increasingly Uncomfortable Stagnation, and once you start down that path, it's hard to get back out.

The other option is to lean into the discomfort and uncertainty of Unilevel Disintegration, and to use it as an opportunity for growth and transformation. This leads you into the next stage, Multilevel Disintegration. Here we begin to develop a more complex and nuanced understanding of ourselves and the world around us. We start to recognize that our beliefs, values, and assumptions are not fixed or immutable, but that we can actively shape and redefine them.

This is one of the tweaks I made to Dabrowski's original model - he divided this into two sub-stages, but I made it more of a cyclical design process. We may go through multiple iterations of deconstruction, where we break down & examine our existing beliefs and assumptions, reconstruction, where we figure out what new beliefs and behaviors we want to adopt, and testing, where we try out those new beliefs and behaviors and make sure they work. This process is often messy and nonlinear, and we may find ourselves moving back and forth between these stages as we refine our understanding of ourselves and our environment, or even giving up and dropping back down to a Unilevel Integration mindset if things don't go well here.

As we work through this process, we will hopefully reach Multilevel Integration, where we return to a sense of coherence and stability, but with a deeper understanding of ourselves and our place in the world. In this stage, we have a deep understanding of who we are and who we want to be, and we're actively working to align our actions with our values and beliefs. We're also more comfortable with uncertainty and change, more confident in our unique identities, and more prepared for future growth and development that is in line with our authentic selves.

But the Growth Spiral doesn't end there. We may find ourselves slipping back into Unilevel Integration-like patterns as we settle into our new mindsets & patterns and everyone around us comes to expect that from us. And once that happens, we may find ourselves getting restless or jostled out of our comfort zone again, and the whole cycle starts over. The key is to recognize that growth is an ongoing process, and that we need to continually challenge ourselves and embrace change in order to continue evolving and developing as individuals.

There's a powerful connection between the Growth Spiral and Kaufman's Sailboat Metaphor. The two models complement each other really well, with the Growth Spiral providing a framework for understanding the psychological and emotional aspects of personal growth, while the Sailboat Metaphor provides a concrete picture of the foundational needs that we need to have met in order to be able to navigate the Growth Spiral effectively.

The Growth Spiral is a powerful model for understanding and navigating personal growth & development. By recognizing the cyclical nature of growth and embracing the discomfort and uncertainty that comes with it, we can break out of old patterns and behaviors and create a more fulfilling and meaningful life.