1. Counselling All-Of-Me
A consumer perspective of the counselling experience
David Webb
Presented at
The How’s, Why’s and Where Fore’s
of Counselling and Psychotherapy:
A Reflection On Our Profession
Annual Conference of
Australian Counselling Association (ACA)
Melbourne, October

2. Integral Model - 4 Quadrants
Interior
Exterior
Individual
Subjective I
Objective It
Intentional (felt experience)
Behavioural
Phenomenology
Psychology (psychiatry)
Validity: aesthetic
personal meaning, values
integrity, sincerity
Validity: empirical
observable, measurable
testable, repeatable
Collective We
Them
Inter-Subjective
Inter-Objective
Cultural
Social (Systems)
First, we’re all familiar with distinctions between our subjective inner world(s) and objective outer ones:
subjectively felt (lived) experience - or ‘aboutness’ - of intentionality
objectively observablebehaviour
Next, distinguish between individual and collective dimensions across both these domains, giving four domains - or quadrants - to now include:
cultural or inter-subjective interiors
social or inter-objective exteriors
Next, a brief (one word!) mention of the relevant methods of enquiry, or research, into each quadrant or domain: phenomenology (UL), psychology (UR), anthropology (LL), sociology (LR)
perhaps discuss why I locate psychology (and esp. psychiatry) in UR …
noting that some ‘depth’ psychologies do dare to delve into (dark) interiors
and distinguishing between research and practice (therapy etc)
Finally, the key means or criteria by which we judge the validity of evidence revealed by enquiry/research into each of these domains (quadrants), esp.:
qualitative salience (UL and LL) versus quantitative certainty (UR and LR)
intersubjective sympathetic/empathetic resonance (phenomenological nods)
summarise as I-We-It-Them ways of knowing
Sociology (Ecology)
Anthropology
Validity: moral
shared meaning, values
ethics, justness
Validity: functional fit
cohesion, efficiency
ecological, economic

3. Traditional - clinical, third-person - science
Interior
Exterior
Individual
Subjective I
Objective It
Intentional (felt experience)
Behavioural
Phenomenology
Psychology (psychiatry)
Validity: aesthetic
personal meaning, values
integrity, sincerity
Validity: empirical
observable, measurable
testable, repeatable
Collective We
Them
Inter-Subjective
Inter-Objective
Cultural
Social (Systems)
‘Traditional’ science is objective, observable, measurable third-person science that:
is unable to ‘see’ into invisible subjective interiors
i.e. is blind to first-person data … and knowledge ...
which is systematically excluded by prejudices of those who hold this notion of science as the on;y valid science
So either we have to acknowledge the limits of this narrow (and also shallow as we will see later) notion of science and the scientific method … or …
Embrace a larger notion of science that encompasses the full breadth (and depth) of the human experience that:
recognises the validity of first-person - i.e. subjective (‘I’) and intersubjective (‘We’) - data and knowledge (ways of knowing)
and uses appropriate methods for disciplined enquiry (research) into them
and then builds explanatory bridges between first- and third-person data and knowledge
But it gets worse ...
Sociology (Ecology)
Anthropology
Validity: moral
shared meaning, values
ethics, justness
Validity: functional fit
cohesion, efficiency
ecological, economic

4. The Full Spectrum (Levels) of Consciousness
Sources:
Plotinus
Aurobindo
St. Teresa
Grof
Steiner
Baldwin
Habermas
Maslow
Buddhism
Yoga
Kabbalah
Vedanta
Theosophy
Sufism
Non-Dual
Spirit
Matter
Physics
Life
Mind
Soul
Spirit
Biology
Psychology
Theology
Mysticism
Another dimension or perspective of the human experience
sometimes referred to as the ‘perennial philosophy’
each ‘level’ of consciousness has its own ‘science’ … or way of knowing
though only the inner three are recognised as ‘mainstream’
and even mainstream modern psychology struggles to come to grips with the mysteries of the mind, partly (largely?) because it too denies soul and spirit as it strives to be a science according to the limited definition of science
As an aside, some of the most interesting work in this area today is not in psychology (and certainly not psychiatry) but in Consciousness Studies
recognises the need to attend to the first-person, experiential data
including the wisdom of spiritual traditions as first-person ‘experts’
in truly multi-disciplinary approach to exploring consciousness that includes psychology, neuroscience cultural studies, computer science, philosophy etc
see Journal of Consciousness Studies … or …
anything by David Chalmers, now a Federation Fellow at ANU - or see his website for lots (and lots) if links to references

5. Integral Model - All Quadrants, All Levels (AQAL)
Spirit
Mind
Body
Wilber’s genius (IMHO) is to combine the quadrants with the levels where body, mind and spirit (to abbreviate the levels) span all quadrants. To say this another way:
Any phenomena has correlates in all four quadrants - always. For example, consider learning mathematics:
UL: the personal cognitive experience of understanding, say, algebra
UR: the psychology and neuroscience of cognition
LR: the schools, classrooms, teachers and texts etc
LL: the validation of what is learned in an intersubjective community
Another example - spirituality
UL: to experience spiritual contemplation - meditation, prayer
UR: what happens in our brains at these times
LR: churches, temples, ashrams etc to facilitate spiritual experience
LL: the shared values and meaning of spiritual community
Note: this is still a simplified illustration of AQAL - see refs to Wilber’s work at the end

6. Modern Psychology Mind Body Modern, mainstream psychology:
recognises body and mind but not soul and spirit
struggles (sometimes valiantly) to delve into invisible interiors
but usually fails because it attempts to translate first-person data into third-person data for analysis using traditional third-person methods
as it strives for the impossible goal of ‘evidence based’ theory and practice according to validity criteria largely determined by medical research - e.g. the randomised control trial as the ‘gold standard’ (appropriate for testing new surgical procedures or drugs but not for validating first-person data)
data is invariably lost in this translation (reduction) from Left-Hand sources to Right-Hand methods of enquiry
often the most significant data - such as what the phenomenon means to those who live it (e.g. suicidality)

7. Modern Biological Psychiatry
Body
Modern mainstream psychiatry is a calamity.
The two pillars of modern psychiatry are the DSM and biological psychiatry, both of which are total disasters:
The DSM:
tries (but struggles) to completely ignore subjective data on the grounds that it is unscientific - i.e. psychiatry’s scientific prejudices (delusions)
invents psychiatric disorders (labels) by statistical clustering of symptoms
assumes a biological, medical illness as the aetiology of psychiatric disorders but provides no evidence for this - at all!
“the greatest book of insults of the 20th century” - Mary O’Hagan
it’s a tragedy that the DSM is regularly taught in psychology courses
Biological psychiatry:
assumes all psychiatric disorders are faulty brain biology
regards subjective experience - including mental, psychological experience - as simply irrelevant
we have all been reduced to biochemical robots or zombies

8. Flatland
“the great nightmare of scientific materialism was upon us (Whitehead), the nightmare of one-dimensional man (Marcuse), the disqualified universe (Mumford), the colonisation of art and morals by science (Habermas), the disenchantment of the world (Weber) – a nightmare I have also called flatland” - Ken Wilber (2000)
Modern psychiatry is perhaps the classical example of flatland science.
Some references to the Integral (AQAL) Model of Ken Wilber:
Grace and Grit: Spirituality and healing in the life and death of Treya Killam Wilber, Newleaf, Boston, 1991.
The Marriage of Sense and Soul, Hill of Content, Melbourne, 1998.
Integral Psychology: Consciousness, spirit, psychology, therapy, Shambhala, Boston, 2000.
One Taste: Daily reflections on integral spirituality, Shambala, Boston, 200.
Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The spirit of evolution, Shambala, Boston, 2000.
The Simple Feeling of Being: Embracing your true nature, Shambhala, Boston, 2004.
References to some of my published academic work:
'Self, Soul and Spirit: Suicidology's blind spots?' New Paradigm September (available online at
'Bridging the Spirituality Gap', Australian e-Journal for the Advancement of Mental Health (AeJAMH) 4(1), 2005 (at: auseinet.flinders.edu.au/journal)