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WISDOM-ING
Adam Blatner, M.D.
Abstract:
It’s most useful to recognize that wisdom is something one does, not something one is, and to think of the component activities more as skills that need to be exercised in concert. This article explores some of the skills and proposes an organizing dramaturgical metaphor that can facilitate their application in the service of “wisdom-ing.”Introduction and Overview
Many people are misled by the impression that one can “have” wisdom, or “be” wise, but a careful consideration of the dynamics involved suggest rather that being wise is really a matter of making wise moves, doing wise, an activity, more a verb (or gerund) than a noun, and thus be more properly called “wisdom-ing.” It isn’t something one has or achieves, but rather what is done moment by moment. Moreover, wisdom-ing isn’t just one action, but rather a large category of activities or skills, with many components. This paper will discuss some of the types of component activities that make up wisdom-ing.Indeed, one of the primary ideas in wisdom is to recognize that one either exercises the skills of wisdom relevant to a given task, or one fails to exercise wisdom. In that case, a person who may have been wise yesterday in many ways, and wise this morning, may lapse, fail, behave and think foolishly. It’s a bit of a “use it or lose it” category.
In a similar sense, love, faith, and responsibility are other words that really should be thought of more like verbs than nouns, as they also require a continuous attention to their exercise. One cannot realistically cling to the illusion of being wise, loving, faithful, or responsible if one’s deeds in the present are not furthering these ideals.
As a corollary, we should withhold wisdom as a fixed attribute, a kind of status, as, for example, in saying, “She is a wise woman.” Oh, we may say this in a given circumstance, perhaps to suggest that we seek a consultation. But the truth is that this woman may not be wise in every respect, and could conceivably fail in our expectations.
Considering the Components
There are probably scores if not hundreds of different ways to wisdom (here using the word as a verb). Most of the principles in self-help books, books of meditation and guidance, and the like, contain platitudes and essays about many of these elements. The ironic thing about platitudes is that although they may seem simplistic and obvious, on reflection it becomes painfully clear that few people actually apply these insights, values, and actions. So really these platitudes are not as obvious as they may seem, nor as simple.One type or component of wisdom-ing that is worth mentioning at the outset is the desire to seek wisdom, to value it, in contrast to other rewards in life. King Solomon, gave priority to this goal, rather than “possessions, wealth, honor, ...long life,” and God was so pleased He granted not only wisdom, but all of the other benefits in great measure (Chronicles II, 1: 7-13).
Another fairly basic principle is the recognition that wisdom often requires the integration or judicious balancing of two or perhaps several other skills and principles. Indeed, any single principle applied alone often ends up transmuting into foolishness. For instance, justice needs to be balanced by mercy.
A third principle is that wisdom-ing notes that the value of many activities lies in the degree to which they are exercised–neither too much nor too little. The key is finding the correct proportioning of exercising shame, self-sympathy, dramatization, showing off, playfulness, self-promotion, and other dynamics (Blatner, 2005). Or, as an old song lyric suggests, “It ain’t what ya do, it’s the way that ya do it!” Not only the “what” but also the “how much” and in what manner a skill or idea is applied may account for whether it is wisely done.
Non-Rational Components
Wisdom is not just a rational exercise. There is wisdom in tact, encouragement, understanding, the expression of sympathy, empathic reflection, enthusiasm, and other interpersonal lubricants. People need to have their achievements, courage, wisdom, and poignant moments recognized clearly; they need to know that they are noticed and appreciated. Without such elements, mere superior knowledge lacks the human element.Similarly, the experience of life as meaningful is associated also with the capacity to appreciate beauty, humor, depth, drama, and excitement. Wisdoming also then involves the active and conscious exercise of these and other aesthetic values. A corollary of this is the exercise of gratitude, which itself is so powerful as to constitute a spiritual discipline. “Gratitude-inism” needs to be practiced with small things as well as more obvious moments of good fortune. Those episodes of fortuitous coincidence (that Jung calls “synchronicity”) should be noted explicitly. I imagine when an interpersonal connection seems to “click,” one saying, “What a good thing that we met! Perhaps the angels helped in our finding each other at this auspicious moment in our lives.”
The Wisdom of the Ages: Its Uses and Pitfalls
The art of appreciation and gratitude need not involve an uncritical acceptance of what is given, whether it be in the realms of religion, political structures, social customs, or even the way a business operates. In relation to tradition, especially, there is a need for a balance of respect and questioning. This, too, is a kind of wisdom-ing. There are tendencies to become a little mentally lazy in accepting that which has been established, perhaps even enshrined as sacred, or popularized as “common sense.” However, history may be viewed as a process of the continual revision of such “truths.” The knack involves going back and re-evaluating, seeking to distill out what continues to offer insight and use within the realm of what has been created by those who have gone before.Another pitfall is the idealization of the new, and again, wisdom-ing would have us re-evaluate this set of developments carefully. Just because something is fresh and original, intriguing, even, still it requires further critical review, because new ideas not infrequently turn out to be, well, bad ideas! Wisdom-ing thus includes a judicious approach to both the past and the emerging present. The spirit of creativity includes a recognition that sometimes it is wiser to use the best in old frameworks or social structures; and sometimes, it requires a mixture of wisdom and courage to revise or even destroy the old structures.
On the other hand, wisdom may be discerned in the actions of those who review the contributions of creators in the past, recognizing that some of their discoveries may have contained insights and treasures that have been obscured, insufficiently appreciated, or forgotten. Admittedly, these nuggets of golden wisdom may be mixed with foolish ideas, so the exercise of wisdom approaches the activity of refinement, seeking to redeem the more valuable components, and leaving the less useful ones. For example, the writings of Carlos Castaneda in the mid-1960s suggested that some Mexican sorcerers were really explorers in non-ordinary reality, and heightened an interest in the spiritual adventures and horizons of indigenous peoples who had been previously ignored. This and other writings led to a greater respect for the spiritual traditions of Native American Indians and other aboriginal peoples, which in turn has increased the general interest in diversity awareness.
In exploring traditional knowledge, especially in the written traditions, different seekers may discover different interpretations or insights even from the same book. The process of going back and re-evaluating the creative efforts of those who have gone before may result in more than one definitive conclusion. Indeed, one way to think of greatness as a concept is that the original material can serve repeatedly as a source of inspiration and re-interpretation. For example, there seems to be no end to those who find new ideas in their interpretations of the musical works of Beethoven or the psychological writings of Carl Jung.
Wisdom and Knowledge
Continuing the consideration of different aspects of wisdom-ing, another perspective involves the integration of more complex types of knowledge, and appreciating this requires first a consideration of some different types of knowledge:One type of knowledge is information, the names of things, their location, function, and relationships. This has become the major emphasis in much of education, especially since the invention of writing. Beyond a certain basic set of facts that are somewhat frequently exercised, though, this information begins quickly to branch out into separate specialized areas, and what’s need to be known as basic knowledge in one field is fairly irrelevant in another. For example, in one of the Sherlock Holmes stories, this fictional character expressed his indifference as to whether the sun went around the earth or vice versa, as it didn’t really matter relative to his interest in solving problems about crime.
A second type of knowledge is skill and this generally refers to the acquisition of a “knack” or feel for something that involves implicit “body” knowing, like swimming, dancing, riding a bicycle, and the like. This kind of knowing requires actual practice by doing, trial and error, having someone model the correct performance and imitation, getting feedback and repeating the effort.
There are levels of skill learning, as increasing numbers of skills are learned, along with varying degrees of information. Many roles involve a variety of component sub-roles, and often each of these have a number of components involving both the knowledge of a body of information and the knack for a variety of procedures.
Along with the mixture of both skill and knowledge of information in a variety of role components, there is yet another level of skill and judgment that emerges at this more complex level, what might perhaps be called “understanding.” It’s the difference between a fairly experienced and respected practitioner and a relative beginner or even intermediate player, whether this be a stock broker or a physician.
A craftsperson or able professional embodies this third type of knowledge, understanding, and integrates the first two types, in successive layers. This maturation might further be imagined to evolve in figurative spiral form, as each level of mastery opens one up to an expansion of possibilities, new learnings of both information and skills, and yet a further level of integration.
Wisdom-ing adds yet another dimension of complexity to this process: This would be those role components that have less to do with task and more to do with character, such as the maturation of one’s own emotional self-leadership, interpersonal sensitivity, compassion for others, and a perspective that includes a willingness to consider the broader political and social implications of one’s work, and, in short, character. In other words, mere learning or erudition, cleverness or native intelligence must be governed within the wise person’s ideals and vision (Blatner, 2000, p. 126).
Humility
However learned a person may be, a person practicing wisdom-ing will be vigilant to the frontiers of his or her own knowledge. This is the component skill of humility, an exercise in actively attending to the way knowledge expands:– There is that set of what is familiar to most adults in a culture.
– There is what is known by the more educated, but not by the uneducated, although there are many domains in which those who may not be college educated know a great deal that most college educated folks don’t know.
– Some knowledge is known only by only by experts.
– There is a set of what is known (or believed) by pioneers and thinkers who challenge what is “known” by the majority of experts. Interestingly, some of the knowledge of these heretics, innovators, minority voices, turns out to be right in the long run, while some turns out to be mistaken! Similarly, that which has been considered true by most authorities in a field turns out to be mistaken, misleading, or limited in light of new findings. Examples abound in the history of medicine as paradigms shift repeatedly.
– Another set of knowledge is as yet only known to a select few, and it may be being kept secret, simply not yet published or popularized, not established or confirmed, or not yet in a form that can be understood by more than that select few/
– Finally, there is a lot of knowledge that nobody on this planet knows; beyond that, there’s a lot that no sentient being knows, living on any planet; and, waxing philosophically, there is a category of hypothesized ultimate knowledge that can’t be known by anything less than Divinity itself. (Indeed, some philosophers have questioned whether even Divinity can know the future in a cosmos that builds in the potential of co-creativity by the creatures in that cosmos.)
These sets of knowledge evolve dynamically and, in our present world, at an accelerating rate. In the emerging postmodern era, the sheer expansion of knowledge has become such a vivid phenomenon that wisdom involves a recognition that whatever one knows needs to be continually revised in light of new discoveries! Some times the required revisions are slight, at other times, entirely new paradigms need to be opened to–and this involves a good deal of new learning, un-learning, and reflection. The recognition that such processes may happen several times in one’s own life is itself a relatively new type of wisdom. In the heat of change, the temptation is to close one’s mind and rest into the familiar–which is a form of foolishness.
Wisdom and Folly
Wisdom-ing further includes an awareness of the pitfalls of foolishness, the ways that the mind can be tempted to lapse into thinking small.The baseline truth is that ignorance is ubiquitous, there is always more to learn, and the proper attitude is one of openness to learning. In this sense, ignorance is innocent, morally neutral. The problem is that the mind, tempted by pride, seeking to avoid the shame of being perceived as ignorant by others, engages in an especially prevalent form of self-deception: The illusion is generated that what one knows is sufficient.
I’ll assign the word “stupidity” to this overlay of pride and ignorance. It is no longer morally neutral, but drifts towards folly and wickedness, because the sin of pride blocks the person from continuing to learn what needs to be learned, and more, to learn from mistakes.
A note on terminology: We don’t have a general consensus on what words to assign to different levels or even types of knowledge, wisdom, or folly, and I don’t claim to be authoritative in my assignment. If you think that other words might be more useful, present your ideas in a persuasive argument and perhaps they’ll emerge as what will become the consensus. For now, though, we’ll continue to attempt to classify some of these forms of folly.
The problem with stupidity is that it comes to employ all manner of other self-deceptive maneuvers to maintain its stability, its illusion of competence, its complacence. One of these maneuvers is to project pride onto to those who more passionately seek wisdom or dare to question. (Projection involves perceiving one’s own disowned motives in another–the point of the saying by Jesus to “cast first the beam from thine own eye before criticizing the mote in thy neighbor’s eye.”) People doing stupidity may thus label those seeking wisdom as “eggheads,” “grinds” (if they’re in school and choose to study), or “ivory-tower intellectuals,” (as if intellectual was a bad word–someone who isn’t willing to be “just plain folks,” someone who “thinks they’re better than us,” and are thus worthy of contempt for being elitist.) As a result, anyone who might criticize their position are effectively discounted.
The most problematic complexification of stupidity is that when mistakes are made–and they will be, sooner or later–and when the consequences of those mistakes pile up, instead of re-evaluating one’s own set of assumptions, someone or some group are blamed, scapegoated. For example, there is the joke of the Nazi demagogue exhorting a crowd: “And who is the cause of our troubles?” A voice from the audience replied, “The bicyclists and the Jews!” The speaker, taken aback, asked the speaker, “Why the bicyclists?” The speaker, safely buried in the crowd, called back, “Why the Jews?”
Thus, wisdom recognizes that folly can compound itself, beginning with mere complacency and self-deception, but folding over layers upon layers of folly and self-justification, so that the ultimate situation is tragic. A deep humility and recognition of the need for vigilance is thus an important component to wisdom. As Artemus Ward, a humorist of about a century ago, put it: “It ain’t what ya don’t know what gits ya inter trouble; it’s tha stuff ya know fer sure what ain’t so.”
Wisdom Functions
This following section will review a number of complex and subtle skills that deserve to be recognized as other types of wisdom-ing.One kind of wisdom-ing involves an understanding that it is often useful to open to the intuitions and inspirations of the subconscious mind, as this can function as a valuable source of creativity and insight. There are also a number of subtle skills that may be acquired in learning to open this way, involving relaxation, visualization, receptivity to one’s imagination, and so forth. Sometimes it helps to “brain storm” with friends, write ideas down in a journal, entertain poetic expressions or use the arts as vehicles for spontaneous self-discovery. These forms of cultivated receptivity to the creative subconscious are useful, and yet they need to be balanced by the activity of discernment, because all impulses and ideas should not be valued equally, nor uncritically accepted.
Another type of wisdom-ing was expressed by Socrates’ maxim, “know thyself.” In the last century, more systematic methods of self-reflection have been developed, especially in the fields related to dynamic psychology and psychotherapy. These methods can be used by ordinary people in seeking wisdom through insight. Wisdom-in thus includes cultivating self-observation and reflecting on one’s own thinking, both its contents and its operations. Is the mind being logical or run by emotions? Related to this is a group of skills used for actively inquiring, investigating, questioning, and analyzing the assumptions and habits of thinking of one’s own mind.
The point here is that the mind is inclined towards self-deception, as noted above in the section on foolishness. Wisdom-ing involves the courage and discipline to frequently call oneself into question, to do the equivalent of a periodic “virus scan” on one’s computer. Spiritual disciplines use various contemplative exercises towards this end, but a knowledge of the variety of self-deceptive maneuvers, what Freud called the “defense mechanisms,” the pitfalls noted by students of semantics, propaganda analysis, and rhetoric, and the interpersonal maneuvers or “games people play” noted by Berne (1964), all speak to a commitment to notice and counter the rich field of temptations of modes of illusion and self-deception.
A related fairly obvious wisdom skill has to do with checking out impressions to see if these are in fact accurate. For example, imagine at a party you saw a relative frown at you; from this, you began to spin out fantasies as to why she might be angry at you. At this point, you wisely restrain yourself from continuing this fantasy and decide to investigate. You say, “I saw you frowning at me, did I do something to offend you?” It is entirely possible she might reply, “No, I remember having a gas pain around that time and scowling, but it wasn’t aimed at you.”
Working from the background of Buddhism and related Eastern psycho-spiritual traditions, there is also the awareness that self-deception is significantly driven by desires, wants, attachments. These are intensified in a cultural matrix that is riddled by advertising, competition, and other values related to striving and possessing. There isn’t much commercial value in the wise idea that it is often useful to relax and let go of wanting, of desiring, of the illusion that one “needs” this or that status or possession. Thus, it is good to know when and how to intensify motivation, and it is also wise to recognize that there are many situations in which what’s needed is decreasing motivation and releasing desire.
For increasing motivation and desire, there are workshops and programs aimed at developing component skills, increasing enthusiasm, toning up body and mind, and so forth. Others offer workshops on meditation, mindfulness, and opening to contentment in the present moment. I would add here that it is also a practice of wisdom-ing to decide which is needed for which purposes in life. Furthermore, in our culture, more needs to be taught about the proper value of releasing rather than grasping or clinging, warming-down, dis-identifying, and detaching. This letting-go skill isn’t taught enough in our schools, but it’s an important part of living most maturely.
An example and related activity is the wisdom-ing of learning to feel comfortable in one’s own simply “being.” The sense of self is, like wisdom-ing, really an ongoing activity of scores of component activities and experiences, and there is wisdom in learning how to maintain that sense, as well as cultivating some experiences in which the self is forgotten for a while (Blatner, 2004a). In other words, sometimes one can promote and savor the sense of being vitally oneself; at other times, life is richer when self-consciousness is relinquished. In a sense, this is the literal meaning of ecstasy–standing outside of oneself.
Balancing past, present, and future is another complex of wisdom-ing skills. Tolle (1999) writes about the values of the present moment, and many others have noted the value of expanding awareness of this category, in contrast to dwelling on regrets, remorse, what could have been, and “if only.” This present-centered-ness also highlights the fine difference between an attitude of accepting what is and resigning oneself to one’s fate. The former is a matter of realistic assessment that doesn’t close off the possibility of creative responses.
There is wisdom in both knowing how to analyze a situation, and also knowing when there’s been enough analysis and it’s time to move toward decision-making. The contents of many books note some of these various competencies, which can begin in childhood (Strayhorn, 1988), or in the task-oriented realm of business (Kravetz, 1995), or in the many self-help books published in the last several decades.
Directing Your Life Drama
The metaphor of life as drama, as expressed in Shakespeare’s line, “All the world’s a stage,” offers a particularly useful framework for integrating many of the aforementioned ideas on wisdom-ing. The key is that we are not “merely” players, but can also partake of the other roles in the drama: We can imagine ourselves as audience and critic, as mentioned above in considering the development of skills of self-observation. And we can also shift from being the one who plays the various life roles to the perspective and functions of the one who writes the script–the playwright–and the one who modifies the way the players play their parts–the director. This inclusion in our imaginations of our various wisdom-skills in the framework of improvising and playing our life drama then operates in a more reflective and self-managed fashion (Blatner, 2000).I confess that this framework is influenced by my background not only as a psychiatrist and psychotherapist, but also as a director and trainer of psychodrama and therapeutic role playing. I’ve found that most types of psychotherapy have in common the implicit development of the wisdom-ing roles of the patient’s or client’s latent inner director. The converse of this is that many people’s problems may be viewed as resulting from a mediocre or deficient capacity at self-management. In making the activity of taking on and developing that self-governing role more explicit, people can collaborate more actively in the process of healing and learning the skills of self-awareness, interpersonal problem-solving, and communications.
The inner director needs to coordinate many wisdom-ing role functions, including observing, inquiring, mediating among the various sub-roles, coordinating, balancing, harmonizing, integrating, synthesizing, and so forth. Since drama is an art form, there is an implied valuing of creativity, and the inner director is encouraged to think creatively and imaginatively, become open to novel alternatives, break set, and think “out of the box.” Also, using principles now widely recognized in creative thinking, the wise inner director opens to higher guidance, inspiration (part of creative thinking), intuition, the influence of “the muses,” poetic “lateral thinking,” and imagination.
Beyond this, a wise inner director acts as a leader, not just a manager. This means that the goal expands beyond one of short-term expediency, and includes the functions of cultivating one’s value system, philosophy of life, constructing a meaningful mission or philosophy, and coordinating one’s purposes.
An interesting source of creative thinking involves the inclusion of childlike qualities, including the vulnerability of the inner child, sympathy for one’s own traumas and victimizations, becoming willing cut oneself a bit of slack, or to forgive oneself in the past as one reaffirms new intentions in the present (Blatner, 2005).
Sometimes it’s helpful to also use other metaphors, such as the self as an orchestra and the challenge being to be a more effective conductor; or the self as having many departments, like a great business organization, and the challenge being to serve as a wise Chief Executive Officer (Blatner, 2004b). In the task of modulating and coordinating the many roles, a variety of other wisdoming activities may be implemented, as the inner leader strives to wisely:
– engage problems, seek more alertness, intend to learn, become properly self-assertive
– balance not only elements of one’s role repertoire along with the various wisdom-ing skills mentioned in this article
– optimizing the “flow” or “spontaneity” in a process
– and, in short, balance love, faith, and responsibility as processes, verbs, intentional acts.
The Authority of Wisdom
Who, then, should be considered wise? Popular images of wisdom are confusing, as they have become unfortunately mixed with mere celebrity, or associated too casually with certain other marks of high status. As Tevya, the water carrier character in the 1960s Broadway musical, Fiddler on the Roof, says (as part of the song, “If I Was a Rich Man”), “When you’re rich, they think you really know!”It used to be that elders were held in great respect, because the nature of knowledge was such that it required many decades to reach mastery (Mead, 1970). Nowadays, much of what elders know and think is considered “old fashioned. Similarly, those who are simply erudite, having studied and remembered a great body of facts, were granted excessive authority. But in these days of online diploma mills and the influence of the Wizard of Oz, who granted a diploma to the Scarecrow, it is not always easy to tell who is really the learned one. Moreover, as noted above, much of the body of mere information continues to require both up-dating and re-interpretation in light of new findings from other domains.
As for those in Academia, the scholastics, these, too, cannot claim authority. I do incline to listen to their arguments just a bit more than those who show little evidence of ever having actually thought through their opinions. Still, even their ideas need to be evaluated critically.
One of the more problematic sources of authority are arising within the new age or consciousness transformation community. Swamis, gurus, teachers who claim to have been enlightened, and others granted that status by reason of their seeming to be so very serene, loving, or empty, these folks may pronounce their opinions on a wide range of subjects. Usually their ideas are generally noble and evoke my sympathy, I’m inclined to be open minded toward their ideas–but that isn’t the same as being so open-minded that my brains spill out. I detect elements not only of platitude, but also shooting-from-the-hip speculativeness in many of these teachings, and feel a need to sharpen our critical capacities in considering even their seemingly plausible and well-intentioned pronouncements.
Perhaps the question is misleading. It implies that a person adjudged wise will be so in many fields. This strikes of idealization, the problem of overgeneralizing virtues, attributing certain virtues not demonstrated based on the evidence in other areas of virtue or wisdom that seems to be more clearly demonstrated.
The problem of discernment comes forward here–which, of course, is another important type of wisdom-ing. How to separate the wheat from the chaff? Because a person expresses what seems to be a great and profound truth, or even ten truths, does that mean that the eleventh is equally true? Is the capacity to seem serene and loving evidence of wisdom that extends past that which is needed to keep oneself in such relatively stable states of mind? If wisdom is kept in mind as a verb, an activity, then we may listen with respect to those in authority, respect enough to listen and consider, but not the kind of respect that leads to uncritical acceptance. Perhaps this kind of balancing act is what’s more wise in our present world.
Conclusion
Wisdom should be thought of as a verb, “to wisdom,” or a gerund, wisdom-ing, as an activity, something one does, rather than a fixed state, as if it were a possession or social status. Actually, it is a broad category of component activities, such as goodly number of component activities, such as seeking wisdom; balancing different kinds of wisdom; discerning the optimal amounts or degrees of various efforts; exercising compassion and interpersonal sensitivity; appreciating; re-evaluating tradition and accepted knowledge; integrating information and skills; developing deeper understanding and integrating also one’s personal ideals; becoming alert to self-deception and the temptations towards foolishness; practicing humility and self-questioning; opening to intuition and imagination; weaving in a measure of playfulness; and so forth.From this point of recognizing wisdom as an activity, many of the thousands of books on various aspects of wisdom, self-help, philosophy, and so forth might have many of the items they mention viewed as verbs, skills. Exercising these in effective proportions in life exhibits wisdom; failure to do this represents, well, less wisdom, ordinary life, or even foolishness. The important thing is to think in terms of skills and their ongoing exercise. Responsibility involves the ability to respond, and the more skills, understanding, and knowledge one possesses, the more one can perform responsibly.
A unifying structure can be the idea that life is like a drama–i.e., the “dramaturgical perspective.” The idea here is that people play many roles and part of wisdom involves taking on the role of the director of this cast of characters–a “meta-role,” if you will. Another part of wisdom is continuing to develop the many skills needed to coordinate, balance, and modulate that role playing, so that an optimal range of roles can find expression in the most differentiated and also socially integrated fashion.
References
Berne, E. (1964). Games people play: The psychology of human relationships. New York: Grove Press.Blatner, A. (2000). Foundations of psychodrama: history, theory & practice (4th ed.). New York: Springer
Blatner, A. (2004a). On self-ing as process. Retrieved on February 22, 2005 from website: http://www.blatner.com/adam/level2/self.htm
Blatner, A. (2004b). Useful metaphors in psychotherapy. Retrieved on February 24, 2005 from website: http://www.blatner.com/adam/level2/metaphors.htm
Blatner, A. (2005). A little bit: reflections on proportionality in psychodynamics. Retrieved on February 22, 2005 from website: http://www.blatner.com/adam/psyntbk/littlebit.htm
Kravetz, D. (1995). The directory for building competencies. Bartlett, IL: Kravetz Associates.
Mead, M. (1970). Culture and commitment: A study of the generation gap. New York: Natural History Press / Doubleday.
Strayhorn, J. M. (1988). The competent child: An approach to psychotherapy and preventive mental health. New York: Guilford.
Tolle, E. (1999). The power of now. Novato, CA: New World Library.
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