A divergent thinker who can’t abide an echo chamber, Jessie has served as a CIA leadership analyst, a Google Policy Fellow, assistant the Consul General of Japan in Detroit, and a Segway-riding Mars Rover expert at the 2005 World Expo’s US Pavilion. She is now an independent writer, editor, and research analyst, helping private clients save little pieces of the world.
After his brother’s assassination, Robert Kennedy faced a disintegration. Though it was brutal, it was also a positive one, demonstrating the power of overexcitability when fueled by high-level courage. Bobby’s ill-fated campaign ultimately showed glimmers of level V, the highest level of personal development.
The Mind Illuminated is a great meditation manual that will guide you, step by step, from establishing your practice to achieving tranquility and equanimity. If all you’re looking to do is learn to sustain your focus, it’ll help you with that, too.
Dabrowski’s hierarchy of levels is one of the most well-known aspects of his theory of positive disintegration. But what’s really going on in those levels? And what are those “dynamism” things, anyway? The editor of Third Factor Magazine explains the basics here.
THIRD FACTOR. The autonomous factor of development. The first factor…
Years before I first heard the term “positive disintegration,” I was struck by the process as it played out in a biography of Robert F. Kennedy. Intense, quirky, and with a sense of the epic, RFK and his life journey reveal the human drama beneath Kazimierz Dabrowski’s academic jargon, showcasing overexcitability, dynamisms, and inner psychic transformation in all its dramatic glory.
When there’s a sickness in the society around you, Kazimierz Dabrowski argued that being maladjusted to it is actually a way to be mentally healthy. While such maladjustment still often leads us to disintegration, the good news is that this kind of disintegration may simply be a step on the broader process of reintegrating ourselves in a healthier, more powerful way.
