Customer Reviews

Beyond Individualism: Toward a New Understanding of Self, Relationship, and Experience

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I'm very grateful to Gordon Wheeler for his insightful deconstruction of the individualist paradigm and introduction of the new relational paradigm. Taking full advantage of the work done by post-modern philosophers and psychologists Wheeler demonstrates the limitations of seeing ourselves and the world through the lens of a separate "I" versus an objective "other". We are taken on a journey from the early Greeks through the work of Feud and even Fritz Perls to help us see all the implications of identifying with this now outdated view. In contrast, the new paradigm is intersubjective and relational, constructing meaning and self at the boundary of where we have contact with ourselves, others, and the world and we find the boundaries are fluid and overlapping. As paradoxes and polarities are resolved in a larger field view, we find hope for a world that is suffering, if not in peril, due to the rigid and repeating polarities that separate us and too often end in conflict, if not war. Whether we find our selves too alone in our work or with our problems, or feel shame from concluding that we have no place in our lives just now, or whether we observe the bifurcation in our congress, between the sexes, or between countries, it is clear that we need a new, more revealing, and healing vision to connect us all at a deeper, more meaningful level. Thanks to Gordon Wheeler for his contribution to us through constructing and elucidating this healing (wholing) view. I'd like to note that this work is not only theoretical but makes use of illustrative exercises completed in training groups which we can participate in as well. This brings the theoretical work directly into our own experience which is grounding and supportive of our own insights and growth.