The idea of an integral understanding of the individual’s developmental journey through life is essentially an analytical and conceptual way of representing this journey. In the same way that Maslow’s pyramid of needs is a synthesis of motivational theory in a developmental perspective, the Integral Idea is a synthesis of already existing – primarily psychological – theories into a unified idea of life as a developmental journey.

IPA is research in personality analysis.

Central to the Integral Idea is the notion that our life and development journey moves and develops in stages, each stage characterised by the way we fundamentally perceive and interpret the world around us. Each stage of human development is characterised by qualitatively different ways of experiencing oneself in the world. IPA is research in personality analysis. This includes the way we think, feel and act in the world, the way we perceive the limits and possibilities of reality, and the way we form relationships with other people.

It is therefore crucial that each stage is qualitatively different from the others. And at the same time – as in Maslow – there is a path and direction of development where the movement and leap from the old to the new stage marks both a historical and personal leap to a higher stage of consciousness.

According to Robert Kegan, one of the foremost psychologists and proponents of Integral Theory, the world is constructed through relationships. Man is created by and is fundamentally his relationships, and the crucial pendulum swing of personal development is the movement between Integration – being like and connecting with others and Differentiation – being oneself as something unique and different from others. These two positions belong together and cannot be separated, and personal development arises in the dynamic between the two apparent opposites. It is the force and energy that moves us from one stage to the next. As we move through life, we develop both the self, i.e. we create our personal identity and self-perception through this seeing of the world from the inside out, AND we enter into and develop relationships, thereby learning to see the world from the outside in. A balanced self-awareness requires both views.

Thus, a growing understanding of ourselves in relation to people, and people in relation to ourselves, is the central point of conflict and the crucial dynamo for our developmental path. Development and maturation as a human being always involves a greater awareness and understanding of the relationship between myself and others. Maturity is thus a question of self-awareness and self-knowledge from within, but also a question of deepening already existing relationships, of feeling greater responsibility towards others, of knowing how I affect others, of increasingly understanding the ways in which others react, of being able to see through and analyse increasingly complex systems, of being able to think in terms of paradoxes and polarities, of being able to deal with dilemmas, etc.

Maturity is the ability to deal increasingly with the dilemma between being oneself and being like others – being in the other. And there is no “solution”. It is not an either or. It is a matter of balance and consideration in relation to the individual’s personality and the specific situation. What changes, develops and matures through life is the individual’s ability to manoeuvre between these two fundamental and conflicting poles.

Development, then, is the qualitative leaps that occur in our consciousness as we move from one level of development to another. And the basic idea is Integral, that we as human beings take everything we have learned so far into the new way of thinking about the world. So we can go “back” in our development, depending on the situation. We integrate, so to speak, the old way of thinking into the new. Evolution is a qualitative change of consciousness. The old assumptions and truths are rejected in favour of new truths. But we take the old assumptions over to the new stage of development, but now consciously so that we can reflect on them. A given stage thus contains all previous stages, is the result of our research in personality analysis.

Each developmental stage describes both a person’s way of thinking, i.e. the way in which we thoughtfully create structure, coherence and meaning in what we do, and our way of feeling, i.e. how we experience events around us and what inner processes this experience sets in motion.

But first and foremost in this context (the IPA analysis), the stages are described through the associated more concrete behaviour. What we actually do, how we are with other people, how we interact with others, what needs we act on and what we want out of it, what we strive for and how we master and cope with the challenges we meet on our way.

And so we arrive at the fundamental questions we want to answer with the IPA Analysis. How do I perceive reality, its limits and possibilities? How do I deal with adversity and resistance on the way to the goals I have set myself? How do I connect with and engage with other people? And how do I realise my personal potential and find my own path?

The IPA analysis is precisely an operationalisation and concretisation of the part of the description of each of the developmental stages that relates to our behaviour. In the IPA Analysis we have defined 4 qualitatively different platforms/main factors of individual behaviour. This concretization is necessary to be able to MEASURE the different behavioral factors. But we must remember that these factors are described as the tip of the iceberg with underlying motives, values, etc.
As mentioned, our personal development journey is a journey that unfolds throughout our lives. It takes time. Change – the leap from one stage of development to the next – only really takes hold when our experiences, reflections and thoughts have become emotionally embedded in our minds, our consciousness and our actions. When we recognise and feel the emotion, when we can lift it into our consciousness and act concretely on that basis. Any qualitative change in our lives requires both thought, feeling and action. That is how concrete our research in personality analysis is.

Central to the Integral Idea is the notion that our life and developmental journey, as determined by the way we think, our values and our identity, develops in stages, each stage characterised by the way we fundamentally understand and encounter the world around us.
Each stage describes both a person’s way of thinking, i.e. the way in which we thoughtfully create structure, coherence and meaning in what we do, and our way of feeling, i.e. how we experience events around us and what inner processes this experience sets in motion. But first and foremost in this context, the stages are described through the associated more concrete behaviour.

The quality of what you develop in one area of the IPA Analysis model is dependent on what you have developed in the other areas.
When we evolve from one platform to the next, we take all the best of the old platform with us and INTEGRATE the old into the new. Where before the old was the goal and an end in itself, now it becomes a means to unfold ourselves from the new platform with new goals, new personal standards and a whole new way of experiencing ourselves and interpreting ourselves into the world.

The movement and leap from the old to the new stage marks both a historical and personal leap to a higher stage of consciousness.
The crucial pendulum swing of personal development is the movement between Integration – being like and connecting with others and Differentiation – being oneself as something unique and different from others. These two positions belong together and cannot be separated, and personal development arises in the dynamic between the two apparent opposites. It is the force and energy that moves us from one stage to the next.

As we move through life, we develop both the self, i.e. we create our personal identity and self-perception through this seeing of the world from the inside out, AND we enter into and develop relationships, thereby learning to see the world from the outside in. A balanced self-awareness requires both views.

There are more than 30 years of research in personality analysis behind IPA Nordic.

Have a good journey.

IPA Nordic

– Flemming Olsen
Researcher IPA Nordic