TALE: Three Creative Themes and One Meta-framework

Toward a Strategic Developmental Psychology

In the past 45 days, I worked on developing a set of knowledge frameworks and curating them into a meaningful whole. The outcome is a meta-framework of Theoretical Psychology.

Inspired by the above meta-framework, I developed three creative themes last week. Each creative theme echoes one module of the meta-framework.

• Self (Ontology): Thematic Identity Curation
• Life (Realism): Professional Square
• Mind (Hermeneutics): The Curativity of Mind

I use these creative themes to refer to corresponding knowledge frameworks.

• Thematic Identity Curation: The “Thematic Curation as Identity Building” Framework
• Professional Square: The Project Engagement and Professional Knowledge Engagement
• The Curativity of Mind: The “Context of Developing Tacit Knowledge” Framework

This post aims to introduce three models behind these creative themes.

Thematic Identity Curation

In the past month, I had a deep experience with “Thematic Curation” which includes Thematic Echo, Thematic Blend, Thematic Integration, etc.

Originally, I used “Psychological Knowledge Engagement” as a theme to explore a friend’s creative life. However, I recently realized this theme is also a theme of my creative life.

In the post titled [Thematic Blend] Psychological Knowledge Engagement, I listed the following projects:

• 2016: The Mind as Play Project
• 2017: The “Mind, Meaning, and Experience” Project
• 2021: The D as Diagramming Project
• 2023: The Life(Self) Project
• 2024: The History [Life(Self)] Project

This is a partial landscape of my journey of engaging with psychological knowledge. I should add more projects to this list!

This experience inspired me to think about the relationship between “Theme” and “Identity” from the perspective of the Developmental Project Model, the Advanced Life Strategy framework, and Curativity Theory.

On May 6, 2024, I inserted a diagram about the Developmental Project Model into a deck about Strategic Life Development. The diagram was originally made for discussing the Microdynamics of Creative Identity on Sept 24, 2023.

On May 6, 2024, I added a new insight to the slide.

Thematic Curation as Identity Building

On May 9, 2024, the insight was expanded into a framework. See the diagram below.

You can find more details in Thematic Curation as Identity Building.

Today I coined a new term called “Thematic Identity Curation” as a specific advanced life strategy.

What is it?

From the perspective of Thematic Space Theory, a person’s Identity can be seen as a dynamic process of thematic curation. The person moves between several thematic spaces within his life course.

Each thematic space has a primary theme and a set of secondary themes.

The person could find a meaningful chain of life themes in his/her creative journey.

Finding similar life themes crosses different thematic spaces, turning them into a meaningful whole.

This is called “Thematic Identity Curation”.

How does it work?

1. Understand the ideal Identity’s thematic aspects
2. Discover past life themes that match the thematic aspects.
3. Design new projects that emphasize the thematic aspects.
4. Use a framework to manage the whole process.

The framework highlights the following moments:

1. Echo
2. Blend
3. Project
4. Integration

Moreover, this is only about individual perspective.

If we change to the collective perspective, we see the “Alignment of Identity” theme in the context of a Collaborative Project. You can find more details in A Model of Professional Knowledge Engagement.

The connection between Individual and Collective perspectives is the sub-theme of “Internal Integration”.

If a person’s Identity Building matches the process of “Internal Integration” of “Alignment of Identity” of a Collaborative Project, then the person’s “Progement Engagement” is positive. The development of the project could support the development of the person’s identity. You can find more details in Kinds of Project Engagement.

I use the creative theme “Professional Square” to refer to the Project Engagement approach to Professional Knowledge Engagement.

Originally, I developed a model of Professional Knowledge Engagement on April 27, 2024.

On April 29, 2024, I renamed it “Professional Square” because the primary focus of the model is the following part.

It describes a public space for thematic discussion around a theme or a set of themes.

The public space was framed by the following four dimensions:

• Truth
• Value
• Theme
• Identity

On May 11, 2024, I made a toolkit for the Professional Knowledge Engagement project.

The top half of the diagram is a map of the toolkit.

I use the term “Ground” to name a large social environment such as a Platform, a Community, a Domain, a Field, an Ecosystem, a City, etc.

Inside the “Ground”, there are four types of “Social Containers”:

• Zone
• Project
• Square
• Chain

“Zone” refers to a two-person connection.

“Project” refers to a collaborative project between two or more people.

“Square” refers to a group of people joining a public discussion. This level echoes the “Camp” of the Infoniche framework.

“Chain” refers to a special type of professional organizational system such as a Psychological Counseling Platform.

The core of the toolkit is the Developmental Project Model which is the primary model of the Project Engagement approach.

The bottom half of the diagram highlights five knowledge frameworks:

• The Thematic Curation Framework
• The Creative Identity Engagement Framework
• The ARCH Framework
• The Professional Square Framework
• The Professional Chain Framework

You can find more details in Project Engagement and Professional Knowledge Engagement.

The Curativity of Mind

Several days ago, I reflected on my creations on Mind. I noticed that I wanted to integrate the “Flow — Story — Model” model and the Knowledge Discovery Canvas in Nov 2023.

The above picture is a note about the idea. You can find more details in Situational Note-taking: The idea of “Thematic Matrix +”.

In the past two weeks, I worked on reflecting more knowledge frameworks about Life, Mind, Self, Activity, and related themes. Eventually, I realized I needed to update the “Flow — Story — Model” schema.

The “Flow — Story — Model” schema is also called the Context of Developing Tacit Knowledge. It was developed for the Knowledge Discovery Canvas on Jan 11, 2022.

You can find more details in Thematic Space: Flow, Film, and Floor Plan.

From the perspective of Activity Theory, I consider Developing Tacit Knowledge as an Activity. To understand the activity, I developed the Knowledge Discovery Canvas.

To claim the value of the Knowledge Discovery Canvas, I developed the model of “the Context of Developing Tacit Knowledge”.

The model is about Developing Tacit Knowledge.

What about if the Tacit Knowledge is about “Mind’?

From March 2022 to Oct 2022, I expanded the “Flow — Story — Model” model into the Model of Curated Mind.

From the perspective of the Ecological Practice approach, I use Context(Mind) as the primary unit of analysis to develop the model of the Curated Mind.

We also can pay attention to the following three types of Curativity:

• The Curativity of Proximal Mind: Turning pieces of experiences into a meaningful whole at the loop of Proximal Mind.
• The Curativity of Pervasive Mind: Turning pieces of experiences into a meaningful whole at the loop of Pervasive Mind.
• The Curativity of Mind: Turning “Proximal Mind” and “Pervasive Mind” into a meaningful whole.

You can find more details about the above theoretical concepts in Slow Cognition: The Curated Mind.

On May 10, 2024, I made a new version of the “Flow — Story — Model” model and renamed it “the Curativity of Mind”.

The “Flow — Story — Model” schema is expanded into “Action — Experience — Story — Model — Meta”.

I also added the “Clues — Themes — Concepts — General Terms” schema to the left side.

These two new ideas are adopted from the Knowledge Discovery Canvas and Thematic Exploration (book, draft) and Grasping the Concept (book, draft).

It can be used as a map to discuss four types of actors’ knowledge engagement. For example, the diagram below is used to discuss Actors and the PRACTICE thematic area.

You can find more details in The Curativity of Mind (v1, 2024).

Toward a Strategic Developmental Psychology

The theme of “Strategic Developmental Psychology” was born in an email I sent to a friend on Nov 22, 2023.

In Nov 2023, my friend asked me to review Richard S. Lazarus’ approach to emotion and adaptation. I was not familiar with Lazarus’ work before that conversation. After reading two papers by Richard S. Lazarus, I made a diagram based on the Mental Tuning Framework. See the picture below.

The email discussed several ideas about the “Coping Activity as Mental Tuning” framework. The #10 idea initiated the theme of “Strategic Developmental Psychology”.

10. Strategic Developmental Psychology

Inspired by Robert Kegan’s knowledge enterprise, I was thinking of a new theme called “Strategic Developmental Psychology”.

If I want to connect Activity Theory with Western action psychology, maybe I can use “Strategic Developmental Psychology” to reframe my works about Activity Theory and Ecological Psychology.

Last week, I chatted with a friend of mine who lives in China. Several years ago, she was a visitor student of Edward L. Deci who is a co-founder of Self-Determination Theory. We talked about the concept of “Strategy” in the field of psychology. She told me that the term “Strategy” is just a normal word for psychologists.

Last year, I edited the book (draft) Advanced Life Strategy: Anticipatory Activity System and Life Achievements. The book is based on the AAS framework which defines the concept of “Strategy” as “Anticipatory Activity System”.

As mentioned in the first article about the Mental Tuning framework, I consider the Mental Tuning framework as a bridge between the AAS and Western action psychology.

For AAS, the concept of “Strategy” is about Anticipation (Future).

However, I found the Strategic technique is related to coping activities which are about the Present.

If we put these together, then we can set a foundation for Strategic Developmental Psychology: 1) strategic techniques for coping with present challenges, 2) strategy for capturing present opportunities for the future.

Furthermore, Ecological psychology is about “Opportunity”.

On Dec 31, 2023, I edited a possible book (draft) titled Mapping Developmental Projects: Life, Stories, and Thematic Spaces.

Part 5 of the book is titled Toward A Strategic Developmental Psychology.

After reviewing Part 1 to Part 4 of the book, I saw a clear path to the development of the concept of Developmental Projects:

I didn’t only use the concept of Developmental Projects as a scientific/academic tool for explanation but also used it as a practical/strategic tool for intervention.

Let’s consider my work on “Development Projects” with my books (drafts) Platform for Development, Advanced Life Strategy, and Creative Life Curation together. We see a new theme: Strategic Developmental Psychology.

In Feb 2022, I applied the Project Engagement approach to understanding Life Discovery Activity.

I have developed several frameworks about Life Discovery and Life Development in general from different perspectives. One challenge is making a balance between individual perspective and collective perspective. This is an essential challenge for social sciences. For example, psychological perspective vs. the sociological perspective, methodological individualism vs. methodological collectivism, etc.

Some scholars don’t consider the dichotomy as a problem and they just form two camps. Other scholars developed theoretical solutions to solve the theoretical conflict between these two camps. Inspired by Derek Layder’s Social Domains Theory (1997) and Andy Blunden’s “Project as a Unit of Activity” (2010, 2014), I adopted the concept of “Project” as a Container for understanding Life.

Andy Blunden mentions a project-oriented approach on both psychology and sociology, “A project is a focus for an individual’s motivation, the indispensable vehicle for the exercise of their will and thus the key determinant of their psychology and the process which produces and reproduces the social fabric. Projects, therefore, give direct expression to the identity of the sciences of the mind and the social sciences. Projects belong to both; a project is a concept of both psychology and sociology.” (2014, p.15)

The concept of Life can be understood as Collective Life and Individual Life. We can use the concept of Project to understand both of them. A person’s real life is a set of real actions. The concept of “Project” is a way of curating these actions. On the other hand, Collective Life can be curated with Projects too.

Following this theoretical framework, the concept of Developmental Projects could be a unique and powerful unit of analysis for a new type of developmental psychology.

On a highlighter level, the Anticipatory Activity System (AAS) framework offers us a solution to understanding Developmental Projects in the context of “Self, Other, Present, Future”.

The Anticipatory Activity System (AAS) framework is inspired by Activity Theory, Anticipatory System theory, Relevance theory, and other theoretical resources.

An Anticipatory Activity System is formed by two parts: First-order Activity and Second-order Activity.

In real-life case studies, both First-order Activity and Second-order Activity can be understood as Developmental Projects.

While the AAS framework is more about Anticipation, the Creative Life Curation framework is more about Reflection. The concept of Developmental Projects and the Project Engagement approach are more about Emergence. If we connect these ideas, we see a clear path to creative life.

Last year, I used the above diagram as the basic structure to curate four books (drafts) together.

Now if we focus on the concept of Developmental Projects, and consider it as a new idea for the field of Developmental Psychology, we could find a new creative space called Strategic Developmental Psychology.

Part 5 of Mapping Developmental Projects collects some articles as references for further developing the brand-new theme.

• 5.1 Psychological Knowledge Engagement and Robert Kegan’s Knowledge Enterprise — 59 min
• 5.2 Knowledge Engagement: The Hermeneutics of Creative Life — 6 min
• 5.3 A “Strategy-as-Curation” Weekend — 19 min
• 5.4 Ecological Strategic Cognition — 8 min
• 5.5 Situational Note-taking: Lazarus’ Perspective and “Coping Activity as Mental Tuning” — 6 min
• 5.6 Advanced Life Strategy: Anticipatory Activity System and Life Achievements — 19 min

On May 6, 2024, I developed the Strategic Life Development framework and wrote a 66-slide deck.

The last section of the deck is also titled “Toward a Strategic Developmental Psychology”.

The section used the meta-framework of Theoretical Psychology to frame my knowledge frameworks.

It led to the above three creative themes and related toolkits and frameworks.

The “Strategic Life Development” project is co-hosted by Life Strategy Center and Curativity Center.