The Professional Certificate in

“The Evolution of Meaning:
Overcoming Our Immunity to Change”

Introduction

This professional certificate grounds the practitioner in the theory and practice of constructive developmental psychology and provides the context and tools for deeper and more effective work with clients. Through a greater understanding of the client’s complexity of mind and meaning making, practitioners are better able to meet their clients where they are and then guide and accompany them on a journey of change.

The following three courses comprise this certificate; all are delivered online via our Sakai learning management system. Each course is delivered in a self study mentor model and with
continuous enrolment you can begin any time you wish. The courses build on one another so they must be taken in sequence.

Course 1: ICAE 500 The History and Evolution of the Field of Developmental Psychology

“Experience is not what happens to you, it’s what you do with what happens to you.” (Aldous Huxley)

This course will trace the evolution of thought and knowledge-construction within the field of Developmental Psychology, particularly as it attends to the development of human meaning-making – what Kegan calls “the essential motion of human being”—and the “what you do with what happens to you.” The origins of this field can be found in the works of James Mark Baldwin, John Dewey, George Herbert Meade, and most centrally, Jean Piaget. We will look at the work of all of these theorists, along with many others in the lineage, as we follow the development of the thinkers and their thoughts through this field of making sense of our human experience. We will also look at present-day knowledge construction through the lens of our Integral perspective, to explore the continuing evolution of the field and where it might lead us, and how it can help illuminate and clarify our understanding of the meaning and evolution of conflict analysis and engagement.

Course Cost $1800.00

Course 2: ICAE 510 The Evolution of the Self in Conflict: Constructive-Developmental Theory

This course explores the evolutionary trajectory of meaning-making in adulthood and the ways that we understand, experience, and engage the conflicts, from the banal to the profound, that inevitably show up along our journey. Conflicts and the meaning they hold for us have a powerful impact on our sense of identity, membership in our communities, and our constructions of our world. Without conflict, we do not grow. With too much conflict, we wither and retreat.
This course will take an in-depth look at the evolution of the self and its meaning-making across the lifespan, focusing primarily on the journey through adulthood. We explore this time called “adulthood” not as a single, last phase of human development, but as part of an evolutionary journey involving significantly different eras and transformations. Within the context of the fields of leadership development & conflict analysis and engagement, we will use conceptual and literary readings, group discussions via conference calls, self-reflective practice, and online dialogue to plumb the depths of the evolution of meaning-making in adulthood. The complexity of one’s meaning-making holds significant implications for the ways in which individuals understand, relate to, and experience conflict. In this course students will attend to understanding their own meaning-making around conflict while also attending to the meaning-making of conflict of their clients, colleagues, family and friends.
Course Cost $1800.00

Course 3: ICAE 520  Theory to Practice: Working Through our Immunity to Change

This course will apply the theory and methodology of constructive-developmental psychology to leadership and mediation practice. We will focus on the methodologies of Kegan & Lahey’s Immunity to Change, Torbert’s Action Inquiry, Goodman’s Developmental Coaching, and engage in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person investigations of the theoretical and conceptual foundations for each methodology as well as the administration and practical application of each.

Students will be expected to engage with these methodologies in their own reflective practice throughout the course, and to keep a reflective practice journal. At the beginning of the course, students will, in consultation with the instructor, create their own individual learning goals for the course and develop an individualized trajectory and strategies and to enhance and support their own evolutionary journey.

These goals and strategies will be based on each student’s completion of an Immunity to Change Map.

Course Cost $1800.00

The Professional Certificate in

"Meaning Making Assessment"

In this online certificate program, participants will learn the fundamentals of identifying and assessing indicators of meaning making complexity, i.e. the data. By unpacking and beginning to understand the interplay of developmental complexity with the other components in the felt experience, participants will gain the ability, first, to identify and define the differences between and among the complexities of meaning-making and, second, to distinguish and define the differences between information and transformation, content and structure, meaning and behaviour.

The following two courses comprise this certificate; all are delivered online via our Sakai learning management system. Each course is delivered in a self study mentor model and with
continuous enrolment you can begin any time you wish. The courses build on one another so they must be taken in sequence.

ICAE 410: Introduction to the Meaning-Making Inventory
Prerequisite: none
Course hours: 4 hours per week for 10 weeks

Often referred to as the Subject-Object Interview (SOI), the Meaning-making Inventory (MMI) is a semi-structured, open-ended interview designed to draw out the ways in which a person makes meaning from his or her experience. It was designed by Robert Kegan, PhD., and colleagues of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, as the technical and methodological piece of his Constructive-Developmental theory of psychological development.

As anyone who has been involved in a conflict knows, the meaning of the conflict for each of the disputants can vary so much that one wonders if they are talking about the same conflict. Understanding another’s meaning-making process is a powerful tool in being able to work together more harmoniously. In this introductory course, participants will be introduced to the fundamentals of Constructive-Developmental theory and its methodology, the MMI. The course will pay particular attention to the important distinctions in Constructive-Developmental theory between information and transformation, between the content and structure of meaning-making, and between meaning and behaviour.

Participants will begin to learn how to identify “structural” data in excerpts from an actual interview transcript and will also have the opportunity to apply the theory to their own experience as a way to deepen their understanding of the theory and its application.

Course Cost: 1500.00

ICAE 420: The Meaning-Making Inventory
Prerequisite: CM 410
Course hours: 4 hours per week for 10 weeks

The MMI is a powerful assessment tool that, when skilfully applied, provides an important new dimension in our attempts to understand and work well with others. In this advanced course, participants will hone and deepen their understanding of the meaning-making process, sharpening their assessment and interviewing skills.

Through class discussion, role-plays, and the use of interview transcripts, participants will learn to recognize the more subtle and discreet sub-phases along the continuum of meaning-making complexity as well as learning the fundamentals of conducting the interview, with the ability to identify and distinguish the content from the structure. 

Course Cost: 1500.00

*Professional Development courses are non-credit bearing.