Unfolding in the Metacrisis, the title of this blog, is about exploring how we as developmental coaches can navigate the challenging times we live in and help our coaching clients do the same. In this series of articles, I’m going to dive into the art and science of transformation that informs the Aletheia Coaching and Aletheia Leadership Coaching methodologies.
Inspired by the work of child psychologist Margaret Mahler, in Aletheia Meta-psychology I name eight layers of ego structure that form in the first three years of life during the process of separation-individuation that she articulated. The first three years of life is an amazing time of profound growth, learning, and development. This process of separation-individuation culminates in what Mahler termed the “psychological birth.” This occurs when all of the fundamental ego structures are formed and we have the rudiments of an ego-centric psychology.
Metaphorically, I often think about the eight layers of ego structure at this time of life like the uninhabited superstructure of an eight story home. There are floors, walls, windows, and doors but no furniture or decorations. The home hasn’t yet been inhabited. Remember what it was like to move into your home. As you inhabit your home you figure out where everything goes. You organize it and decorate it. This is usually an experimental process that unfolds over time. If you are like me, you reorganize things every few years as your needs change and you learn what works and what doesn’t work. You may even do some remodeling from time to time.
An analogous process of habitation occurs with ego structure. After the psychological birth, the eight layers of ego structure are populated with life experiences, feelings, emotions, ideas, images, identities, language, learnings, strategies, habits, relationships, etc. Through this, we inhabit the fundamental form of these eight layers of ego structure. Every transformation we experience occurs within these eight layers. Therefore, understanding these eight layers is essential for any science of transformation.
In the nomenclature of Aletheia Meta-psychology, these eight layers are called 1fold, 2fold, 3fold, and so on up to 8fold. Of course, they have more descriptive names as well. In ACP Level 2, we explore each layer in detail and learn how the deep structure of Enneagram fixations privileges one of these layers above the others in its experience of self-world relations. Fully articulating these eight layers is the subject of a book or a course and beyond the scope of this article.
As each layer of ego structure forms, the child progressively develops an embodied way of being a self-in-the-world. Naturally, this process of ego formation is followed by a process of ego transformation that unfolds throughout the remainder of life. Ego transformation is a continuation of ego formation, which itself is a profoundly transformative process.
In Aletheia Meta-psychology I articulate four styles of ego transformation. Following suit, I call these 9fold, 10fold, 11fold, and 12fold. From the view of this meta-psychology, these four styles of ego transformation are implied by the structure of the ego itself. Therefore, they are the only ways that ego can transform. The style of ego transformation in any form of psychotherapy, coaching, or spiritual practice can be understood as one or more of these four styles.
In this series of articles, I want to dig a little deeper into The Four Styles of Transformation and unpack their relevance for us as developmental coaches. The four styles are:
9fold Transmutation - a style of transformation that occurs as innate wholeness unfolds and expresses more of itself as wholeness. Transmutation is a process of releasing self-grasping, which is the end result of ego formation. Curiously, what unfolds from this is a progressively deeper contact with ourselves and the world. This style reveals that our fundamental nature as Being is an inexhaustible surplus. Transmutation is therefore a regenerative organic process of never-ending transformation. The following three styles are latent within this style and progressively unfold from it.
10fold Translucence - a style of transformation that occurs when self-constructions are 1) seen as constructions and 2) seen through to the underlying unconstructed nature of reality. This style reveals the ongoing process of constructing, deconstructing, and reconstructing ourselves and our world and helps us understand the central role that language plays in ego transformation.
11fold Transfiguration - a style of transformation that occurs as a form is transformed into a more sublime and beatific form. This style focuses on transformative redesign and reveals the profound interdependency between body and world as experienced through self-conditioning. Transfiguration engaged the process of transformative communion between body and world. In transfiguration, transformation becomes a craft in which we act as world designers who are in turn also being redesigned by our designs.
12fold Transference - a style of transformation in which nothing transforms into something that it already isn’t. This is a paradoxical style of transformation that transforms transformation itself through transforming transformative agency. This reveals how transformation is not only a practice but a grace.
These styles unfold in a developmental way each bringing a new transformative approach that complements and expands upon the styles that preceded. Each style of transformation has particular strengths and weaknesses. Fortunately, the weaknesses of one style are offset by the strengths of other styles.
For example, transmutation generates transformations that gradually unfolds whereas translucence generates sudden transformations like those that occur as insights and awakenings. We need both and any approach to developmental coaching must leverage both.
Both transmutation and translucence are continuous styles of transformation that arise from current present moment experience. They are continuous in time and space whereas transfiguration is discontinuous. Many people are trapped in the view that they can’t get from where they are to where they want to be because there is no connecting path. Transfiguration locates the source of transformation as transcendent of time and space. Metaphorically, it is like teleporting from one way of being into another way of being. This is not as esoteric as it might seem at first. You find transfiguration used in styles of coaching that invite clients to step into new narratives as an act of declaration. Such declarations must be reinforce and embodied through practices. The transfiguration of self-conditioning requires practice which realigns our conditioning in a way that embodies the new narrative. Once, again, we need both continuous and discontinuous styles of transformation.
I often refer to transference as a style of transformation that is “beyond transformation.” That too is needed to transform the persistent sense of self-deficiency that drives so much self-improvement at its very root. Whereas transmutation, translucence, and transfiguration take the person themselves to be the agent of transformation, transference shows how the true source of transformation is grace itself. This is already implied within transmutation but it is made explicit and central in transference.
We are living in an age of unsettlement according to my favorite design philosopher Tony Fry. These are transformative times that call for a deeper understanding of the nature of transformation itself. Our job as developmental coaches is to consciously leverage these styles of transformation to support the ongoing development of our clients and the social systems that they live in and lead.
As developmental coaches, we love to learn and develop. We take many coach training courses, learn new assessment tools, read books, and experiment with new tools and methods. The end result is typically an eclectic approach that is cumbersome and varies widely in effectiveness. When viewed from the perspective of these four styles of transformation, we can see how psychotherapists, coaches, and spiritual practitioners unknowingly cherry pick elements from many styles and try to blend them together with mixed results. Indeed, we need an ecology of practices, however an eclectic approach is not necessarily an integrated approach.
Learning these four styles enables us to harmonize and integrate them into a powerful approach to ego transformation. You don’t necessarily need to become a philosopher of transformation to do this, although I believe that master coaches will approach this. Instead, you can utilize a coaching methodology that already integrates them. This is what I have tried to create in Aletheia Coaching and Aletheia Leadership Coaching.
In Part 2, I will share more about transmutation. We will explore the important difference between self-improvement and self-unfoldment and why this distinction is crucial to navigating the metacrisis.