Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine
The foundation of the Wakefield Doctrine rests upon the idea that we all, as individuals, live in what we refer to as a ‘personal reality’. (We sometimes use the word ‘worldview’ interchangeably with ‘personal reality’.) ‘Personal reality’ is defined as, the subjectively perceived character of (an) individual’s role, responsiblity and overall relationship to the world at large; (the) world-at-large includes: people, places and things, relationships, expectations and potential for change or development. In other words, reality. That we claim to define reality in a context looking out from the individual’s perspective, is not really all that radical a notion. Albeit difficult to express, the notion of the nature of the reality as being substantially a subjective process and therefore a product, in part or in whole, to the individual’s interpretation is not something that seems excessively metaphysical. We are not, in fact, suggesting that the everyday world that we all experience is comprised of countless individual realities with their own set of rules and definitions. Well, not quite at any rate. What we are saying is:
“…we all are born with the capacity to come to perceive the world as being of three characteristic ‘types’. These worlds are: the world as experienced by the natural Outsider (personality type: clarks), the world as seen through the eyes of a predator (personality type: scotts) and the world predicated on membership/relationship (personality type: roger). At an early age we all ‘pick one’ and the world around us becomes that type of world/reality. We never lose the capacity to experience the world as one of ‘the other two’, and it is not uncommon for people when first learning about the Wakefield Doctrine to feel that there are times when their personality type seems to change! It is normal to see in one’s own behavior, similarities to that of any of the three personality types. But there remains, for everyone, a primary worldview, and it is the primary worldview that shapes the behavior and results in the ‘personality types’ that we refer to in the Wakefield Doctrine.
The distinction claimed by the Wakefield Doctrine in regards to the characteristics of the three personality types, is that the Doctrine is concerned only with determining the character of the personal reality that the individual is experiencing. There is no need to try to convince the individual to reveal traits and interests, drives and appetites all in the service of ‘discovering the personality type’. The Wakefield Doctrine views behavior and traits, interests and drives as common to all and it is how those drives and traits are manifested in the individual’s personal reality is what establishes ‘personality types’. The Wakefield Doctrine strives to determine which of the three personal realities the individual is experiencing first and foremost, understanding the traits of the individual follow from that, rather than the traits predicting the personality type.”
It follows that once we can determine the worldview of the individual, we are able to know how a person will act in virtually any situation. The reason, (that we can know this), is because knowing the reality that the other person is living in (and responding to) allows us to understand not only how the person relates themselves to the world, we will also understand the ‘rules of behavior’ that are an intrinsic part of living in (that) world. For example: if while at work, you are about to enter a conflict with your superior, (and we assume that you knew that your boss was of the rogerian personality type, you would maintain the greatest advantage (in this conflict) by making sure that it would be conducted in private, as opposed in public in front of co-workers. The reason is that, as a herd member, anything that is perceived as causing the rogerian personality type seen as being apart from the herd, cutting them out from the group, will engender a very negative reaction on the part of the roger.
This, seeing the world as the other person experiences it, is the starting point for understanding the behavior of the people in our lives. To (correctly) infer the type of worldview that the other person is living with is essential. Once determined, the depth of understanding of people and personality and behavior, that results is simply breath-taking. As to how we go about establishing which of the three worldviews that a person is living in, there are a variety of approaches and techniques. (These) techniques range from physical characteristics to emotional demeanor, even fashion choices all afford the opportunity to pick one of the three worldviews to ‘assign’ the other person. After this initial choice has been made, further checks are made to further confirm our pick. If the worldview is seen to be congruent with a wide ranges of personal characteristics, we know we have made a correct inference. If not, then we try the next most likely worldview and ‘see how it fits’.
After inferring the worldview, what remains is to understand and appreciate the nature of the personal reality of our subject. If we believe that the person we are trying to understand is a scott, then we are framing that person’s behavior against the backdrop of the reality of life as a predator. Sometimes referred to the Initial Behavioral Metaphor, what we would do is understand how a predator views the world and apply this bias to the person. We are not saying that they are (necessarily) fiercely aggressive, nor are we saying that they are thinking that the world is all about prey and larger predators and their behavior is modeled accordingly. Well, actually, we are saying that! If you observe the way that a scottian personality type will approach a social interaction, it bears a very strong resemblance to how (any) predator would approach such a situation. The average scott, when entering a social situation, will make it a point to interact with everyone in the room. They will present themselves as friendly and outgoing, but with each person they interact with, there is a challenge, a ‘testing’ if you will, wherein they establish who is dominant and who is submissive. This is all within the context of social behavior appropriate to the time and place we are observing the scott. This is essentially a process to establish the ranking of the participants (at this social event), very much as does a wolf or other canine will challenge all the members of a group to determine their place in the group.
There is much to be said about each of these three characteristic worldviews, far too much for this particular forum. There are Pages listed in this blog where more comprehensive and detailed information about the three personality types (or more correctly, their worldviews), is available.
The topic of the next Post will be the distinct manner in which the three personality types express themselves, or to use the currently favored term, how clarks and scotts and rogers manifest their existence.
