Mel Schwartz, LCSW

What is Emergent Thinking?

Emergent Thinking (R) is a transformative  process that I have developed to assist people in their personal evolution and self-actualization. The foundation of this approach is based very simply upon learning to utilize and integrate many of the remarkable discoveries of the emerging sciences (quantum physics, complexity theory). I do so by bringing the academic loftiness of these sciences into a useful, practical everyday approach.

I have come to see that most of our struggles and impediments are due to the manner in which we see reality. Regrettably, most of us still cling to the truths of 17th century science, fostered primarily by the teachings of Sir Isaac Newton. Although very helpful in catalyzing industrial and technological advances, this worldview has severely constrained many aspects of our humanity and impoverished our life experiences.

A worldview informs the way in which we see reality. Over time, new worldviews usher in new pictures of reality.  Newton’s paradigm suggested that the universe was to be pictured as a giant machine (mechanistic) comprised of separate things (thingness) only causally connected. From this vantage point, predictability, determinism and reductive, analytic thinking became the epistemological bias that shaped our reality. And in so doing our life experience was put into a straitjacket.

We became the cogs in the machine, disconnected from one another and the universe at large. Moreover, our thinking became burdened by a relentless tendency to analyze and measure. As such, we became detached from the flow of life and partitioned ourselves from a participatory and flowing wholeness. We essentially lost our sense of belonging, deprived of meaning and purpose. The manner in which we were trained to think, to see and to live became a reductive exercise, forever rupturing and fragmenting the richer flow of life.

From this servitude to analytic, reductive and mechanistic reality, we became the victims of our own worldview. The epidemic of anxiety, depression and general disconnectedness that engulfs us may be traced to this outmoded worldview. The inexorable measuring, analyzing and fragmenting of our thinking undoubtedly leads to these and other psychological, emotional and spiritual challenges. Essentially, our lives became meaningless and disenchanted.

The solution to these challenges lays in shifting our worldview, coming into harmony with the natural flow of the universe. To that end, the Emerging Thinking process integrates the new worldview into our thinking and our lives, liberating us from the limitations that burden us.

The emerging worldview reveals that reality is in a perpetual process of becoming, as opposed to being stuck in a state of being. As humans, our lives can flourish when we move into states of becoming, no longer fixed in a particular state of being. The emerging sciences depict an unfolding, inseparable and fully participatory worldview, which provide us with not only meaning and purpose, but a relatedness to one another and the universe at large.  This science further indicates that all reality is in a state of potential, waiting to be realized. When we embrace this unfolding process of potential, our lives shift and our transformative journey begins.

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alison

how does this relate/help to severe depression?

Matthew Selznick

I believe that depression is very much informed by the worldview which has us believe that we are cogs in a machine; living without purpose or meaning. This would in fact be most depressing, wouldn’t it? Moreover, given Newton’s worldview, we are simply things and objects, isolated from each other.
Emergent Thinking utilizes the new sciences to reveal a reality that looks rich in meaning and purpose and in which inseparability suggests that we all participate in the creating of reality. This is both purposeful and connected! This is rather the opposite of depression.
You might want to take a look at my article, Overcoming the Epidemic of Anxiety and Depression, posted on the website for further comments..

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