Understanding Human Development

What if the secret to understanding anyone—your teenage daughter, your impossible boss, that friend who keeps making the same relationship mistakes—wasn't about reading their mind, but about recognizing the developmental lens through which they see reality? What if most of our communication failures stem from a simple error: assuming everyone makes meaning the same way we do? In this conversation, Keith Martin-Smith and Alexander Love dive deep into Terry O'Fallon's revolutionary Stages model, a developmental framework that cuts through the noise of content to reveal the underlying structure of how consciousness evolves. Unlike the rigid hierarchies that plague most developmental theories, this approach treats growth as an unbroken fabric of becoming — twelve developmental waves flowing across three distinct tiers of reality perception. Alexander's three-question methodology can help pinpoint someone's developmental range in real-time. First: What world can they actually see? Someone operating from concrete thinking literally cannot perceive the systemic forces that are obvious to someone with subtle awareness. Second: Are they exploring individual identity or collective belonging? This reveals whether they're in the first two stages of any tier (developing the individual) or the second two stages (developing the collective). Third: What's their learning preference — receptive, active, reciprocal, or interpenetrative? This final question narrows twelve possibilities down to one. The conversation illuminates how this precision serves empathy rather than evaluation. When we recognize that a child adopting progressive values through rule-based thinking will enforce inclusivity with the same rigid authoritarianism they learned at home, we stop expecting postmodern sophistication from concrete cognition. When we understand that someone at 4.0 (green) can see systemic oppression but is still "had by" the system they're critiquing, we can appreciate both their insights and their limitations without condescension. Alexander's exploration of shadow and projection dynamics reveals another layer: how 4.0 can spot others' projections but remains blind to their own, while 4.5 begins the difficult work of recognizing their own shadow upon reflection. This isn't just developmental theory—it's practical wisdom for navigating the projection-heavy landscape of contemporary culture. Perhaps most importantly, they demonstrate how development unfolds not as a linear climb but as a fluid dance between multiple stages within any given conversation. A healthy person at any level naturally draws from earlier developmental waves when appropriate—using first-person perspective to open a door, concrete thinking to follow traffic rules, systemic awareness to understand cultural patterns. The goal isn't to transcend our humanity but to discover its full spectrum. Their discussion of real-world examples—from diversity and inclusion debates to parenting challenges—shows how the same content can emerge from radically different developmental structures, and why meeting people where they are developmentally creates the conditions for genuine growth rather than defensive reactivity. This isn't another framework for ranking consciousness. It's a tool for recognizing the magnificent complexity of human meaning-making, and for learning to love people into wholeness rather than arguing them into agreement. When we stop trying to convince others to see through our developmental lens and start learning to see through theirs, something remarkable becomes possible: genuine understanding across the beautiful diversity of human consciousness.