Integral theory

Integral theory is Ken Wilber’s metatheoretical framework for organizing knowledge and experience through perspectives, developmental stages, states of consciousness, and domains of reality.

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AQAL: Ken Wilber’s framework of all quadrants, levels, lines, states, and types. AQAL is integral theory’s main organizing model.
Integral Methodological Pluralism: A method for coordinating inquiry from multiple perspectives and research approaches. It translates integral theory’s pluralism into a way of studying phenomena.
Ken Wilber: An American writer who developed integral theory and authored books on consciousness and human development. Wilber created and repeatedly revised the framework.
Integral psychology: An approach to psychology that integrates multiple theories, methods, and dimensions of human experience. It applies integral ideas specifically to psychological theory and practice.
Integral Life Practice: A self-development approach combining practices for body, mind, spirit, and relationships. It turns integral theory’s multiple dimensions into a personal practice program.
Four quadrants: A scheme dividing experience into individual and collective, subjective and objective perspectives. The quadrants supply integral theory’s four fundamental perspectives.
First-, second-, and third-person perspectives: Ways of knowing organized around individual experience, shared understanding, and observable objects. Integral theory uses perspective to distinguish kinds of evidence and description.
The Spectrum of Consciousness: Ken Wilber’s 1977 book proposing a synthesis of Western psychology and contemplative traditions. This early work established themes that later became integral theory.
Critical realism: A philosophy holding that reality exists independently of knowledge while remaining imperfectly understood. It offers a realist account of knowledge without Wilber’s particular developmental map.
Integral psychotherapy: Psychotherapy that draws on multiple psychological approaches and attends to diverse dimensions of experience. It applies the framework to clinical understanding and therapeutic work.