The GAM/DP Theory of Personality and Creativity
by: William A. Therivel, PhD
Vol 1 Vol 2 Vol 3 Vol 4 Vol 5 Vol 6
  HomeContentsAuthorBuy the Books 
  
-GAM/DP Synopsis
-GAM Introduction
-DP Introduction
-GAM/DP Summary
 
-Mozart and not Salieri
-Personality Families
-Berlin's Hedgehogs & Foxes
-James Joyce - Fox
-Newton's Personality Styles
-Gifted and Talented
-GAM's Marginal Men
-GAM's Heidegger
-GAM's Nietzsche
-GAM's Nathaniel Hawthorne
-German Ethnopsychology
-Japanese Ethnopsychology
-French Ethnopsychology
-Spanish Ethnopsychology
-Chinese Ethnopsychology
-Argentine Ethnopsychology
-Byzantium's Creativity
-Venice's Creativity
-Chaucer's Griselda
-Western Medicine's Origins
-Individual Growth by Thinking GxAxMxDP
 
William A. Therivel
William Therivel
found at Amazon
 
-High Creativity Unmasked
-Studying Power
-Studying National Characters
-Studying National Creativity
 
Biography of Author

 

Individual Growth by Thinking GxAxMxDP

  • Know thyself
    (The Oracle at Delphi)
  • To know thyself, compare thyself to others
    (Goethe)
  • To know thyself, compare thyself to others via GxAxMxDP and the GAM/DP examples
    (Therivel)

     Many have asked what the GAM/DP Theory offers to the general reader, and the answer is that the theory can provide a method, and plenty of back-up information, to allow people to improve their knowledge of themselves and of where best to go.

     What Goethe said about self-knowledge via comparisons, is already a first step beyond the Delphic Know thyself, and yet incomplete because it does not specify with whom to compare and how -- the elements of comparison being infinite.
     The GAM/DP theory suggests that people should focus first on the four GAM/DP factors: G (genetic endowment), A (assistances), M (misfortunes), DP (division of power), then on their interaction GxAxMxDP. Starting with their own life, they can expand the comparison to their siblings, parents, spouse, and friends. Such studies will be interesting and fruitful through the use of the many examples of the four volumes of The GAM/DP Theory of Personality and Creativity. Already chapter 2, volume 1, is entitled "Why Mozart and not Salieri" and for each of the two there is a comparison of their G, A, M, DP, and interaction.

     This first phase of the study can be called positioning of ourselves and others; the next two phases are those of planning for more personal growth, and then acting.


     1. Positioning

     Everybody should understand him/herself in relation to parents, siblings, spouse, and children. These are the persons we know best and with whom we have the most important transactions. Each had different G, As, Ms, DP (or UP, unity of power) and a different GxAxMxDP.

     Also, we all enter early adulthood with a load of scripts1 which rule us; and it is very important that we recognize their working in us and the others. Each of my four volumes gives the highest importance to the study of the original scripts, added scripts, and of the creativogenicity of several wars of the scripts in our own mind and in that of others.


1A script is a detailed positive taboo, an elaborate routine or tradition. We are all guided by thousands of scripts in every field. In a broader context, scripts are habits, habitual ways of thinking, schemes, cognitive-structural units, paradigms, traditions.

     One step further, the readers may recognize, and it will be a pleasant discovery, whether they are Berlinian foxes or hedgehogs, and if they belong to one or another GAM personality family, for instance that of the seekers, or of the alchemists. Further on, the readers may recognize their being DP visitors, or UP insulars, or partial UP ritters.
Equally important will be to determine if the world in which they grew up, and the one they now live in, is a DP or UP world, or some intermediate condition. Paraphrasing Goethe, we can say that To know your country compare it to others. (again by using the GAM/DP Theory).

     2. Growth

     Growth in knowledge, drive, efficiency, and thus in self-esteem, doing more important things, loving more and being loved more, can be achieved by working at each of one's GxAxMxDP factors:

     o Even G is under our control, if we see G as our body; and part of that control may be a reduction in alcohol intake, weight loss, more exercise for both body and mind.

     o A can be the principal factor for growth: there are no limits to the amount of additional assistance we can avail ourselves of from books, adult courses, volunteer organizations.

     o Some constructive M can be added through self-pruning (e.g. self-discipline exercises, as discussed in Chapter 3 of my volume 3 "In Praise of Pruning and on the Danger of Success").

     o Also DP is very important, and we can increase it through a stronger involvement in evaluations, critiques, choices and decisions--obviously on matters we know and understand.

In all this, the four GAM/DP volumes will help by providing many examples.


     3. What is new?

     What is new--in addition to what I said before--is the way in which the theory can help us exit the labyrinth of solitude (Octavio Paz), the labyrinth of the professional/industrial/economic world (Italo Calvino), the labyrinth of bureaucracy (Franz Kafka); and not only to exit these labyrinths, but to destroy them (at least for what concerns us) by uncovering those human elements which have become corrupted by the effects of "Lord Acton's Law of Power, and its Four Corollaries" (as discussed in chapter 28, volume 1).

     What is new is a new and solid theory of personality and creativity which can be an open sesame for more understanding of self and others (yes, Truth shall make you free), for a superior growth.

 

 
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