Daniel J. Pesut, PhD, RN, PMHCNS-BC, FAAN, 2011 Chair of Board of Directors of the Plexus Institute, is a professor of nursing at the Indiana University School of Nursing. He has more than 30 years experience in nursing practice, education, administration and research. He is board certified as an advanced practice psychiatric mental health nurse, and a fellow in the American Academy of Nursing. We are pleased and fortunate to have had this opportunity to speak to him about the squiggle sense. (See also Pesut’s blog article, The Squiggle Sense and The Complementary Nature of Nursing)
THE INTERVIEW, Feb 2011
TSS Thank you for taking the time and effort out of your busy schedule to share with us and our readers. How did you get interested; where did you first learn about the squiggle sense?
DJP I first learned of the squiggle sense after a lecture J. A. Scott Kelso gave at a Plexus Institute Annual meeting. I was fascinated and intrigued and wanted to learn more. It made so much sense to me. I do not know when or how but I have always been interested in the complement to any issue.
I recall reading a Mary Oliver poem one day with the line: “life is bipolar and everything contains its opposite”. This seemed so true to me.
Also my background in mental health and psychiatric nursing has sensitized me to the gestalt of any issue where there is figure~ground. A good therapist understands and employs figure~ground relationships to strategically help clients make sense of their experiences.
TSS How does the squiggle sense inform your thinking and learning in your personal and professional life?
DJP Personally, the squiggle sense has helped me integrate many competing thoughts, feelings and ideas. I have always had an interest in metaphysical issues such as alchemy and the notion of unification of opposites in the form of integration. Understanding the complementary nature of light~shadow, analysis~synthesis, and dis-integration~integration has been a personal quest of mine. I also think that as a nurse educator, helping students master the complexity and complementarity of concepts, ideas and phenomena of concern helps them to understand the integral nature of their interests and accelerates learning by helping them reconcile seemingly opposite or discordant qualities. I recall a quote by Samuel Taylor Coleridge: “Imagination is the reconciliation of opposite or discordant qualities.”
TSS Have you used the squiggle sense in your teaching~learning endeavors? How?
DJP Definitely. I especially use it with PhD students who are trying to define an area of research and are narrowing their inquiry into a specific problem statement. While the problem focus may help them with a scientific approach, ultimately I think people are interested in problem~outcomes and solutions to those problems. So I encourage students to discern what complementary pairs might be relevant to the problem that attracts them. Often I discover that in fact, they are less interested in the problem itself as with the cascading effects of solving the problem in terms of the complementary pairs of the problem~outcomes.
In the past, before I discovered the squiggle sense, students seemed to be dealing with only one side of the coin when in fact a coin has two sides and an edge. Helping them consider the problem~outcome, and boundaries (edges) of their inquiry provides students with a more integral view of their research interests and a more comprehensive approach and understanding of the intrinsic dynamics of what they are interested in studying. The challenge for the future is to evolve creative research methods to help articulate the dynamics and ways of studying such complex phenomena.
As noted, I have spent a great deal of personal time and energy on understanding and integrating all my competing feelings, and parts. Realizing that these parts are complementary and dynamically coordinated helps with personal and professional development and philosophical integration. I have also studied the work of Ken Wilber and find that many of his concepts and ideas about integral theory can also be explained in terms of the squiggle sense. He talks about the creative impulse of the universe being eros~death and the complementary nature of agency~communion.
In my quest for personal development and an integral approach to life, I share freely with my family and friends, observations from my studies as well as insights and opinions. Sometimes my remarks stimulate interesting conversations and sometimes people think I am just way out there!
TSS Do you think that your squiggle sense is becoming stronger the more you consider it and act upon it?
DJP Yes, once one is made aware of the squiggle sense it is hard not to see it everywhere! I find this is also true with the work of Ken Wilber – once you realize that things tetra arise out of his four quadrant model – it is very difficult if not impossible to realize there are many ways to discern and slice perspectives. Multiple perspective taking is the product of an integral mind as well as one that has been influenced by the squiggle sense. One soon realizes there are first person, second person and third person perspectives that can be overlayed on any situation.
Ken Wilber’s Four Quadrant Model
TSS Similarly, do you find that the more you ‘think in squiggles’, the more frequently you notice the complementary nature in different scenarios and contexts?
DJP Yes I do think in squiggles, much to the frustration of my family, friends and colleagues. I can see both sides of an issue, understand the complexity of the dynamics and try to find the middle path in terms of both positions. I have become very skilled in polarity management – and find the work of Barry Johnson helpful in terms of helping me manage competing squiggles – (see www.polaritymanagement.com). Johnson suggests there is a difference in problems to solve and polarities to manage. In fact, his model helps me understand the squiggle sense in terms of competing dynamics in light of yet another squiggle that out-frames the conflict embedded in competing stances. So competition~cooperation can be negotiated in terms of a ‘greater purpose~deepest fear’ squiggle dynamic.
TSS Supposing that the squiggle sense and the complementary nature are indeed grounded in coordination dynamics. Does this fact along with your growing squiggle sense inspire or compel you to learn more about coordination dynamics?
DJP Yes, I am especially intrigued with the discussion in The Complementary Nature book about learning and coordination dynamics. I think it had great implications for teaching~learning. I also believe that coordination dynamics has great implications for the current state of research methods – I think there can be some great breakthroughs in terms of looking at methodological pluralism in the sciences.
TSS How might an appreciation of TSS change understanding in your field? Change the way research is done in your field? Affect the way practitioners in your field approach/handle/solve problems?
DJP I believe the squiggle sense can greatly change understanding in the field of nursing. For example rather than focus on problems one can begin to think about problem~outcome sets of issues. For example, over the last ten years I have been developing a model of clinical reasoning for nurses (actually it is a meta-model of clinical reasoning that can be used by any health care provider) that juxtaposes a present state with an outcome state (present state~outcome state). This juxtaposition is a complementary pair e.g. pain~comfort. Making the outcome state explicit and complementary is an advancement over traditional nursing process or clinical reasoning models that have focused on problem identification and resolution.
Once the complementary pair or juxtaposition of problem~outcome is identified, interventions or we might say coordinated dynamics of an intervention that would influence transitions from present to desired state could be applied. Then a clinical judgment could be made. I think there are five C’s to a clinical judgment: context or the client’s story, contrast—present~desired state, criteria for achieving the outcome, concurrent consideration of the intervention and outcome present state dynamic and conclusion, about the degree to which a desired outcome was or was not achieved. So in many ways, the squiggle sense has informed my own thinking about clinical reasoning in the discipline
TSS So you are aware that the genetic code is comprised at its root of a pair of complementary pairs, G~C & A~T. We believe this particular coordination pattern to be crucial in the complementary nature, and refer to it a ‘squiggle cross’ or ‘squiggle quad’. Can you give us a possible ‘squiggle quad’ at the foundation of Daniel Pesut’s ‘life code’?
DJP This is a powerful and thought provoking question. And I suppose it would depend on context and boundary. Here is one thought: Daniel Pesut’s life code is:
“Being~becoming, existence~essence, creative~spirit…”
TSS thanks Daniel J. Pesut for helping us launch The Squiggle Sense Interview Series, and for sharing his thoughts and experiences regarding the squiggle sense and what it means to him. We hope that individuals not only from the field of Nursing but from all areas of human awareness and endeavor will follow Daniel’s lead by learning more about the squiggle sense, discover it within themselves, and employ it in their lives and work.
May the squiggle be with you Daniel! ~:)
__________________
TSS Correspondent: David A. Engstrøm
2 Responses to “TSS Interview with Daniel J. Pesut”
Thank you for this provocative and unusual interview! Squiggle Sense suggests an almost electric dislocation that opens a window to thoughts that lie beyond multi-tasking clutter and daily coping.
Very nice and provocative interview. Keep up the good work!