Sorry I haven???t blogged for a while. My Muse has channelled my writing energy into completing my next book ??? but more of that in time.

Today I want to write about wisdom. I was at a workshop recently with Professor Kelly Wilson from Mississippi. He is one of the founders of ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) and while he was rather scatty, he made some stimulating points. One was that wisdom is essentially the capacity to shift perspective. People who start with only one perspective and doggedly stick to it (also known as a ‘teenager’) would be considered the least wise.

A person who is slow to adopt a particular perspective, and who, along the way to doing so, considers multiple perspectives is what most of us would see as more wise. Some of these perspectives may be what Edward de Bono would consider to be more ???lateral??? i.e. they are not perspectives that the majority would come up with as they abandon the usual presumptions.

This got me thinking about wisdom in another way, from another perspective. Group therapy has a surprising power ??? a power that I have been awed by on many occasions in my 20+ year career as a group therapist. When you have eight people in a room considering an issue, you automatically have multiple perspectives. No one person may be particularly wise, but ???the group??? is, at its very essence, a wise entity. Diversity is the key. This wisdom gives group life-changing power. Teams in the workplace that work well, where people respect each other???s different perspectives can harness industry-changing power ??? think Google, Apple, Microsoft (back in the old days).

Which, finally, brings me to the smallest and most important group ??? couples. As a relationship therapist, the greatest tragedy I witness, day after day, is people not appreciating that their partner???s perspective, being different from their own, is a wonderful gift of wisdom. Our egos, being the narrow-minded, precious things that they are, feel threatened by another not agreeing with us. Deep down their different view might leave us worrying that we are not smart enough, or that to accept our partner???s view means we are ???wrong???. This is the greatest relationship natural disaster known to humankind. In this way, we can take the gift of wisdom and not just completely negate it, but we can turn it into conflict.

Couples often lament to me that they don???t have a partner who thinks the way they do. It was Dale Carnegie who said, ???If two people repeatedly agree, then one of them is superfluous!??? I try to remember this every time my wife annoys me with her opposing opinion. (I creatively forget that she not only was awarded a University Medal ??? she is one of the smartest women I know!) At these times, it seems so frustrating that we are attracted to people who complete us by virtue of being what we are not ??? but then I remember Dale Carnegie???s words and why there are so many benefits to being in a healthy realtionship ???

How often does our ego force us to forgo these wonderful opportunities of being helped with our dilemmas? The all too human art of snatching failure from the jaws of victory! How often do we turn the sweet joy of experiencing wisdom and growing with it, into the pain of disagreement and conflict?