IX Coach

Holons, Holarchy and “Transcend and Include”, Made Practical

Growing past who you were without throwing away what that person could do

What does “transcend and include” mean in personal growth?

“Transcend and include” is Ken Wilber’s phrase for a principle he built on Arthur Koestler’s idea of the holon — something that is a whole in itself and at the same time a part of a larger whole. Applied to growth, it says each new stage goes beyond the limits of the earlier ones while keeping their essential capacities, the way a sentence contains words. When a person instead cuts an earlier capacity off — the sensible adult who has disowned feeling or play — Wilber described that as a split, not progress. It is a philosophical framework, not an empirical finding.

In The Ghost in the Machine (1967) the writer Arthur Koestler introduced the word holon for something that is both a whole and a part — for example, a cell is a whole made of molecules and a part of an organ; a person is a whole and a part of a family. A hierarchy of holons he called a holarchy. Koestler pictured each holon as two-faced, like the Roman god Janus, pulled between asserting itself as a whole and fitting into the larger whole it belongs to. Around thirty years later, Ken Wilber made holons the basic unit of his integral philosophy and summarized development as “transcend and include”: each new level goes beyond the limits of the last but keeps its essential capacities, so a mature adult still has the feeling, play and belonging of earlier years, now held inside a wider view. Wilber also separated a healthy, nested hierarchy from a “dominator” one in which one part rules to the detriment of the whole — a distinction the cultural historian Riane Eisler drew as hierarchies of actualization versus hierarchies of domination. And in a 1984 paper he described what goes wrong when a person moves past a stage by splitting it off rather than integrating it: the capacity does not disappear, it is repressed. This page calls that failure “transcend and exclude”. The ideas are philosophy, not tested science, and the practices below use them as questions to ask about your own life.

Práticas

Como estas práticas se conectam

Every practice here rests on Koestler’s observation that anything worth calling a unit is a holon — a whole in itself and a part of something larger — and on Wilber’s development of it: healthy growth moves past the limits of earlier stages while keeping their essential capacities inside a wider whole. The practices look for the two ways that nesting breaks. Inside a person, an earlier capacity gets cut off rather than included, or one part takes over the whole. Between people, a hierarchy stops building capacity and starts dominating. Each practice is a way of noticing which of these is happening and restoring inclusion.

What is the difference between transcend and include and transcend and exclude?

In Wilber’s framework, healthy development lets go of an exclusive identification with an earlier stage while keeping its essential capacities — the adult is no longer a child but can still play, feel and trust. Wilber’s 1984 paper calls the failure “morbid negation”: dis-identifying from a part of yourself before it has been integrated, so it is split off rather than carried forward, which he equates with repression. This page calls that failure transcend and exclude. Two practices work with it directly: reviewing what each earlier self gave you and what you dropped, and deliberately reclaiming one capacity — such as feeling, play or asking for help — that went quiet on the way to becoming more mature.

How do I leave my old identity behind without losing who I was?

The holon idea separates two things that usually feel like one: the identity you are leaving and the capacities it built in you. Wilber describes growth as releasing an exclusive identification with a stage while the structures underneath remain and have to be integrated, and he names holding on too long (fixation) and cutting off too fast (repression) as the two ways it goes wrong. A practical response is to list what belonged to the old identity — the label, status, rules — and let that go deliberately, while finding a new place for the discipline, belonging or devotion it gave you. A related practice is meeting people who still hold the identity you left with respect rather than contempt, because contempt is often a sign that something was split off rather than outgrown.

Are all hierarchies bad, or is there a healthy kind of hierarchy?

Both Riane Eisler and Ken Wilber argue there are two kinds. Eisler contrasts hierarchies of actualization, built on relations of linking, with hierarchies of domination, built on rigid ranking that she says is maintained through fear and force. Wilber, as summarized in Kaisa Puhakka’s 1995 review of Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, contrasts a healthy holarchy with a pathological dominator hierarchy in which one holon takes over to the detriment of all. The useful test is what the hierarchy does over time: whether the people in it become more capable, whether knowledge flows down as well as up, and whether the person above can be questioned. The same test can be turned inward, to notice when one part of your own life — work, reason, caretaking — has started ruling the rest.

What is a holon and how does it apply to everyday life?

Arthur Koestler coined the word holon in 1967 for anything that is both a whole and a part — a cell within an organ, a person within a family, a team within a company — and called a hierarchy of holons a holarchy. He described each holon as two-faced, like the Roman god Janus: it asserts itself as a whole and integrates into the larger whole it belongs to, and both pulls are needed. In everyday life this explains why being torn between your own needs and a group’s is built into belonging to anything rather than a personal failing. Describing a conflict once from each face, as a whole and as a part, often shows a move that serves both, or at least makes the trade-off a deliberate choice.

Why do I feel contempt for the person I used to be or people who think like I once did?

Read through the transcend-and-include idea, contempt for an earlier way of seeing is a clue that it was cut off rather than integrated. If later stages include the essential capacities of earlier ones, then the beliefs you left — a faith, an ambition, a group loyalty — carried something your current self still relies on, such as certainty, drive or belonging. Looking for what that view got right, both in your younger self and in the people who hold it now, tends to soften the contempt without asking you to go back. This is an application of Wilber’s framework rather than a research finding, and it never requires agreeing with the view you left.

Como escolher entre elas?

If you sense you lost something in becoming who you are but cannot name it, start by reviewing earlier selves. If you can name it — feeling, play, need — go straight to reclaiming that one capacity. If you are in the middle of leaving a role, faith or community, separate the identity from the capacities first. If the trouble shows up as irritation with people who think the way you once did, practice honoring the stage you outgrew. If you are torn between yourself and a group, use the part-and-whole lens. If a structure around you feels wrong, check whether it grows or dominates people, and if the takeover is happening inside your own life, look at which part is running the whole.

O que estas abordagens não resolvem

Holons, holarchy and “transcend and include” are philosophical ideas, not empirical findings. Koestler proposed the holon as a way of describing biological and social organization; Wilber generalized it into a theory of development and of everything, which critics regard as untested and in places untestable. Wilber’s account of earlier capacities being repressed rather than integrated comes from a theoretical paper that synthesized clinical and contemplative traditions; it was not tested as a hypothesis. The one empirical source cited here, on emotional suppression, is correlational and about a narrower question. Eisler’s distinction between kinds of hierarchy is conceptual, and her separate historical argument about prehistoric societies is not relied on here. None of the practices on this page has been studied as an intervention.

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Perguntas frequentes

What does “transcend and include” mean in personal growth?

“Transcend and include” is Ken Wilber’s phrase for a principle he built on Arthur Koestler’s idea of the holon — something that is a whole in itself and at the same time a part of a larger whole. Applied to growth, it says each new stage goes beyond the limits of the earlier ones while keeping their essential capacities, the way a sentence contains words. When a person instead cuts an earlier capacity off — the sensible adult who has disowned feeling or play — Wilber described that as a split, not progress. It is a philosophical framework, not an empirical finding.

Como funciona «Ask what each earlier self gave you, and what you dropped»?

In Wilber’s account, each earlier structure “remains in existence” after it is outgrown and has to be integrated into the new self rather than left behind. Esbjörn-Hargens describes the same pattern as holarchy: each level goes beyond the limits of the previous one but includes its essential aspects. A deliberate review of earlier selves turns that claim into something you can check against your own life — where you kept the capacity and where you threw it out along with the identity.

Como funciona «Reclaim one capacity you cut off on the way “up”»?

Wilber (1984) distinguishes healthy negation, letting go of an exclusive identification with a lower level, from what he calls morbid negation: dis-identifying from a part of yourself before it has been integrated, so it is “merely split off from the personality”, which he equates with repression. On this view the composed adult who has disowned feeling or play has not transcended them; the capacity is still there, unintegrated. Separate correlational research points in a compatible direction: people who habitually suppress the expression of emotion report less positive emotion and poorer relationships.

Como funciona «Release the old identity, keep what it built in you»?

In Wilber’s 1984 account, development asks the self to “die to” an exclusive identification with a level while the structure underneath remains and has to be integrated. He names two ways this goes wrong: holding on to old identifications too long (fixation) and cutting off what has not been integrated (repression). Leaving a big identity — athlete, soldier, believer, star student, the person from that town — invites both errors, and splitting identity from capacity is a way to let one go without the other.

Como funciona «Treat the stages you outgrew with respect when you meet them in others»?

If each stage includes the essential capacities of the ones before, then the views you have moved past still carry something your current view depends on. Contempt for those views — in your parents, a younger colleague, your own teenage child — suggests the earlier stage was split off rather than integrated, the move Wilber calls morbid negation. Looking for what that way of seeing gets right turns the encounter back into inclusion.

Como funciona «Look at a problem as a whole and as a part»?

Koestler described each holon as Janus-faced: toward the levels below it acts as a self-contained whole, toward the level above it acts as a part, and its behavior is a tension between self-assertive tendencies and integrative ones. Organization researchers use the same lens: any unit is at once a whole made of parts and a part of a larger whole. Naming both faces in a real conflict shows that the pull in two directions is built into belonging to anything, not a sign that something is wrong with you.

Como funciona «Check whether a hierarchy you are in grows people or dominates them»?

Riane Eisler distinguishes hierarchies of actualization, built on relations of “linking”, from hierarchies of domination, built on rigid “ranking” that in her account is maintained by fear and force. Wilber, reviewed by Puhakka, draws a parallel line between healthy holarchy, where higher levels include and serve the lower, and pathological dominator hierarchy, where one holon “assumes agentic dominance to the detriment of all”. The distinction lets a person object to a particular hierarchy without having to reject every difference in skill or responsibility.

Como funciona «Notice when one part of you is running the whole»?

In a healthy holarchy each part does its job inside the whole; in the pathological form Wilber describes, one holon dominates to the detriment of all. Turned inward, the same picture describes a life in which one capacity — reasoning, productivity, caretaking — keeps expanding and the others shrink to serve it. Seeing it as a part overreaching, rather than as who you simply are, makes it possible to give the other parts a say again without attacking the dominant one.

What is the difference between transcend and include and transcend and exclude?

In Wilber’s framework, healthy development lets go of an exclusive identification with an earlier stage while keeping its essential capacities — the adult is no longer a child but can still play, feel and trust. Wilber’s 1984 paper calls the failure “morbid negation”: dis-identifying from a part of yourself before it has been integrated, so it is split off rather than carried forward, which he equates with repression. This page calls that failure transcend and exclude. Two practices work with it directly: reviewing what each earlier self gave you and what you dropped, and deliberately reclaiming one capacity — such as feeling, play or asking for help — that went quiet on the way to becoming more mature.

How do I leave my old identity behind without losing who I was?

The holon idea separates two things that usually feel like one: the identity you are leaving and the capacities it built in you. Wilber describes growth as releasing an exclusive identification with a stage while the structures underneath remain and have to be integrated, and he names holding on too long (fixation) and cutting off too fast (repression) as the two ways it goes wrong. A practical response is to list what belonged to the old identity — the label, status, rules — and let that go deliberately, while finding a new place for the discipline, belonging or devotion it gave you. A related practice is meeting people who still hold the identity you left with respect rather than contempt, because contempt is often a sign that something was split off rather than outgrown.

Are all hierarchies bad, or is there a healthy kind of hierarchy?

Both Riane Eisler and Ken Wilber argue there are two kinds. Eisler contrasts hierarchies of actualization, built on relations of linking, with hierarchies of domination, built on rigid ranking that she says is maintained through fear and force. Wilber, as summarized in Kaisa Puhakka’s 1995 review of Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, contrasts a healthy holarchy with a pathological dominator hierarchy in which one holon takes over to the detriment of all. The useful test is what the hierarchy does over time: whether the people in it become more capable, whether knowledge flows down as well as up, and whether the person above can be questioned. The same test can be turned inward, to notice when one part of your own life — work, reason, caretaking — has started ruling the rest.

What is a holon and how does it apply to everyday life?

Arthur Koestler coined the word holon in 1967 for anything that is both a whole and a part — a cell within an organ, a person within a family, a team within a company — and called a hierarchy of holons a holarchy. He described each holon as two-faced, like the Roman god Janus: it asserts itself as a whole and integrates into the larger whole it belongs to, and both pulls are needed. In everyday life this explains why being torn between your own needs and a group’s is built into belonging to anything rather than a personal failing. Describing a conflict once from each face, as a whole and as a part, often shows a move that serves both, or at least makes the trade-off a deliberate choice.

Why do I feel contempt for the person I used to be or people who think like I once did?

Read through the transcend-and-include idea, contempt for an earlier way of seeing is a clue that it was cut off rather than integrated. If later stages include the essential capacities of earlier ones, then the beliefs you left — a faith, an ambition, a group loyalty — carried something your current self still relies on, such as certainty, drive or belonging. Looking for what that view got right, both in your younger self and in the people who hold it now, tends to soften the contempt without asking you to go back. This is an application of Wilber’s framework rather than a research finding, and it never requires agreeing with the view you left.

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