Gregg Henriques

Bio

"For over 20 years, I have been passionate about the possibility of developing a more integrated and coherent way of approaching the field of psychology and the work of psychotherapy. I first published my approach for developing a theoretically unified view of the field in 2003, and I have been expanding on that view and its implications ever since. In 2011, I outlined my approach in the book, A New Unified Theory of Psychology. Since that time, in addition to authoring professional publications, I have developed a blog on Psychology Today called Theory of Knowledge, which offers regular posts on a wide variety of topics, including updates on the unified theory to general issues in philosophy to morality to politics to current issues facing the field of psychology. I am also an active in a number of movements that are involved in consolidating our knowledge into more coherent schemes. For example, I am a leader in the Unified Psychotherapy Movement, which attempts to use meta-theory to achieve an effective integrative scheme for the various psychotherapy paradigms. I am also interested in synthetic approaches to philosophy, and I have started a group called the Theory of Knowledge Society, which hosted its first conference in April (2018), titled: Toward a Big Theory of Knowledge.

I am a Full Professor and a core faculty member in James Madison University's Combined-Integrated Clinical and School Psychology Doctoral Program. I arrived at JMU in 2003, and directed the C-I doctoral program from 2005 to 2017. It has been a unique opportunity to train unified health service psychologists, as JMU is arguably the leading program in integrative theory and training. I currently teach courses on integrative/unified psychotherapy, personality, social, and cognitive psychology, and history and systems and engage in much clinical supervision. In addition to exploring and promoting my unified framework for psychology and philosophy, I am currently engaged in developing a systematic evaluation of character functioning and well-being (called the Well-being Checkup), examining an approach to psychological mindfulness called "CALM MO" (which stands for developing a Curious, Accepting, Loving-compassionate, and Motivated toward valued states of being Metacognitive-Observer) and researching the college student mental health crisis and what might be done about it.

I regularly engage in pro bono clinical work and supervise doctoral students in their development. I have specific clinical expertise in the assessment and treatment of adult psychopathology, particularly depression, anxiety, suicidal behaviors, and personality disorders. I am married to Andrea Henriques, MEd, (my high school sweetheart) and we have three children, Sydney (18), Jon (17), and Lanie (14). I live in Virginia, just south of Harrisonburg."

(http://www.gregghenriques.com/)

Discussion

What Is the Unified Theory of Knowledge?

"In 1998, the famed sociobiologist and naturalist Edward O. Wilson published 'Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge.' As suggested by the subtitle, 'consilience' refers to a unified picture of human knowledge. For Wilson, that meant a vision that allows for a coherent, comprehensive view of our place in the cosmos that stretches across time and complexity from physics to sociology in the sciences and does so in a way that is commensurate with the creative expressions of our potentials afforded by the arts and humanities. The Unified Theory of Knowledge (UTOK) offers a vision of consilience much as was hoped for by Wilson. However, it succeeds where Wilson failed because it solves the problem of psychology and affords a much more effective alignment with the humanities. It also is commensurate with many of the deep insights of the ancient wisdom traditions, and it embraces a nondual naturalistic-spiritual worldview. The UTOK consists of eight key ideas that both solve the problem of psychology and set the stage for a unified approach to psychotherapy. It is a metamodern vision that seeks to include and transcend the Culture-Person sensibilities that have evolved over the eons. Specifically, it embraces the indigenous-folk sensibilities of relational-natural embeddedness, premodern formal mythic narratives that afford meaning-making on the scale of civilizations, modernist liberal democratic ideals that emphasize the power of science and reason, and postmodern deconstructive critiques that seek justice and caution against singular grand narratives. Both embracing and transcending these sensibilities, the UTOK is a constructive, integrative pluralistic metamodern vision of consilience that bridges the sciences and humanities and brings them together in a mutually inspiring dialectical dance that orients toward wisdom in the 21st century."

— Gregg Henriques