A Brief Summary of the CAIR Model

If you're not Detail-oriented:

This web page introduces the CAIR Model as a new complexity-based psychodynamic alternative to traditional therapy, built on Constructed Development Theory (CDT).

Key Ideas

• 1. Traditional therapy applies fixed models (e.g., CBT, person-centred therapy), often lacking developmental nuance.
• 2. CDT therapy explores how individuals construct thinking in the moment rather than just treating symptoms.
• 3. Clients regressing from high AQ (e.g. AQ6 to AQ4) may need developmental dialogue, not conventional therapy.
• 4. Therapists typically operate at Stage 3 (Kegan) and lack tools to engage high-level thinkers.
• 5. CDT employs the Four Pillars: Intention, Awareness, Choice, Response to drive meaningful change.
• 6. Therapy becomes bespoke, based on clients' real-time language and developmental level.

Research-Based Hypotheses

• 1 A significant gap between self-reported and verified AQ may signal developmental concerns.
• 2. Environmental pressure can lower AQ temporarily, best addressed by contextual coaching, not therapy.

CDT + ACT Integration

• CDT enhances ACT: Helps individuals become aware of the construction behind thoughts and values.
• ACT supports CDT: Promotes psychological flexibility and acceptance, especially at lower AQ levels.
• Together, they form a holistic developmental model that balances cognitive awareness with emotional regulation.

Keep Reading...

Constructed Development Theory (CDT) redefines therapy by prioritising awareness and developmental fit. The CAIR Model replaces emotional processing with conscious construction and enables clients to grow vertically through real-time developmental dialogue, rather than remain stuck in habituated emotional responses. CDT redefines therapy by tailoring interventions to the client’s developmental level and promoting conscious construction of thinking. It advocates for a paradigm shift from “fixing” emotions to enhancing Dynamic Intelligence through developmental inquiry.

A growing number of people are interested in the Constructed Development approach to therapy as they see the benefit of raising a client’s Awareness of how we construct ourselves, our Thinking Style and the resultant behaviour. Traditional therapies are not interested in modelling out the construction of a client's thinking in the moment, preferring instead to impose the model of the world they learned in university onto each client. Whether this is a Positive Psychology approach, CBT, Dialectical Behavioural Therapy or even psychotherapy. This has been the experience and attitude of my clients on traditional therapy over the last decade.

The new approach is based on the premise derived from my above experience whereby those clients who are high level thinkers but have regressed for whatever environmental or mental reason (i.e. from Stevens' AQ6 to AQ4) and who thus come out at AQ4 after profiling, do not actually need therapy. A normal person at AQ4 would need therapy (or Coaching). But a higher level, self-reflective person does not.

Therapy isn't a process. It's time we stopped teaching it as if it were.

Emotionally led therapy such as a person-centred approach (or positive psychology) will not work for them. Instead, what they need is developmental dialogue. In essence, in this new approach, we need to honour their original stage of development, not their regressed stage.

The further issue is that therapists are centred around Kegan's Stage 3 thinking (Socialised-mind) and are not trained in cognitive complexity - or CDT - so would not know HOW to treat the regressed high level thinker. They cannot have that developmental dialogue and instead, try to shoehorn their emotional-type approaches into the therapy process.

As a result, they give you a little Awareness of how you are thinking / feeling, but do not offer a bespoke solution.

This perspective was borne out in the results of Stevens' 5th study. Even those participants who had had therapy did not know how to "fix" their thinking about their construction of self. They knew they had habituated patterns of behaviour and unhelpful habituated emotional reactions, but not where these originated and how to stop doing them. And certainly not how to counter them in any meaningful way.

An example would be a client's inner voice that would use negative language, framed in an Away From perspective to avoid pain, or to keep them "safe". This is a lot easier to address when the person is aware of the construction of their language they use to talk to themselves using CDT as the frame.

Further to this, the data from Stevens' fourth study revealed that those participants who were very low on self-awareness (i.e. having patterns of irrational thinking/responding to certain internally/externally generated environmental triggers) when compared with their actual AQ score, was potentially indicative of a pre-existing mental health issue. There were a number of people who scored this way and although the number was not large enough to warrant a verifiable result, it was high enough to warrant an hypothesis that justifies further investigation.

The first hypothesis was: if your self-report AQ score is considerably under your verified AQ score, you are at risk of having some form of developmental concern related to sense of self, esteem, self-worth and so on. This can be addressed using the Next Level Coaching framework more so than traditional therapy routes.

The second hypothesis to emerge from this data was: environment is the biggest intervention, and as such, a person can react negatively to the pressures of their environment, going down in the AQ scale, which does not necessitate therapy, but is instead an indication of environmental pressure which can be addressed using the principles of Next Level Coaching. These two hypotheses will be tested further by Dr Stevens and others in 2023.

With a different Awareness of how we construct our own thinking in the moment, the type of remedial actions required are different to the standard therapy routes. Dr Stevens' research shows that we can impact our choice in the moment to offer a better choice of outward behaviour. This is the foundation of Constructed Development Theory in that it utilises the Four Pillars of CDT to raise a client’s Dynamic Intelligence for qualitatively better decision-making. This is, in essence, the foundations of a NEW complexity-based therapeutic psychodynamic approach.

CDT also differs from traditional therapy as it radically changes how we think about therapy by ensuring the suitability of the therapist for the client by establishing the therapist's Dynamic Intelligence being a level higher than the client's to begin with.

This is thus not a system that is applied "to" the client, as is often the case, but one that takes into account the client's level of Self-Awareness in order to tease out their construction of self, in a Real-Time Modelling (RTM) approach. In this way, we move away from the ideas of traditional therapists entirely, towards a more Constructed Interventionist approach.

By utilising a method of RTM that emphasises a developmental dialogue (i.e. not therapy) to tease out a client's thinking construction in the moment, in order to ascertain their own perceived level of development for their own language construction. This then allows the CDT Interventionist to ask the most appropriate developmental questions to facilitate vertical growth, rather than emotional therapy.

Having the client tell the Interventionist where their thinking stands developmentally is not how current therapy works. This is a distinct shift in the therapy dynamic.

It is only when the primary (and unconscious) Cognitive Intention is brought into Awareness and reduced at Choice, are other intentions able to be exposed so eventually our habituated responses to situations diminish. However, although we strive for choice in our thinking and behaving, we must be conscious of the need for the system to seek and create future habituated thinking out of our new choices. This understanding should encourage continual Vertical growth within our clients.

Perhaps you have experienced a therapist who was more person-centred in their approach, which invoked emotional aspects rather than developmental dialogue, then perhaps their traditional version of therapy was not right for you. However, they were not versed in Constructed Development Theory so would not know HOW to "therapy" you appropriately.

This new approach has the potential to change the field going forward.

WARNING: Therapy should only be performed by a trained professional. No amount of NLP training or weekend courses can prepare an individual for the fall-out of bad therapy practise.

With this in mind, one of our members has written a proposal to run a pilot in his hospital in Switzerland. Below is a copy of the proposal:

Constructed Development Theory (Stevens, 2020) is a powerful approach that leverages the four pillars of Intention, Awareness, Choice, Response (IACR) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) to achieve optimal results in a therapy context.

Constructed Development Theory (CDT) is a psychological framework that posits that individuals construct their understanding of the world through their experiences and interactions. This theory suggests that our cognitive development is not merely a product of biological maturation or environmental influences, but rather an active, ongoing process of meaning-making and interpretation.

CDT is underpinned by four pillars: Intention, Awareness, Choice, and Response (IACR). These elements are not isolated: they interact dynamically to shape our cognitive development.

Intention refers to the purpose or goal that drives our actions. It is the (un)conscious 'why' behind what we do. Awareness, on the other hand, pertains to our conscious recognition of our internal and external environments (Intention). It involves being mindful of our thoughts, feelings, sensations, and surroundings.

Choice represents the decision points that arise from our awareness of our intentions in the moment. It involves being aware of our choices but not yet selecting a course of action from the various alternatives. This is where Response comes in: it refers to how we react or adapt to the outcomes of our choices. It involves learning from experience whilst being capable of predicting the best outcome for ourselves in the moment (joining the dots) and adjusting our future intentions, awareness, and choices accordingly.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a form of cognitive-behavioral therapy that aligns well with the principles of CDT. ACT encourages individuals to accept their thoughts and feelings without judgment (Awareness), choose values-based actions (Choice), commit to these actions despite potential obstacles (Intention), and learn from the outcomes (Response).

ACT posits that psychological distress arises not from experiencing negative thoughts or emotions per se, but from how we respond to these experiences. By raising the individual’s awareness of their intention in the moment, ACT can better-promote acceptance rather than avoidance or suppression of unwanted internal experiences (alternative choices), which helps individuals to develop more adaptive (aware) responses.

Incorporating CDT into ACT

ACT can enhance its effectiveness in fostering cognitive development. For instance, ACT's emphasis on values-based action can help individuals clarify their intentions, thereby guiding more purposeful choices. Similarly, ACT's focus on acceptance is enhanced by CDT's focus on Awareness as you cannot accept what you are not aware of, facilitating more informed decision-making. CDT would construct the Awareness, and if it were healthy, the individual could choose toaccept it or not. Would someone purposely choose a negative outcome if they were Aware?

 

Innovation Generation

This section aims to explore the potential benefits of incorporating CDT into ACT and vice versa. Two prominent approaches that have been extensively studied in this context are: Constructed Development Theory (CDT); and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). Both these approaches have their unique strengths and can be potentially integrated to enhance cognitive development.

In Conclusion...

The integration of CDT into ACT and vice versa holds significant potential for enhancing cognitive development. However, further research is needed to explore this potential fully and develop effective strategies for integrating these two approaches.

Future Directions: Future research should focus on developing specific strategies for integrating CDT into ACT and vice versa, as well as evaluating the effectiveness of these strategies in fostering cognitive development.

Moreover, by encouraging commitment to chosen actions despite potential challenges or setbacks, ACT can foster resilience – a key aspect of adaptive responding. Finally, by promoting experiential learning from outcomes – whether positive or negative – ACT aligns with CDT's emphasis on constructing as a critical component of cognitive development.

In conclusion, Constructed Development Theory offers a comprehensive framework for understanding cognitive development as an active process shaped by Intention, Awareness, Choice, and Response. Incorporating IACR into ACT can further enhance its effectiveness in fostering adaptive cognitive development.