Tom Murray shares his work on the Wisdom Skills Framework. He suggests that most developmental models focus on what he calls ascending processes: the building of increasingly complex cognitive, emotional, and social structures. These processes, he suggests, lead to greater differentiation, perspective-taking, and uniqueness—but not necessarily to unity or liberation.
By contrast, spiritual and therapeutic practices often operate through a distinct descending process: the release or deconstruction of structures such as ego boundaries, habitual beliefs, trauma patterns, and even basic constructs like time, space, and self-other separation. Rather than converging at a future “omega point,” Murray argues that experiences of unity, simplicity, or non-duality arise through letting go and returning toward more fundamental layers of experience. Adult development involves a complex dance between the ascending and descending, or learning and unlearning, which Murray describes in his work.
In the closing conversation, participants reflect on how this framework reframes debates in integral theory, spirituality, therapy, and social change, offering a more nuanced way to think about growth, humility, and responsibility in a time of cultural and existential uncertainty.
Related papers:
Murray, T., McConkie, T. & Sacchet, M. (2026, in submission). Adult development, meditation, wisdom, and unlearning: Toward a science of advanced meditation.
Murray, T. (2025). Wisdom, Complexity, and Transcendence: A developmental frame. Chapter in The International Handbook of Adult Development and Wisdom, J. Stevens-Long & E. Kallio (Eds.), Oxford University Press. (Preprint available upon request.)
