Two Phases of Learning

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JOURNAL OF METAPSYCHOLOGY 431 Burgess Drive, Menlo Park, California 94025

Article 80
October 1, 1991

Two Phases of Learning

I have dealt fairly extensively with the topic of learning and the Learning Cycle in Beyond Psychology (Chapters 4, 5, and 6). Learning is simply the process by which one acquires new facts. The learning cycle proceeds from data to interpretations, which are verified (or disproved), and then accepted (or rejected), leading to conclusions, which are the new facts that have been learned. Naturally, learning isn't just done in school or in the course of reading a book. Any new knowledge involves the learning cycle. I may learn that Sally is cheating on Joe by observing Sally kissing Bob in the bedroom and drawing the appropriate conclusion. I may learn that my finger has been cut by feeling pain and seeing it bleed.

Learning Through Communication

Learning that occurs through communication is only a special case of a learning process that is going on all the time, but in this case two learning cycles are required instead of just one, to fully complete the process of learning. In the first cycle, the "student"¹ takes the physical communication -- the token, such as the sentence uttered -- and arrives at knowledge of what the concept is that the "teacher" intended to communicate. The second starts from the concept communicated as a datum and proceeds by a process of verification to the knowledge of whether that concept is true or not. During this second phase, too, the concept is tested against and integrated with the rest of the student's world. The learning process is not finished until both learning cycles are completed.

Learning by communication thus occurs in two major phases:

Receptive learning
Integrative learning

The Receptive Phase

In the first phase of learning, the student starts with perceived data -- such as words, symbols, or pictures -- and forms one or more interpretations of these data. He then goes through a process of deciding to accept one of the interpretations as being what the teacher intended to convey (not, at this stage, as necessarily the truth). At this point, he has comprehended the message the teacher has sent but has not yet necessarily accepted or rejected it. It is not yet incorporated into his world-view, and he cannot yet apply it.

The Integrative Phase

The second phase of learning -- and perhaps the more important and demanding one -- is that in which the student moves from merely comprehending what the teacher means to verifying the datum offered to see if it fits into the rest of his experience. During this phase, the student becomes able to apply the datum he has comprehended. He moves from merely being a receptacle for the concept to dealing with it causatively.

The Responsibility of a Teacher

A teacher's responsibility, then, consists not only in being clear and presenting material in a comprehensible way so as to help the student to complete the first phase of learning but also to help him through the second phase of dealing causatively with the data that he has absorbed. During the integrative phase of learning, the student validates (or invalidates) the datum for himself, compares it with other data that he already knows, and finds ways of applying it. He learns not only to think about the datum but also to think with it. As a teacher, you impart data to students, and of course considerable skill is involved in how the material is presented and in making sure it is comprehensible. But without allowing for the second phase of integrative thinking, what you impart to the student will merely be an "indigestible knowledge stone" -- something that can, perhaps, be regurgitated on a test, but which is truly of no "nutritional value" to him.

Incomplete Integration

A student will not be able to absorb new data before he has digested the old. The old data, being incompletely absorbed, will absorb the student's attention as an incomplete cycle, and if you continue to feed him new data, he will start to feel overwhelmed or simply lapse into boredom and inattention in an attempt to defend himself against the uncontrolled inflow. We have all had the experience of being around someone who is an intractable "motor-mouth". When that happens, you start feeling bloated, as though you would explode if you have to listen to just one more sentence. The motor-mouth does not listen, so there is no opportunity for you to bounce ideas back at him or for him to make sure you understand. And if you don't listen to others but only try to enlighten them, that is how they will begin to feel. If, on the other hand, you permit the other person to engage in integrative thinking by listening to him, he will complete both phases of the learning cycle, remain interested in the subject, and be willing -- even eager -- to receive more inflow.

Integration vs. Reception

There is a reciprocal relationship between the two phases of learning. If one person in a conversation is in a receptive phase, it puts the other into an integrative phase, because having a receiver gives the other person an opportunity to be an integrator, to think aloud, to mull over, interpret, and integrate the information he already possesses. On the other hand if one person is playing the role of an integrator (by verbalizing his interpretations, thoughts, and conclusions about something), it throws the other person into a receptive phase of learning because he has to absorb the meanings that the integrator is throwing at him and he doesn't have time or opportunity to integrate the data for himself.

If you have received some ideas and now need to integrate them into your world view, I can best facilitate that process of integration by remaining in a pure receptive phase of learning -- by simply listening and perhaps asking questions to draw you out and get you to do more integration. The instant I cease to be purely receptive, the instant I start throwing in my own ideas or interpretations, you are thrown into a receptive condition, your integrative phase is interrupted, and I have left you with an incomplete cycle. And the learning process will not be complete.

How to Nurture Integration

How can you help others to complete the process of integrative thinking that is so crucial to any learning that is truly of value? One way is by giving them time to react to what you are saying, to think about it, etc. This has to do with how fast you present the material, and with asking or soliciting questions to make sure that they have had time to understand and if they haven't, spending more time on the subject.

Another is to learn how to be a purely receptive listener, since that will help the other person assume the reciprocal role of an integrator.

Beyond this, however, there is a great deal you can do. And this, in my opinion, is the greatest challenge: to come up with methods for nurturing and encouraging integrative thinking in others. We have already met this challenge to a large degree, in our techniques of facilitation.

Viewing as Pure Integrative Learning

All of the data given in this article have a clear application to the field of viewing. The process of viewing is entirely an integrative one, not (from the viewer's side) a receptive one. As a facilitator, you are not giving the viewer more data with which to conduct his life. You are helping him align the data he already has in a more satisfactory way. In fact the whole process of viewing is one of completing incomplete cycles of integration. Viewing is really a form of remedial education in which the viewer is, at last, given an opportunity to fully digest and integrate all that he has learned in his life (in the broad sense of "learning" given above). And your whole action as a facilitator is that of promoting the second phase of learning in the viewer.

The reason for many of the provisions of the Rules of Facilitation now becomes obvious: you want to encourage, not inhibit, the process of integrative learning. The minute you make an interpretation or evaluation, you are becoming an integrator and forcing him to become a receiver, and you thereby stop the very process you are trying to promote. As Carl Rogers discovered more than forty years ago, the person-centered context is the one best suited to facilitating the process of integration, and now we know why.

All the techniques of facilitating and all the viewing actions -- repetition, TIR, making comparisons, exploring, selecting, etc. -- are simply ways of helping the viewer integrate the elements of his world so that it becomes a better place to live in.

Viewing is thus truly a form of education -- it is entirely an action of integrative learning.

Frank A. Gerbode, M.D.
Director, IRM

¹ For convenience, we will refer to the person doing the learning as the "student" and the person communicating the data to the student as the "teacher". They may or may not be in a formal teacher-student relationship.

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