One of the ways psychological development can become pathological is if the current primary level from which a person operates isn’t grounded in skillful integration of the previous level. Higher stages are not inherently healthier or more mature unless they remain tethered to the embodied, functional insights of prior stages. Without that grounding, what looks like development may actually be a kind of spiritual bypassing or compensatory fantasy.
I’m going to use Integral levels in this post, but I think it holds for all the frameworks I can think of.
The example that first motivated me to write is Amber meme. It’s easy to look at Boomers and Silent Generation people as narcissistic or emotionally blunted, but this often misreads what’s going on. Amber consciousness is about identification with social roles within stable traditions. The “self” as a modern person might understand it—a complex internal landscape of feelings, preferences, and identity—is there, but it’s just chatter or even a threat to the more important social order. One’s value comes from doing the actions required by their roles, not from being unique and authentic.
That works when the tradition itself is strong, coherent, and meaningful—when Amber is healthy—and when the individual is rooted in a resilient Red: capable of exerting will, taking responsibility, and protecting the integrity of their whole. But when those roots are absent—when tradition is hollowed out and Red is weak or disowned—Amber becomes an empty cosplay of morality, nakedly incoherent and pretentious. Its roles are unprincipled, disconnected from humane values, and its rigidity masks insecurity. In that state, Amber is nearly indistinguishable from pathological narcissism: a brittle persona that cannot tolerate dissent or complexity.
This pattern repeats at every level:
- Magenta (archaic-animistic) works when the magical worldview is rooted in somatic presence and awareness. Without that, it becomes free-floating paranoia, magical thinking, and manic overinterpretation of signs—a kind of disembodied superstition.
- Red (egocentric-power) is healthy when the will to power arises in a world thick with gods and spirits, where one’s force is in dialogue with other forces. Without that mythic context, Red devolves into nihilism, hedonism, and psychopathy—a raw assertion of dominance without mythic consequence or embeddedness.
- Amber (mythic-traditional) thrives when roles are taken on by a self that can still act and desire; when conformity serves a greater good. Without a strong central self, Amber becomes self-abnegating and repressive—an obedience to dead structures that no longer serve life.
- Orange (rational-achievement) flourishes when its analytic clarity and drive for progress are rooted in a felt understanding of shared purpose and moral interdependence. Absent that, it becomes a frenzied churn of technocratic problem-solving, manic ideation, and disconnection from the sacred—a kind of spiritually bankrupt meritocracy.
- Green (pluralistic-relativistic) is healthy when it’s guided by a principled meta-awareness: an outside view that honors many perspectives while staying grounded in coherence and care. Without that, Green devolves into performative egalitarianism, chronic indecision, and an allergy to clarity or hierarchy. It becomes allergic to value distinctions, collapsing into a world where all perspectives are equal, and therefore none are meaningfully actionable.
- Teal (integral-systemic) works when its systems thinking, self-authorship, and multi-perspectival awareness are grounded in the humility and compassion of Green, the drive and responsibility of Orange, and the stability of healthy Amber roles, driven by the clear animal self of Red, in dialogue with the Magenta, mysterious forces of the world. When grounded, Teal can hold paradox, lead adaptively, and design organizations and lives in alignment with inner and outer complexity. But ungrounded Teal collapses into smug aloofness, pseudo-strategic detachment, and abstraction addiction. It can become a refuge for ego inflation masquerading as "perspective-taking," where the person dissociates from emotional and interpersonal reality in favor of managing symbolic frameworks. Leadership turns into control disguised as wisdom, and complexity becomes a shield against vulnerability.
- Turquoise (holistic-global) works when the deep spiritual insight into the interconnectedness of all life is anchored in the personal shadow work, disciplined mind, and rooted body of the earlier stages. A healthy Turquoise brings spaciousness, equanimity, and a profound, loving orientation to life that flows through action. But ungrounded Turquoise becomes dissociative mysticism—bypassing pain and complexity with a thin glaze of cosmic oneness. It risks becoming passive, impotent, and spiritually elitist: asserting unity while refusing to get its hands dirty in the particular. In this form, it confuses transcendence with escape and radiates a kind of abstract compassion that never actually helps anyone.
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And therefore, the real measure of development isn’t altitude—it’s integration.
The vertical climb through developmental levels is only as meaningful as the horizontal web of connection it maintains: to the body, to community, to the sacred, to the world of action and consequences. Each new altitude offers a wider view, but without grounded roots, that view becomes disorienting rather than illuminating.
And therefore, the work is not merely to “ascend,” but to metabolize—to turn insight into skill, to anchor perspective in practice, and to allow each level to remain alive within us as we move forward. The warrior does not disappear at Green. The ritualist does not vanish at Orange. They become elders within the internal council, not ghosts haunting the halls.
And therefore, pathology is not failure, but signal. The manic ideation of Orange, the allergic egalitarianism of Green, the abstraction addiction of Teal—these aren’t just flaws to be corrected, but symptoms pointing us to the abandoned children in the basement of our psyche. Red screaming to be acknowledged. Magenta whispering through dreams. Amber clinging to ritual because we never taught it to choose.
And therefore, healing is recursive. To move forward, we often have to circle back. To grow up, we must also grow down—into roots, into history, into shadow. Every higher order of complexity demands a deeper humility, a willingness to touch the soil of what came before and still lives within.
And therefore, the path of true development is compost, not ladder. Each stage decomposes into the next, fertilizing it. The higher cannot replace the lower—it must digest it, dance with it, honor it. Otherwise, what we call transcendence is just dissociation with better branding.