Sandra Seagal and David Horne
Human Dynamics International

Janine, from Israel, didn't read until she was 10 years old, when suddenly, with no special help along the way, she began to read at a sixth grade level. How can this be explained?

Berit, a 7-year-old Swedish student, went to the optometrist for a routine eye examination. The doctor told her mother that he thought something was wrong with her eyes, as she was able to see three-dimensionally. Was this really a problem or a gift?

In a Canadian classroom, dozens of 7- and 8-year-old immigrant children were climbing the walls - noisy, screaming, angry, out of control. The young teacher couldn't gather them, much less teach them anything. Every child in that class could have been diagnosed as having attention deficit disorder. Three months later, the "diagnosis" no longer fit. The teacher learned to use relaxation, a focusing exercise, a specific piece of music, and a langnage for feelings - and the class changed. What does this anecdote add to our understanding of this common "disorder"?

Human Dynamics offers a new paradigm for understanding both individual and collective human functioning. It involves identifying fundamental distinctions in the way people function as whole systems - distinctions in how people innately process information, learn, communicate, problem-solve, contribute to teams, become stressed, maintain health, and advance along their path of development.

Human Dynamics findings are the result of an ongoing investigation launched in 1979 that has so far involved more than 40,000 people from over 25 cultures. We've focused on exploring how three universal principles - the mental, the emotional or relational, and the physical or practical - combine in a dynamic interplay to form each person's distinct way of functioning, which we term "personality dynamics."

We have found that some people function as "mentally centered" systems, some are "emotionally centered," and others are "physically centered." There are three variations on each of these major themes, making nine personality dynamics in all, which we term "mental-mental," "mental-emotional," and "mental-physical," "emotional-mental," "emotional-emotional". . .and so on.

Of these nine possible combinations, we have found that five predominate in Western cultures, and two of these five predominate in the Far East.

These are the five major groups, with the proportions that we have found to be consistent in Western cultures:

• Mentally Centered 5%
• Physical-Mental 5%
• Physical-Emotional 5%
• Emotional-Mental 25%
• Emotional-Subjective 60%