New Publication: Understanding Human Behaviour in a Complex World
We are pleased to announce the publication of Dr Shungu Hilda M’gadzah’s new book, Understanding Human Behaviour in a Complex World: Applying the Six Stages Framework to Navigate Difference, Challenge and Change.
Published by Inclusion Psychologists Ltd, the book brings together psychology, professional experience and the Six Stages Framework (SSF) to explore a question that sits at the heart of psychological practice:
How do we understand behaviour without reducing a person to the behaviour we can see?
Behaviour is not fixed. It moves.
Human behaviour rarely exists in isolation.
What we see may be influenced by experience, emotion, identity, belonging, perceived safety, relationships, power, culture, leadership, opportunity and the wider systems within which people live and work.
The Six Stages Framework provides a psychological lens for exploring these influences while recognising something particularly important:
Behaviour is not fixed. It moves.
People and systems can move towards greater awareness, curiosity, reflection, understanding, empathy, responsibility and transformational action.
They can also move towards avoidance, dismissal, hostility, blame, entrenchment and harm.
Understanding this movement encourages us to look beyond simple descriptions of behaviour and ask more psychologically informed questions.
Looking beneath behaviour
For psychologists and other professionals, this means moving beyond questions such as:
What is wrong with this person?
towards questions including:
What might I not yet be seeing?
What is this behaviour communicating or protecting?
What conditions are shaping or maintaining this response?
How are belonging and psychological safety influencing what is happening?
Where are power, relationships and systems located within our understanding?
And:
What are our responses helping to make possible?
These questions are particularly relevant to psychological assessment, consultation, formulation, supervision, leadership and organisational work.
From the individual to the system
One of the central themes of the book is that human behaviour cannot always be understood adequately by looking only at the individual.
The environments around us matter.
Relationships matter.
Belonging matters.
Psychological safety matters.
Power matters.
Leadership and systems matter.
Across the book, Dr M’gadzah applies the Six Stages Framework to areas including neurodiversity, gender, race, poverty and class, identity and power, bullying and harmful behaviour, psychological safety, leadership and systems.
The intention is not to replace established psychological theories or formulation approaches. Rather, the SSF offers an additional lens through which we can consider context, movement and the conditions influencing human responses.
Psychology, inclusion and change
The ideas explored in the book reflect a central principle within the work of Inclusion Psychologists Ltd: that meaningful change requires more than identifying difficulties.
It requires us to understand the interaction between people and their environments.
It requires curiosity about what sits beneath visible behaviour.
It requires awareness of barriers, relationships and systems.
And it requires us to consider how our own professional and organisational responses may either support movement or contribute to people and systems becoming increasingly stuck.
The book therefore speaks not only to psychologists, but also to educators, leaders, coaches, organisations and anyone interested in understanding human behaviour more thoughtfully in an increasingly complex world.
Available now
Understanding Human Behaviour in a Complex World: Applying the Six Stages Framework to Navigate Difference, Challenge and Change is now available in paperback, hardback and Kindle.
Paperback – Amazon UKhttps://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1068562064
Hardback – Amazon UKhttps://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1068562072
Dr Shungu Hilda M’gadzah is a Chartered Educational Psychologist, Expert Witness, Inclusion and Equity Consultant, Executive Coach, Director of Inclusion Psychologists Ltd and creator of the Six Stages Framework.
Understanding Human Behaviour. Building Bridges of Empathy. Creating Change.
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