HISTORY 

 Moral Education Consists of Learning Your I-E-S s as You Once Learned Your A-B-C s

The Metric

 The Concept of Value    

Seeing the World Differently. Seeing the World With Axiologcial Psychology and Axiological Science

Welcome: The concept of Value, like those of "role", "stress", "intelligence", "atom" etc. is highly abstract. Even so, the concept of value is the single most important idea (concept) in psychology and the social "sciences." Unfortunately, it is also the least studied, and least understood major concept in the behavioral, social, and economic "sciences." . In this assertion I am in agreement with Professor Milton Rokeach (Social Psychologist) who devoted his professional life to the study of values. The concept of value is our unit of behavioral analysis given the fact that human beings are moral agents and prisoner's of their values. In our view there can be no science of psychology and no social science without a foundation in axiological science (value science). Two revolutionary new paradigms (axiological science and axiological psychology) emerge in the pages of "The New Science of Axiological Psychology" (Rodopi Press, 2005) fulfilling the modern project of grounding values and morals in science.   

Introduction to Our World: 

The New Science of Axiological Psychology, and E-Valuemetrics, emerge from my work validating Hartman's Mathematical Model of Value and Moral Phenomena driving emotions, motivations, and our lives in general. The New Science of Axiological Psychology happens to be the title of a book to be published by Rodopi Press (2005). This book summarizes my systematic validation of philosopher Robert S. Hartman's brilliant contribution to the development of a science of value and morals outside the box of mainstream psychology, cognitive science, and social science. 

Drawing on the Hartman-Pomeroy Synthesis in my field I have launched a valuecentric reconstruction of psychology and cognitive science, I variously identify as  Axiological Psychology, Value-centric Cognitive Psychology, Preventive Psychology, Behavioral Axiology, or simply Moral Psychology: Value Science based Moral Psychology.   

While efforts to develop Moral Psychology are far from new, never in the history of psychology, or in the history of human thought for that matter, has an attempt to develop a Moral Psychology, based on an empirical science of values and morals been attempted or achieved until now. The transformation of Hartman's mathematical model into an empirical science of value, documented in "The New Science of Axiological Psychology," makes this possible.  

Simply put, this book is about making values and morals important in the social sciences in general, and psychology in particular. It is about unpacking the values that drive thinking that drives emotions, motivations, and behavior. It is about values clarification, values appreciation, and values measurement. 

The development of axiological psychology or behavioral axiology builds on the historic work of philosopher Robert S. Hartman who provides an operational (Precision) definition of "good" in our lives, an elegant axiom of the good, followed by a rigorous hypothetico-deductive construction of a mathematical model of value phenomena based on this operational definition of good. The Hartmanian definition of good launches theory and its foremost application of value profiling known as The Hartman Value Profile (Valuemetrics). This brilliant work is empirically validated for the first time in my forthcoming book "The New Science of Axiological Psychology," effectively transforming Hartmanian Value Theory into an Empirical Science of Values and Morals on which to build Applied Ethics and Science Based Moral Education. As a clinician I work with the premise that untreated Moral Insanity leads to the Clinical Insanity and Diagnostic Entities treated by psychologists, and that the best preventive psychology measures must involve values and morals education.

Flawed brain chemistry is another path to insanity (anti-self, anti-social as distinguished from pro-self, pro-social behavior), and must be treated medically as well. Unpacking the moral dimensions of health care is to be encouraged for the cultivation of virtues of of self-reliance and rational health choices is necessary in order for medicine to recover from its history of being the fastest growing, failing business in America and the world!       

Hartman's mathematical model results in a value profiling methodology known as The Hartman Value Profile (HVP). Because values drive emotions, motivations, and general behavior, value profiling with the HVP yields personality profiles, clinical diagnoses, and useful information for industrial psychology practices. This convergence of valuemetrics and psychometrics, at the level of subject matter, invites a psychometric validation of Hartman's valuemetrics. Using the best tests, measures, and methodologies of psychology we have empirically validated philosopher Hartman's valuemetrics and value theory. 

The  valuemetric toolbox, the HVP, has proven itself a merciful handle on Hartman's abstract mathematical model producing a priori value profiles of enormous behavioral significance. The "handle," the HVP, is "the royal road" to assessing the validity of Hartman's work which is the foundation of our work at E-Valuemetrics.com. The depth and breath of this revolutionary new  methodology (HVP) is reflected in its ability to produce valid personality profiles and valid diagnostic profiles for use by clinical and industrial psychologists. These results also support the known importance of values and beliefs in mediating behavioral responses to stimulus events consistent with the Epictetus-Ellis Axiom of clinicians in the field of clinically relevant and useful cognitive psychology pioneered at the Albert Ellis Institute of Manhattan.      

The power and consequences of value measurement lie in what I refer to in my writings as the Epictetus-Ellis Synthesis in the field of clinically relevant cognitive psychology pioneered by Albert Ellis, Ph.D. This synthesis, born of the historic convergence of philosophical and psychological thought in the work of Ellis, and validated in over a half century of clinical and research activities, may be said to have acquired axiomatic status in the field of today's clinically relevant cognitive psychology. 

The Epictetus-Ellis Axiom asserts that events do not cause emotions, motivations, or behavior, but  that it is our highly internalized interpretations that trigger behavioral responses to events rather than the events in themselves. Internalized beliefs, and therefore internalized values entering into the construction of beliefs, are those that "come alive" within us over time and in the context of adaptation and survival. The laws governing such values and beliefs are given by the selective pressures of biosocial and then psychosocial evolution or the God Force. 

The importance of thoughtful interpretation producing behavioral outcomes, rather than events producing behavioral outcomes, begs the question of values, valuations, and morals in the study of behavior. Our valuecentric cognitive psychology focus in the field of psychology follows our synthesis of Hartmanian Philosophy with Ellisonian Psychology expressed as The New Science of Axiological Psychology, amounting to a modern reconstruction of psychology around our emerging science of values, beliefs and morals. Here I refer to a "second science," to be distinguished from "natural science," given by Galileo some four hundred years ago. It is historic, "run-away" natural science, without moral (value) science checks and balances, that constitutes the tragic flaw in the character of our civilization, as well as social sciences, including psychology. Mainstream psychology remains a pre-scientific, natural science derived, discipline. With our emerging value science and science based axiological psychology we are witnessing the birth of scientific psychology having profound implications for all social "sciences," and the future of humankind!    

The Hartman Value Profile (HVP) is a value profiling toolbox, as well as a thought style toolbox, based on Hartman's mathematical model of thinking and valuation. Our work refers to The Hartman Value Profile: Pomeroy Interpretation, Validation (HVP-PIV) in recognition of our expertise in interpreting the HVP and our extensive data base validating both the mathematical model and value profiling methodology of Philosopher Hartman. This work in the field of psychology supporting Hartman's work in the field of philosophy uniquely positions us in the history of value research based on Hartman's brilliant breakthrough in conceptualizing a new science, a science of values and morals. For his work Professor Hartman received a nomination for the Nobel Prize only to sink into relative obscurity in subsequent years for lack of empirical support. This is corrected in recent years as we have carried out many empirical studies supporting Hartman's findings as summarized in the forthcoming book entitled The New Science of Axiological Psychology (Rodopi Press). The prolonged struggle to get public recognition of this work relates in part to the counterintuitive nature and claims of value science.  

The growing body of empirical evidence supporting Hartman's findings emerges in Annual Meetings of The Robert S. Hartman Institute at the the University of Tennessee at Knoxville over the last twenty-five plus years. Information concerning the Hartman Institute can be obtained at http://www.hartmaninstitute.org.  

Click HVP-PIV for a public relations offering of the HVP-PIV demonstrating the capacity of Hartman's value profiling methodology (HVP) to identify and measure the three dimensions of valuation and belief formation entering into the construction of identity, self-esteem, a personal sense of efficacy and the irrational beliefs commonly associated with problems in living breaking out around anti-self and anti-social behaviors. This demonstration of valuemetrics reveals a capacity to illuminate important existential thought-styles and valuational-styles of concern to clinicians, coaches, and counselors as well as individuals seeking to work on themselves and unlock their potential for achievement in all walks of life. 

The HVP is an instrument of many faces for it takes on many forms in varied applications across the full spectrum of human emotions, motivations, and behaviors. Applications ranging from modest "know thyself" feedback to deeper explorations of the inner voice or inner dialogue that so characterizes human life. Let us not forget that the capacity to value ourselves and think about ourselves is our most valuable resource and all insights into this axiological (valuecentric) phenomena are welcome in the spirit of know thyself as the most powerful expression of the adage asserting "knowledge is power." 

Conclusions are where thinking stops and the most important conclusions are those concerning ourselves by ourselves out of which is born identity, personality, self-esteem, and so forth. This application of the HVP stands to help us unlock our potential to get the good things in life for ourselves. HVP feedback helps us think about thinking and the thinking we do when we don't think about the thinking we do: a situation in which irrational thought styles based on irrational value-vision shapes our destinty without our being aware of what's happening. HVP feedback can help us avoid being stuck somewhere and help us get on friendly terms with our "crazies" or self-defeating, as distinguished from self-benefiting, behavior. HVP feedback can help us minimize anti-self, anti-social behavior in favor of pro-self, pro-social behavior. HVP feedback sharpens our individual and collective ability to discriminate good and evil, right and wrong, nice and nasty in an increasingly obtuse moral climate made worse by run away natural science and technology without moral science checks and balances!     

Finally, HVP feedback offers values appreciation, values clarification, and values measurement as well as thought appreciation, thought clarification, and thought measurement. The axiological world of values parallels the meaningful world of thinking in ways that are not easily distinguished. The spirit of the HVP and its origins in Hartman's mathematical model of values, valuations, and moral reasoning is all about providing a rational foundation for moral education that is universal, culture free and religiously neutral. Matters of good and evil in today's world are too important to be left in the hands of religionists or humanists alone. A third force in the world of moral reasoning is needed and that third force is moral science nested within general value science. The relevance of this advance in the study of values and morals lies in the fact that it takes "moral insanity" to produce "clinical insanity" where garden variety neuroses or mind disease is concerned. In matters of brain disease we have the added complexity of a "twisted molecule for every twisted thought" beyond the notion of "twisted values and beliefs for every twisted thought."   

The values research and its implications discussed on this web site derives from our clincial practice employing the Epictetus-Ellis Axiom of modern cognitive psychology and the Hartman-Pomeroy Synthesis supporting the new science of axiological psychology giving rise to new thinking in psychology and the so called social sciences which haven't been sciences at all, but pre-scientific disciplines that must assimilate value science to evolve into true scientific disciplines. This is true for the dismal "science" of economics as well.   

In an age and century where we once again must defend civilization with military and intelligence initiatives let us not ignore the importance of general value science, moral science, and  moral education initiative as well. Our seeding of civilization with value science deserves the punch of the historic Manhattan Project that gave our nation the nuclear weapons needed to end a fanatical and brutal war to save countless lives. The truth and veracity of this assertion is obvious to anyone with an understanding of human fanaticism in all its forms. Values and ideas have enormous consequences. When held with fanatical ferocity they drive intensely suicidal emotions and behavior as shown  in World War II, and the terrorism of World War III defining the onset of our new millennium. A scientific understanding of values, and morals is so incredibly important that the failure to do so almost certainly dooms humanity. 

Yet, the scientific investigation of values and morals has been stalled and neglected by science until recent advances in values research, reported on this web site, by a clinician (not an academic), with little time to write and publish his findings, until recent years. This is not to say I have failed to share, even published at times, my findings, with my colleagues; for, my resume posted on this web site suggests otherwise.         

The fragility of the good, the fragility of peace in the world is such that any measure that strengthens the good and strengthen the peace ought to be pursued. Our empirical findings suggest that value science sponsored moral education is such a measure whose time has come. The scientific precision of our work permits the clarification of moral choices while providing a more precise definition of good and evil for modern lives. Let us push for a moral science initiative having the proportions and resources of the World War II Manhattan Project in which some 170,000 people constructed manufacturing facilities in which another 65,000 people produced the atomic bomb to end the evil of World War II.    

Alternative Axiological Psychology, Behavioral Axiology, or The New Science of Axiological Psychology is more than a historic compromise between socialist morality and capitalist morality. It is something different, something far greater. It is the outcome of the search for objective truth in the field of values, valuation and moral reasoning and amounts to new thinking thought impossible down through the ages. This new thinking in the world of values and beliefs has in common with the new physics and relativity theory a counterintuitive edge to it. Imagine: We now have a precision language with which to approach the historically fuzzy areas of values and morals! We now have a basic science (moral science) for medical ethics analogous to medicine's basic science foundations in such disciplines as biochemistry, physiology, and so forth (natural science). Humankind must have two systems of science and not one: 1. Historic Natural Science; 2. Value Science. Run away natural science without moral science checks and balances has become intolerable and dangerous. This  asymmetric flaw in the character of civilizations is now breeding domestic terrorism and asymmetric warfare.    

This momentous and historic breakthrough is reaching humanity just in time; for, we are living in an age where the moral resources of humankind are easily overwhelmed by the complexities modern life, by the velocity of social change, by the shrinking of our global village on a planet of finite resources.

We are also living in an age where human nature is easily dehumanized by the propaganda of natural science, materialism, religiosity, ethnicity, nationalism, and assorted tribalism. The effect of such propaganda, in the absence of anchoring values and morals education, is to switch off the human capacity for empathy and compassion producing schizoid personality defenses and dissociative personality defenses in numbers never seen before. This phenomena was seen encapsulated in the period of Hitler's war and is gaining a foothold in contemporary life. Similar forces are at work these days eroding the character of humankind such that it may be argued we are spending decades jumping in the same river. This trend must be reversed by the universality of a value science sponsored moral education having religious and cultural neutrality and universality. 

The resources of "alternative axiological psychology" can help humankind resist falling victim to blind obedience to political correctness and authority in the future; a tendency of humans to succumb to a herd mentality of the sort demonstrated by the research of Stanley Milgram of Yale University many years ago and shown in the naturalistic setting of Hitler's war. The German people snapped under Hitler because the German masses resonated with Hitler in the context in which they found themselves: 1. Punitive measures imposed following World War I; 2. Further deterioration of their social order by the inflation of the early 1920s; 3. Followed by the world wide depression of the early 1930s. Human nature exists on a planet of finite resources (gaia) and in a mental climate of finite resources (personagaia).   

Origins:

The origins of Behavioral Axiology or The New Science of Axiological Psychology may be traced to my work establishing the IAPM, an International Preventive Medicine Society, my Post Doctoral Fellowship at the Ellis Institute in Manhattan, and my study of the philosophical writings of Robert S. Hartman, Ph.D. 

Alternative Medicine Background and Its Relevance: Unpacking the Moral Dimensions of Health Care: Avoiding The Therapeutic State: Undoing Health Care as The Fastest Growing Failing Business in the World: The Virtue of Self-Reliance: The Virtue of Rational Health Choices: Science-Based, Culture-Free, Religiously-Neutral Moral Education.  

In collaboration with Professor R. J. Williams of Texas, Professor Linus Pauling of California, and a group of physicians including Dr. Robert McCullough of Tulsa, Oklahoma, former President of Lions International, and a group of dentists and scientists, we established history’s first International Alternative Medical Society known as the International Academy of Preventive Medicine (IAPM). This effort centered on the concepts of biological and herbal medicine, theoretical medicine, predictive medicine, wellness care rather than sickness care, biochemical individuality, cytopathy, orthomolecular treatment, etc. I was to serve as Founder, Board Member, Editor-in-Chief of IAPM Publications, and President of this medical society at a time when its membership exceeded one thousand doctors the world over. I sought a preventive psychology to match preventive medicine theories and practices. This web site tells my story.

Professor and Post Doctoral Fellow Background and Its Relevance:

After taking his Ph.D. in Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, I joined the faculty of a newly organized Clinical Doctoral Program in Psychology. I will now discuss my work in the first person: On graduating UT Austin I worked closely with Professor G. M. Gilbert, Chief Psychologist at the Nuremberg Trials in Germany, and author of "Psychology of Dictatorship", and with Professor Benjamin Wolman, with whom I collaborated in the editing of a psychology handbook and a multivolume encyclopedia. It was during these years that I took a Post Doctoral Fellowship at the Ellis Institute in Manhattan. I had turned down an offer to study with Professor Hans Eysenck, at the University of London, in favor of university teaching and clinical post doctoral study at the Albert Ellis Institute. It was at the Ellis Institute that I first learned of R. S. Hartman's work in Philosophy, and I recall reading Ellis's chapter entitled "Psychotherapy and the Value of a Human Being" published in the book entitled Value and Valuation: Axiologcial Studies in Honor of Robert S. Hartman edited by John William Davis (University of Tennessee Press, 1972). After a period of delays I was to meet Professor Davis at Tennessee in 1981 and a year later published with Davis my initial empirical findings in support of Hartman's work employing the best tests and measures available to me in the field of psychology. 

Several years were to pass in a confusing search for a conceptual framework in which to formulate my thinking around self-reliance and the moral obligation to make rational health choices in the context of a Preventive Orientation in the field of Psychology to match the evolving Preventive Orientation in the field of medicine. In time, I concluded that the "psycho-educational" approaches of Albert Ellis in pioneering clinically relevant cognitive psychology, in a world of less clinically relevant academic efforts, in combination with the work of philosopher Hartman, offered me the conceptual framework I sought. Avoidance of the therapeutic state, avoidance of a total economic collapse of health care seemed to me to require a shift from entitlement expectations to the cultivation of self-reliance and the virtue of making rational health choices with societal carrot and stick reinforcements and penalties shaping such behavior. The age old struggle to balance collectivism with individualism, causing so many wars in the history of Western Civilization, was an issue and in order to achieve tomorrow's medicine today I concluded we must unpack the moral dimensions of health care employing the value theory of Hartman and its transformation to a value science following our systematic empirical validation of Hartman's work.  

After discovering Hartman's work at the Albert Ellis Institute I became busy with a career change and the development of a general practice on Manhattan's Upper East Side. This initial discovery, followed by delays, followed by my fortuitous rediscovery of Hartman’s work many years later, (See "Meetings With Others"), I added Values Research to my busy professional schedules. As fate would have it; but, not without some effort on my part, I remained a Manhattan bachelor until my marriage in 1985, which gave me the time I needed to pursue several vital absorbing interests that came to include Hartmanian Values Research in the context of Ellisonian Psychology..

Inspirational and Important Meetings With Others

1.  Inspirational Meeting With Dr. S. Roquet on Cape Cod: 

Several years were to pass before I returned to Hartman’s writings, initially encountered while a Post Doctoral Fellow at the Ellis Institute in Manhattan. This revival of interest followed my participation in a workshop on Cape Cod conducted by a psychiatrist colleague of Hartman from Mexico City by the name of Salvador Roquet, M.D. (Pomeroy, Leon, and Ellis, Arthur, "Psychology of Value Theory", p 307; In: Edwards and Davis, Editors, Forms of Value and Valuation; University Press of America, 1991).

Dr. Roquet, was familiar with Hartman’s valuemetric profile known as the HVP. It had been constructed in response to challenges and encouragements from a small group of Mexican psychologists. The "test construction", carried out by Hartman, was to proceed without benefit of conventional test construction methods as sanctioned by the APA. It was built by a philosopher inventing a new valuemetrics derived from his philosophical theory. It was not then, nor is it now, a psychological test.

This instrument was to be used by Hartman and others in an informal fashion and with encouraging results. However, the direct validation of this new tool (valuemetrics), and indirect validation of Hartman’s Philosophical Theory of Value, was to await my work some years later. At Roquet ’s Cape Cod Workshop, I discovered that Roquet had acquired a "green thumb" with the Hartman Value Profile (HVP). He demonstrated this with workshop participants. The impact of its clinical possibilities were immediately obvious to me and my psychiatrist colleague. The Roquet connection with Hartman grew out of Hartman’s habit of lecturing six months in the United States and six months in Mexico City. He had homes in both Cuernavaca, Mexico, and Knoxville, Tennessee. Additional insights into the interesting life of Robert S. Hartman may be obtained by reading an excellent book entitled "Freedom to Live: The Robert Hartman Story", edited by Arthur R. Ellis, Published by Rodopi Press, Amsterdam, 1994.

Roquet’s demonstration of Hartman’s innovative valuemetrics was soon reinforced by the work of Dr. Krojanker of St. Louis, Missouri. This psychiatrist had also developed a "green thumb" in the clinical use of the HVP. On a small scale, he successfully compared his HVP findings with MMPI results. I later carried out a large scale concurrent validity study using the MMPI and Cattell CAQ. The work of school psychologist John Austin of Michigan also added to the credibility of Hartman’s valuemetrics. The emerging consensus, regarding the valuemetric efficacy of Hartman’s work led me to take it more seriously; and, in time, I too cultivated a "green thumb". My initial curiosity satisfied; my immediate clinical needs rewarded, I set out to study the reliability, concurrent and construct validity of Hartman’s Theory of Value, going beyond anything attempted at the time.

I was to learn that some of Hartman’s students were commercially exploiting this new methodology, in the spirit of earning a living. They were working with the formal and mathematically derived constructs of Hartman’s Theory of Value and with its derivative HVP constructed in Mexico. Each made valuable theoretical contributions as well as commercially relevant contributions in their respective applications. Together with Dr. Everet Schildt of Sweden, they focused on the I, E, and S dimensions of the test (of which I have much more to say in this history). These dimensions constitute what I and my good friend, Colonel Frank Forrest, call The Value Vision Dimensions: I-Vision; E-Vision and S-Vision. At e-valuemetrics.com.  SeeValue Vision Feedback.

I recall the day when I, and Dr. Schildt, strolling across the Harvard Campus in Cambridge on a sunny fall day in the 1980s, engaged in a spirited discussion of Hartman’s work. Schildt was to emphasize the crucial importance of the Value Vision Dimensions as containing maximum valuemetric information. "Be sure to look there...!" in your data processing was his advise to me. Following his own advise, Schildt successfully constructed his own version of the HVP with which he earned a good commercial living as a corporate consultant in Sweden. This Swedish connection derives from the fact that Hartman’s wife, Rita was a native of Sweden.

Emergent Science of Moral Reasoning and The New Science of Axiologcial Psychology

The commercial exploitation of Hartman’s Valuemetrics by his students came about early in the history of valuemetrics. This work constitutes a commercially based, empirical validation of sorts. These commercial data add to my more systematic approach. Together, the scattered and informal commercial data base and my systematic validity data base, constitute a significant body of data giving legitimacy to the claim that we now have a science of values, valuation and moral reasoning for the first time in the history of human thought! It is my empirical work, validating Hartman’s Philosophical Theory of Value, that makes this science claim possible. Pomeroy and Davis (1982) launched the validity studies alluded to above. 

After Pomeroy and Davis (1982) published their initial report findings, Forrest published his important book entitled "Valuemetrics: The Science of Personal and Professional Ethics" (Rodopi Press, Amsterdam, 1988.) These publications were to greatly enhance the theory's validity. However, with all due respect for his friend and colleague Frank Forrest, the reference to a "science" in the title of his book was premature. A science can only exist after the empirical "homework" (validation) is done, and that was under development in the 1980s. Indeed, it would not be until I completed clinical, biomedical, cross-cultural, normative, and concurrent validity studies in the 1990s that the legitimacy of such a value science claim could be made (See Resumé)

Yet another Hartman student applied Hartman’s Theory to the discovery of good stocks and to the avoidance of bad stocks on Wall Street, in the spirit of making money. Picking good stocks is a matter of good value judgment; and, this is precisely where our work shines. As an aside, it happened that I had grown up in Western Massachusetts in the town where the well known investor and writer John McGee was to author his widely known and respected book entitled "The Technical Analysis of Stock Trends". I have often wondered what might have happened if John McGee and Robert Hartman had gotten their head’s together in a search for "value" on Wall Street?

As to Roquet’s successful demonstration of the HVP, this proved to be a turning point for me. I then sought a meeting with Hartman’s former university colleagues. Hartman had died several years earlier. My initial meeting took place in 1980 on the campus of the University of Tennessee at Knoxville where the conference was held. I initially met John Austin in the lobby of what was then known as the "The Campus Inn". The second person I was to meet that day was Colonel Frank Forrest. I then met Professor John Davis, Chairperson of the Philosophy Department, were Hartman had taught. This is the university to which Hartman has donated his professional library and personal papers following his death in 1973. These materials are now available to scholars, and reside in the Special Collections Library of that university. John Davis encouraged me and my research plans and provided access to the university computer.

As to data processing, I would also draw on my long friendship with a former graduate student friend and research colleague Richard Bishop, now a Professor on the faculty of the University of New Orleans. Bishop’s data processing support proved valuable in the preparation of several papers delivered before the October 15, 1983 International Conference honoring Hartman, and held in Mexico City. Bishop has since been generous in offering computer assisted data processing support and has been my co-author on many publications since the early 1960s (See Resumé).

2.  Meetings With Mrs. Rita Hartman at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and in at the 1983 Memorial Conference at Mexico City

In the course of attending annual Hartman Conferences at Knoxville, I would meet Hartman’s wife Rita. Hartman had died at a time when I was busy completing my Post Doctoral Fellowship at the Ellis Institute, initiating my Manhattan private practice, leaving full time teaching for a full time clinical staff appointment at a major medical center, promoting the International Academy of Preventive Medicine (IAPM), and working with a former academic colleague, Benjamin Wolman, Ph.D. in the publication of "The Handbook of General Psychology". I was busy, and always regretted not having had the opportunity to meet Hartman personally. This gap was filled, in part, by Rita Hartman, who was to live some twenty years after the unexpected death of her husband. She effectively and graciously promoted the work of her husband Robert S. Hartman. It would be at the First International Hartman Conference held in Mexico City (1983), on the tenth anniversary of her husband’s death, that I would get to know Rita. This, and subsequent encounters at Knoxville, provided background information and inspiration for my work. Such memorable encounters added significantly to my Cape Cod experience. With the passage of time, Rita Hartman was to offer many personal insights into her husband’s career, some of which may be found in her published article entitled "What Led to Formal Value Theory" (In Edwards, R., and Davis, J., Editors, "Forms of Value and Valuation", University Press of America, Lanham, Maryland, 1991).

Prior to her death in 1994, Rita Hartman donated to the Special Collections Library of the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, her husband’s remaining correspondence and professional papers. Although a substantial portion of Hartman’s general interest library is now in Osaka, Japan, the documents and materials relevant to his Theory of Value have found their way into the Special Collections Library of the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. 

Knowing I was an enthusiastic camera buff, Rita gave me Hartman’s 35 mm, Leica A Camera. A camera that pioneered 35 mm photography; and, a camera that was a precision product of the same German culture that was to "snap" under Hitler and drive activist Hartman, then a Berlin lawyer, a Berlin judge, and a European Representative of Walt Disney, from Germany to American shores, before the onset of World War II. What happened in Germany was to motivate Hartman in his single minded quest to understand what might simply be called "good" and "evil". Hartman’s first conclusion was that the answers were not in the law. He took a Ph.D. in philosophy from Northwestern University.  The rest... is history! In our view, the life of Hartman, including the activities of his followers, would make a good and inspirational movie for the benefit of humankind. If any out there in cyberspace agree with us in this regard; why, then, please contact us: Dr. Leon Pomeroy; P.O. Box 7135; Woodbridge, Virginia 22195, USA

3.  Meeting Professor Rokeach at a Meeting of the American Psychological Association at Anaheim, California

I had the pleasure of meeting Milton Rokeach at a meeting of the American Psychological Association (APA) in the 1980s. Professor Rokeach, specialist in values research, casually observed at the time that he was aware of Hartman’s Philosophical Theory of Value; but, that "…I don’t understand it".

It is, in part, to foster a better understanding of Hartman's work that E-Valuemetrics was founded. I also hope to promote a greater public understanding of where my positive research findings have taken Hartman’s Philosophical Theory of Value. In my view, these data have taken the theory to the level of a science. I am confident that the "seeds" of a Science of Value are now sown for the first time in the history of human thought. History will be the final judge of this claim.

"A Psychologist Looks at Morals." Title of Paper Presented Before the American Psychological Association, 1985

At an APA meeting in California, I presented a paper entitled "A Psychologist Looks at Morals". The talk attracted a small number of my colleagues that year. I concluded at the time that the concept of "morals" must not be fashionable or even acceptable in psychological circles. Perhaps my expectations were unrealistic, given my association with philosophers who saw matters differently.

4. An Inspirational Meeting with Everet Schildt at Cambridge:

Less than two years following my California talk at APA, I presented another paper at the Boston gathering of the Eastern Psychological Association held in 1985. A few years earlier I had presented a paper in New Orleans at the Southeastern Psychological Association Meeting which was published. (Pomeroy and Davis, 1982). On the Boston panel with me was a psychiatrist, Dr. E. Schildt, M.D. of Sweden. Sadly, Schildt would die of cancer the following year, in spite of the best of care. I had referred him to my friend, Dr. Hans Nieper, an internationally known cancer specialist at the Silbersee Hospital at Hanover, Germany. Sadly, Dr. Nieper, an energetic pioneer, with me, in the international preventive medicine movement known as IAPM, would die of a sudden heart attack less than fifteen years later. Both are sadly missed.

Dr. Schildt, a Swedish psychiatrist by training, had been devoting his career to the commercial use of Hartman’s valuemetrics. He designed his own version of the HVP and applied it in the business world. He concentrated on the core I, E, and S elements of macrovaluation; of which I have much to say.

Retrospective Thoughts Concerning the APA at Anaheim, California

Boston’s EPA was also marked by a small turnout of my psychologist colleagues. This reawakened memories of Anaheim, California already discussed. From the perspective of a new millennium, some fifteen years later, I remain hopeful that this attitudinal indifference to values, valuation and morals, found in mental health circles and psychology of the 1980s, has now changed. It is unfortunate that values clarification, values appreciation, and values measurement was not a fashionable research topic in the 1980s. This is probably changing as we go forward into the new millennium carrying our tragic 20th century baggage of youth violence, road rage, spousal abuse, cult violence, airline hijackings, the advent of domestic terrorism, more incidents of international terrorism, ethnic and religious wars, bloody civil wars etc. (See Terrorism Reference, Resumé). Wouldn’t it be far better for us to be proactive as a society and less reactive in matters threatening the human soul and spirit, that lead to such individual and collective pain and suffering?

Random Observations and Implications:   

William James:

In the face of such professional indifference to my presentations on values and morals research at Psychology Meetings in California, Massachusetts and Louisiana between 1982 and 1985, I consoled myself with the fact that the professions of psychology and psychiatry had always had problems with the concepts of values and morals, to say nothing of "good" and "evil". True, there had been a burst of Moral Psychology activity in the 19th century; but, with few exceptions, the 20th century never picked up on it. The psychology of William James at Harvard, offered some hope in this regard; but, was totally eclipsed by the psychology of Sigmund Freud in Vienna. I saw some hope in the 1980s when there was a revival of interest in William James at the annual meetings of the American Psychological Association.

Freud was correct in rebelling against the natural sciences and medicine in his search for a mental health model. He rightly judged natural science to be the wrong model. However, his search for the right model was doomed by history itself. History had not given him the evolution of moral philosophy into moral science, which is what this web site is all about. It had given humankind the evolution of natural philosophy to natural science following the work of Galileo, who worked in an environment of enormous persecution. In recent years the Pope issued an official proclamation apologizing for that persecution of Galileo some 350 years ago. Natural philosophies such as alchemy and astrology evolved into natural sciences such as chemistry and astronomy respectively; but ancient moral philosophy failed to evolve into a moral science historically, and herein lies the tragic flaw in the character of our civilization.

Freud suffered from having to rebel against a run away natural science without the checks and balances of a moral science. I have often wondered what would have been the outcome had Freud the benefit of a science of values and morals of the sort that the 20th century metasynthesis of the Epictetus-Ellis Synthesis and the Hartman-Pomeroy Synthesis now provide. Like John McGee’s search for "good stocks" on Wall Street in the middle of the 20th century, I suppose that much more would have come of Freud’s work as well, had he access to a value science. Apropos Freud and McGee, the unifying concept is value science benefits.

Freud’s psychoanalysis was to suffer from history’s failure to give him what he needed: the evolution of moral philosophy to moral science, with all that this implies. Freud’s theory was to eclipse William James, 19th Century Moral Psychology, and arrest development of values and morals research in mental health. Some would argue that it also constitutes a threat to our society! It certainly has outlived its usefulness. It has provided nothing in the way of protecting us from run away natural science growth. Protection must come from the invention of a new science; the science of values and moral reasoning. With respect to this development, psychoanalysis has gotten in the way and remains part of the problem.

The societal damage caused by psychoanalysis has yet to be assessed. We are outlining theoretical possibilities. In my view, although he rightly rebelled against natural science, Freud's psychoanalysis remains a product of the natural science era. It continues as part of the problem, and not part of the solution.

Another problem with Freud and his followers is their special focus on "sickness" care rather than "wellness" care.  Things are done to the patient rather than coaching the patient to do "healing things" for himself. This model of the expert working on the patient denies the power of the patient to heal himself or herself. Freud was too pessimistic. He did not exhort and coach patients to unlock their own potentials. We in the international alternative medicine movement, known as IAPM, would struggle to get this general message across at medical conferences for over 20 years.  Doctor means teacher.

Freud's approach fostered dependency even though we are told that efforts are made to promote autonomy and independence. Freud’s methods didn’t balance reactive and proactive approaches. He failed to develop the concept of homework. He failed to work with psycho-educational methods. The neglect of moral considerations and systematic values appreciation and clarification did nothing for the moral fabric of patient or society. In fact, some argue that psychoanalysis has damaged the moral fabric of society!

In fairness to Freud, it can be argued that the tragic flaw in the character of psychoanalysis reflects the tragic flaw in the character of our civilization with it’s runaway natural science without the checks and balances of a science of values and morals. In conclusion, I would argue that in the last analysis Freud was a brilliant pioneer whose time has passed. We need change!

Dr. Thomas Szasz’s 20th century book, entitled "The Myth of Mental Illness," reflects a growing discontent with psychoanalysis and its variants. Caught up in a sickness care model of mental health, Freud’s work greatly dilutes the sense of moral responsibility needed by all societies to survive. The analytic sickness care approach was something I and the IAPM were to struggle against for many years. Contemporary cognitive psychotherapy has done much to overcome this problem. In Cognitive Therapies a greater role is given to the search for meaning, positive thinking, optimism, self-help, taking responsibility, values and moral clarification, the healing powers of the mind etc.

Negative Social Movements:

Looking back, Freud was a prisoner of his time; and, like Carl Marx, Freud was to ultimately damage humankind and the social fabric in the name of doing good. How is this possible? It happened because neither Carl Marx nor Sigmund Freud had the benefits of a science of value and moral reasoning. They launched unproven theories, half-baked ideas, and unscientific opinions that were, nevertheless, ripe for their prevailing zeitgeists. The mass mind, spirit of the times, or zeitgeist then fanned them into social movements. Desperate people do desperate things, and misguided visionaries can poison the well, so to speak. We have only to remember how the zeitgeist of a very troubled Germany was to fan a social movement known as the National Socialist German Workers Party lead by one A. Hitler.

Our Best Defense:

The only defense against being swept away by dysfunctional social movements in the future is to provide all citizens with a values and morals education at all levels of formal education. An education that significantly expands our moral consciousness, our capacity for moral reasoning, our capacity for general value vision, our capacity to engage in rational valuations, values appreciation and values clarification... an education in values and morals that is nonsectarian, and ethnically, culturally, religiously neutral and universal is needed. Only science is equipped to do such a job and that is what this web site is about: value science and its implications.

Manhattan’s Intellectual Life:

Criticism of psychoanalysis was to go far beyond that of Thomas Szasz’s "Myth of Mental Illness". Academic psychologists found the theory and its hypothetical constructs not testable. In the language of the logical positivists, these constructs could not be operationalized and hence not empirically validated. They belonged to ideology and mythology. Sartre, among the existentialists, was critical. Learning theorists like Skinner, Spence and others (giving rise to academic cognitive psychology) were critical. Ellis was critical. Clinically oriented cognitive psychology would eclipse psychoanalysis by the end of the 20th century. At meetings of the American Psychological Association in the 1970s and 1980s, the work of William James was enjoying a dramatic and refreshing revival. The proliferation of papers dealing with cognitive psychology and cognitive science was awesome and inspiring. I was there!

Manhattan remained a psychoanalytic hegemony for many years. The crop of European, expatriate, analysts who emigrated to the city during and after WWII, along with their students, had a strangle-hold on teaching institutions. Ellis in those days was a lone voice taking them on. He was instrumental in the ultimate decline and fall of psychoanalysis. He was a strong, rational reformist voice coming out of Manhattan’s upper east side, and other venues, that criticized the dubious efficacy (as he saw the issue reflected in the case history of patients that would come to him from psychoanalysis) of psychoanalysis. He’s had much else to say as well. I remember his general contribution to the lively intellectual climate of Manhattan in the late 1960s through the 1980s. His anti-Freudian lectures and debates were always well attended, as were his regular Friday evening Workshops. Ellis also took on the Objectivism of Ayn Rand and Nathaniel Branden coming out of Murray Hill, and L. Ron Hubbard’s Scientology coming out of Mid Town. At the time I was fresh out of the University of Texas at Austin, and the transition to Manhattan’s intellectual ferment was a delightful culture shock.

Nathaniel Branden was not known to me until long after his split with Ayn Rand. I was to work with him in establishing his Manhattan Intensives in later years. Branden attacked psychoanalysis with his own brand of cognitive psychology that bore his signature trademark of "self-esteem". This concept is an instance of reflexive, self-valuation and an ideal subject matter for values research, values clarification and values appreciation. Around the concept of self-esteem my valuemetrics shines! Apparently Branden didn’t think so; for, at the time he never accepted my proposal to run value profiles on his clients taking intensives. I had sought to run pre and post profiles and examine self-esteem changes during the course of such group therapy work. This was not to be!

Self-esteem is an enormously important concept and one I take seriously. It is a concept that benefits greatly from values measurement, clarification and appreciation approach of the sort we do at e-valuemetrics.com. It is also a concept that has benefited greatly from recent studies in anthropology, sociology, and psychology. It has enormous valuational ramifications from the structural level to the more dynamic housekeeping chores of self. The latter come under the rubric of what I call psychostasis or autopsychoregulation. These operations are analogous to those of homeostasis and autobioregulation in physiology as discovered by Walter B. Canon and Claude Bernard, respectively. The latter are active in brain operations; the former, in mind operations; where, we can analogize brain as hardware and mind as software.

Such steady state phenomena work around existential set points. They perform against the background of Victor Frankl’s existential "search for meaning". They are keyed to core, dual constraints of (1) the maintenance of the subjective sense of the familiar self; and (2) the maintenance of the subjective sense of the adequate, competent self.

A Cognitive Psychology Commitment:

I remained involved with the cognitive psychology culture around me in those years; and, specifically the clinical examination of "thought styles", "belief systems", "meaning states", "inner dialogues", "comparative personal belief systems", "existentially driven self systems", "self-esteem operations" "habitual evaluative habits", "spiritual needs" etc. While an Associate Professor of Psychology, and the only cognitive psychologist on the clinical doctoral faculty, I maintained a strong commitment to cognitive theory and practice. It’s roots were in my youthful study of rational philosophers like Bertrand Russell. The General Semantics Movement, and later my study of psychophysics, operant conditioning, learning theory, psychophysiology, signal detection theory, psycholinguistics all influenced my thinking, and my commitment could not be shaken even though I was surrounded by psychoanalytic faculty. My Post Doctoral Fellowship at the Ellis Institute and later my discovery of preventive medicine and Hartman’s Rational Theory of Value determined and shaped my professional practice.

Thanks to Ellis and then Roquet, I discovered the work of Hartman and set forth to clear a path of investigation of valuecentric cognitive psychology as a basis for a preventive orientation in mental health in keeping with my involvement with the International Academy of Preventive Medicine (IAPM). I found it a matter of common sense to investigate Hartman’s work in Philosophy. I could not do otherwise! I found it had supreme relevance for me and my private practice in Manhattan. Yet, my need for empirical validation remained frustrated. Roquet and Schildt, both psychiatrists who had shown an early interest in Hartman’s Theory of Value, appeared either unwilling or unable to carry out empirical studies. Clearing this path was made easier and more merciful by Hartman’s valuemetrics inspired by a small group of Mexican psychologists.

Clinicians and Science Sometimes Don’t Mix: 

Clinicians (psychology, medicine or psychiatry) often find it hard to mix clinical practice with research. Mixing clinical work with writing is hard enough. Mixing clinical work and research is much harder. Working with patients is not unlike driving a car long distances insofar as the demand on concentration is concerned. It is tiring. You feel it at the end of the day. Even where the clinician has research skills and motivation, it is difficult to do research. My former colleague, Dr. Benjamin Wolman, found a way to mix private practice with the editing of many scholarly volumes. More often than not, however, clinicians choose to be clinicians and have little to do with research or writing. I somehow found a way to do private practice, staff work at a major medical center, and research.

As for Hartman’s philosophy students, they were not trained to carry out research of the sort needed. Those I met were devoting their energies to commercial applications of Hartman’s work, and engaged in the necessary and sufficient activities serving this end. They had little interest in programmatic validity studies. Indeed, in the early years, some would argue it wasn’t necessary. 

Thus, I initially encountered an empirical vacuum surrounding Hartman’s Philosophical Theory of Value in the early 1980s. It was an elegant theory, with commercial testimonials; but, it was not a theory validated in any systematic fashion by anyone. Consequently, it held little hope of attracting the serious attention of social scientists. For reasons we will go into later, at the time it held little interest for philosophers either. History teaches that a hundred or so years ago, the discipline of psychology broke from the mother discipline of philosophy over the issue of empiricism. I was not about to compromise my commitment to cognitive psychology or the scientific method because it had been given to us by natural science, or fight this historic battle over again.

Metasynthesis

The Epictetus-Ellis Synthesis:

E-Valuemetrics makes much of the metasynthesis (the bringing together of subordinate syntheses) of two historically significant instances of the convergence of philosophical & psychological thought. Two powerful instances of the convergence or synthesis of these two intellectual "enemies" have taken place in the 20th century.

With the luxury of hindsight, we have designated the first to be the Epictetus-Ellis Synthesis. The second is designated the Hartman-Pomeroy Synthesis. The metasynthesis (combination of the two) gives us Behavioral Axiology, or new thinking in psychology and cognitive science. I have adopted the phrase "alternative axiological psychology" to designate this new thinking in psychology.

Why Is This Important?

The Epictetus-Ellis Synthesis sets the stage for the Hartman-Pomeroy Synthesis. The combination of the two syntheses of philosophy and psychology, taking place some fifty years apart, have yielded the foundations of a science of value and moral reasoning. The philosopher Epictetus argued that events don’t upset us; rather, it is our interpretation of events. Interpretation involves thought, beliefs, opinions, attitudes, values, morals, mind sets, self-talk, inner dialogues etc. The common factor here has to do with habitual evaluative thoughts. Thus, I focused on the concept of value in examining the Epictetus-Ellis Synthesis, and this lead to my discovery of Hartman’s Theory of Value, Hartman’s Valuemetrics and ultimately the Hartman-Pomeroy Synthesis reflecting my introduction of Hartman’s work to the field of psychology.

In the Values Research that followed, I realized that a successful outcome involving clinical, biomedical, cross-cultural, reliability, concurrent validity, approaches etc. would result in the formation of a science of value for the first time in history.

I hold the view that direct validation of Hartman’s secondary valuemetrics is straightforward; and, that such findings in turn yield a significant indirect validation of the theory itself. I saw the theory to be eminently testable and viewed it as based on a well reasoned and compelling set of hypothetical constructs. Indeed, Hartman’s operational definition of the concept "good" is one that ought to satisfy any logical positivist! The definition of "good" is the keystone of Hartman’s theory, and in this effort Hartman was guided by the work of G. E. Moore, a contemporary of Bertrand Russell. Both served on the same faculty at Cambridge University in England. They took each other’s work very seriously and each wrote commentaries on the other's work.

The employment of the mathematical procedure known as Set Theory also lent a precision language to the theory which seemed more relevant to clinical applications and psychotherapy than the more academic attitudes and values research commonly encountered in psychology.

One can ask: "why is a psychologist so preoccupied with values research?" The answer lies in the fact that self-esteem is a constellation of values: i.e., self-esteem is self valuation. And, too, cognitive psychotherapy is based on the premise that thought and valuation mediate emotions, motivations, and behavior. The Epictetus-Ellis Synthesis is the cornerstone of Ellis’ cognitive psychotherapy; and our experience with this system of therapy confirms the mediating role of attitudes, values, and beliefs. The clinical evidence is strong for this presumption. Research data also supports this hypothesis. In phenomenological terms, people don’t have values, they are their values. That’s how important I view values, valuation, and moral reasoning in mental health. The historical, remedial systems of mental health, including psychoanalysis, have largely ignored this fact and weakened the moral fabric of society as a consequence!

In Conclusion & Not Without Critics:

Some of Hartman’s students felt my empirical effort was not needed in view of the formal elegance of Hartman’s mathematico-deductive, mathematico-inductive, hypothetical inductive and hypothetico-deductive constructs coming together to constitute a formal theory. Such formal, mathematical elegance "ought to suffice," in their view! I had frequently encountered elegant theories in psychology and unless their "map to fact" and "map to map" relationships were rigorously tested empirically no self respecting research psychologist would give them the time of day. In desperation, clinicians had abandoned such precision and settled for necessary and sufficient untested theory and mythologies of one sort or another.  

Matters "inside philosophy" weren’t much better! Hartman’s theory, according to John Davis, was an example of "Systems Building" in philosophy and this approach was thoroughly out of fashion at the time. Thus, Hartman’s colleagues weren’t listening to him either. 

I was quick to appreciate the importance of Hartman Theory of Value because he had been schooled in the philosophy of Bertrand Russell, the General Semantics Movement launched by Korczybski, the Psychology of George Kelly, linguistic studies in anthropology, psycholinguistics, Karl Manheim’s "sociology of knowledge", operant and learning theory, and cognitive psychology as a Post Doctoral Fellow at the Ellis Institute in Manhattan. In those days academic cognitive psychology was of marginal relevance for we clinicians on the front lines. Sure, I used behavior modification techniques at times. This was a heartless, faceless product of learning theory and operant condition coming out of the universities. I put a human face on it all.

Copyright © 2000-2009 Behavioral  Axiology™  Last Updated:  01/28/10 

 HISTORY

PART II

  Return to Part I  

Metasynthesis Revisited:

Valuemetrics derives from Behavioral Axiology which in turn derives from two historical instances of the active convergence of philosophical & psychological thought. A remarkable consideration in light of psychology’s revolutionary break with the mother discipline of philosophy over a hundred years ago. By the mid 20th century, we have convergence of philosophy and psychology in the pioneering work of Albert Ellis, Ph.D.  I refer to this event as the Epictetus-Ellis Synthesis. Psychologist Ellis, in pioneering a cognitive psychology for psychotherapists, united the Philosophical writings of Epictetus with his psychology training and clinical experience. It was the Roman Philosopher Epictetus (Higginson, T. H.., Translator, "The Works of Epictetus"; Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1865) who wrote that it is not events; but, their interpretation that upsets people. People upset themselves by what they "tell themselves" (i.e., by their idiosyncratic valuational habits, thoughts, "self-talk" etc.; all of which can be flawed: e.g., two-valued or black and white logic). Ellis made this philosophical principle the core of his innovative system of cognitive psychology for clinicians. (Ellis, A., and Harper, R. A., "A Guide to Rational Living", Wilshire Book Co.; 6th Printing, 1966). This historic development in the evolution of psychological thought (Epictetus-Ellis Synthesis) had the effect of focusing my attention on thought styles and beliefs in a way never before acknowledged in clinical work. In time this development at the Ellis Institute became reinforced by the evolution of academic cognitive psychology, deriving from the dust bowel empiricism and learning theory of B. F. Skinner (Operant Conditioning), Clark Hull, and Kenneth Spence et. al. (Instrumental Conditioning).

The rapid development of cognitive psychology in the latter half of the 20th century, throws the spotlight right where it should be, on values, valuation and moral reasoning.  We need a psychology that is good for patients and good for society and good for our civilization. The notion of "Civilization and It’s Discontents" arises from flawed civilizations made worse by flawed Freudian Theory.

The Hartman-Pomeroy Synthesis (1982 – Present), building on the Epictetus-Ellis Synthesis, gives us the "seeds" of a science of value and moral reasoning for the first time in history. It derives from Valuecentric-Cognitive Psychology I also call Behavioral Axiology and Alternative Axiological Psychology. 

Now, we have the beginnings of a rational and scientific science of value, valuation and moral reasoning for the first time in the history of human thought. Our web site, e-valuemetrics.com, is both a celebration and an embodiment of this fact. I have designated this The Hartman-Pomeroy Synthesis.  The Hartman-Pomeroy Synthesis extends Ellis' work. Since emotions and motivations, in my view, derive especially from the energetic dynamisms of habitual-evaluative-habits, it becomes important to study values; and especially, existential values important to self-esteem phenomena.

Reconstruction of Social Sciences:

Alternative Axiological Psychology and Behavioral Axiology build upon a value science born of the evolution of the Epictetus-Ellis Synthesis to the level of the Hartman-Pomeroy Synthesis. In psychological terms, we have the natural evolution of Ellis’ Cognitive Psychology into my Valuecentric Cognitive Psychology. The latter also includes valuecentric psychometrics, I call valuemetrics, to distinguish it from all forms of psychological test construction yielding psychometrics. This evolution, or progression of Hartman’s Value Theory to the level of a value science, for the first time in the history of human thought, clears a path for the transformation and reconstruction of all the social "sciences" into true scientific disciplines. Until this happens these are pre-scientific disciplines driven more by ideology than facts. We must never forget that nothing cleans up our relation with facts more than the scientific method. Thus, today’s pre-scientific economics has rightly earned the reputation of being the "dismal science". My reference to science in the present discussion carries the meaning of hypothesis-testing activities or cycles. We must not think of science as a knowledge generating tool! The very signature of the scientific method consists of disciplined ways of looking at map-to-fact relationships. The map is usually a concept construct theory or hypothesis. Natural science urgently needs the checks and balances, the co-play and counter-play, of a science of value and morals. This is needed to preserve the scientific method of the natural sciences. The scientific method of our new moral science is needed more than ever to protect the natural sciences under increasing attack as our civilization drifts deeply into moral confusion.

Gaia vs Personagaia:

An important part of our personal health and well-being originates in "know thyself" consciousness in turn a product of "self valuation," a human beings most valuable resource! A good place to begin honoring the power of self-valuation lies in the examination of our own highly internalized, habitual, personal, evaluative habits. Values and (morals are normative valuesw) are important building blocks of the individual beliefs of persons, and the collective beliefs forming the mass mind, spirit of the times, zeitgeist or personagaia from which all minds spring. I refer to collectively held values and beliefs as personagaia in analogy with gaia. We live on a planet having the qualities of "a living thing," a "living organism" said to be mother earth, and which we call Gaia. No less "living" is our collectively held values and beliefs which may be called the "mother of all minds." The fragility of Gaia and Personagaia demand our custodial attention and care. Natural Science guides us in knowing and protecting Gaia. Our emerging science of values and morals must guide us in knowing and protecting Personagaia. The analogy exists because the stakes in both areas are vitally implicated in human survival. Consciousness raising in both areas is needed. Humankind can no longer ignore or take for granted either Gaia or Personagaia as it "swims" in seas of values as much as air! Personagaia shapes our lives from cradle to grave. Personagaia is the "mother" of all minds much as Gaia is the mother of all bodies. 

Conclusion:

Many students of the human condition have advised us to "think about thinking". They include members of the General Semantics Movement of the early 20th century, Ellisonian Psychologists, philosophers like Bertrand Russell, schools of thought like existentialism, humanism, and phenomenology, and schools of psychology like George Kelly’s. Nowhere is "thinking about thinking" more important than thinking about values, valuation and moral reasoning. Behavioral Axiology (Based on the metasynthesis (combination) of the Epictetus-Ellis Principle, and the Hartman-Pomeroy Principle) has cleared a path in this regard. Behavioral Axiology offers greater understanding of value vision and the elemental building blocks of values and morals. It is Behavioral Axiology that offers curriculums for values and morals education for all levels of public and private education (Having cross-cultural universality, ethno-cultural neutrality, and religious neutrality of the sort possessed by the disciplines of reading, writing and arithmetic). What minority group views reading, writing and arithmetic as threatening? This fact applies to Behavioral Axiology, the work of E-Valuemetrics, and our scientific approach to values and morals known as Alternative Axiological Psychology.

The Greater Historical Context:

The tragic flaw in the character of our civilizations (and there are six of them on planet earth at the present moment) lies in the fact that…. natural philosophies like Alchemy and Astrology have successfully evolved into today’s natural sciences of Chemistry and Astronomy, respectively; whereas, today’s ancient, feudal moral philosophy has failed to evolve into a science of value, a moral science! In this assertion we are in agreement with Hartman (Hartman, R. S., "Structure of Value", University of Illinois Press, Carbondale, Illinois, 1973).

Our world and our times have inherited a run-away natural science that has stolen the show with its high tech displays. It has done so without the safety of the co-play or counter-play of a science of value, or science of moral reasoning. We proceed at our peril! This lopsided historical tragedy, now assuming catastrophic proportions, goes largely unidentified. We are only partially conscious, partially aware, of its damaging consequences; namely, growing levels of incivility, youth violence, parenting lapses and confusion, and growing general personism, that all too often escalates into cultural, ethnic or religious intolerance and violence, as in Kosovo, etc. We have only to follow reports in the mass media to witness the effects of natural science without moral science. In this area of structural, societal dysfunction we cannot expect today’s elected politicians to lead. We all must work to raise the public consciousness and proceed in much the same fashion as environmentalists, or The Green Party. Let us take a page out of their book. Let us study the possibilities of forming a social movement of our own that might be known as Concerned Moral Scientists. Admittedly, much spade work needs to be done.

Moral Philosophy to Moral Science?

Are we not witnessing the failure of moral philosophy to evolve into an ethno-culturally and religiously neutral science of values, valuation and morals. I do not argue for the overthrow of existing moral philosophy traditions. I argue for the development of moral science and general value science methods that can enrich all religions, all nations, all ethnic traditions!  As with math, no one should be threatened by a disciplined and scientific approach to "good" and "evil". The difficulty lies in believing it is possible and that we have cleared a path, and "seeded" humankind with a value science needing development and application.

Personism and Personagaia:

In my work I have found it necessary to introduce the concept of personism; by which I mean increasing interpersonal irritabilities that result from the build up of population densities, against a background of rapid social change without the benefit of rational, value science checks and balances. If we as a society fail to design values and morals education, we could run the risk of inviting an atavistic retreat into a dark age of religious fanaticism, and two valued logic or "black and white thinking," dangerously prevalent without the scientific method. Finally, today’s run away natural science is coming under increasing attack for its sins of omission and commission in a world devoid of the balancing effects to be won by a science of values. Darwin’s Theory, an example of good natural science, is under attack by persons looking for answers. How can you blame them? Both Gaia, our living earth, and Personagaia, our collective mental life are under attack and if unchecked our natural science will suffer at the hands of fanatical religiosity that could rival history’s account of the Middle Ages in Europe.

It’s the Lack of a Science of Values Stupid:

Paraphrasing a political slogan of the 1990s, we may rightly say these days, "It’s the lack of a moral science, stupid". I argue that without the checks and balances of afforded by a general value and normative moral science (in today’s high tech, natural science world) how can you blame people for their misguided and desperate attacks on natural science? They’re grasping at straws in the wind! How can we not expect youth violence and domestic terrorism? There can be little in the way of a successful "search for meaning" if our society is sick and getting sicker. It is not enough to bury ourselves in work. It is not enough to be the material woman or the material man. Empty lives breed interpersonal and generational problems. Who’s to say they're empty, alienated lives? I respond: "Our sick society speaks so loud I can hardly hear the question!"

Citizens needs to learn more about rational valuation and rational moral reasoning and the ABCs of "good" and "evil". There is hope and we call it variously Alternative Axiological Psychology and Behavioral Axiology, Value Vision Enhancement, and personal growth tools available at e-valuemetrics.com: "The Know Thyself Tool".

It seems to me that the clock is ticking, and that we must cultivate the "seeds" of our moral science given us by the 20th century metasyntheses (combination) of the Epictetus-Ellis Principle and the Hartman-Pomeroy Principle. 

Conclusions:

On a very practical note, I do not pretend to have all the answers; but, I am convinced that my approach, working with the macrovaluational building blocks of values, valuation and moral reasoning, is on the right track. We are pleased to introduce our work to the general public at this web site. We are also pleased to offer a sample product; namely, Value Vision and Stress Scores (Feedback) based on our LayScore Processing of the HVP-PIV. The ProScore Processing is available to certified, licensed professionals only. In the future we hope to offer three forms of intelligence estimates:

1. Emotional Intelligence (EQ),
2. Practical Intelligence (PQ), and
3. Intellectual Intelligence (IQ)

Note: 

Behavioral assessments, including valuemetrics, are at best "rubber rulers" lacking in the precision we usually associate with the natural sciences with the exception of Quantum Mechanics. Like Quantum Physics we work with probabilities rather than certainties.  All HVP based results are best regarded as hypotheses offered in the spirit of Know Your Human Nature.  

Thank you for your interest. 

Valuemetrics =    SHVP-Part 1       SHVP-Part 2         

Valuemetrics =    RHVP-Part 1   RHVP-Part 2         

Copyright © 2000-2008 Behavioral Axiology™     

              Last Updated: 01/28/10       

KNOWING PATIENTS THROUGH THEIR VALUES

 “Know thyself,” admonished the Oracle at Delphi . This is good advice, and people who do not need psychotherapy do know themselves to a significant degree. People who do need psychotherapy have many shortcomings, and one of the most fundamental is their failure to know themselves. Thus, one  basic objective of psychotherapy must be to help patients know themselves. “Know thy patients” is also essential advice for therapists, who must do things for their patients that they cannot yet do for themselves. If they do not know their patients, therapists cannot build upon their strengths, identify their weaknesses and shortcomings, or apply therapeutic strategies to help them.

            Therapists get to know their patients most commonly through clinical interviews, discussions during therapy, observing their physical behaviors, analyzing their verbal behaviors, noting responses to particular psychotropic medications, applying and interpreting personality tests or profiles, reviewing records, and listening to what other people say about them. No one approach is sufficient unto itself, and each makes an important contribution.

            This discussion is about getting to know patients by getting to know their values. In doing this, therapists may also learn a great deal about their own values. Strangely, psychotherapists seldom if ever ask their patients, “What are your deepest values?,” “Do your values structure your personality or psychological constitution,” and “If so, how so?[A1] ” Indeed, most patients would not know how to answer if asked, and most therapists would not know how to ask! A direct approach is likely to be fruitless, yet therapists deal with patient values all the time, the values of patients do structure their inner personalities and external responses, and a powerful tool is available for discovering that and how this is so. Because therapists talk a different partly technical language and are not always fully aware that values are embedded within that language, they may not be fully cognizant of constantly dealing with human values.

 Values, Valuations, and Good Things

All of this requires some explaining, so let’s begin with values. All of us, including therapists, have norms or standards by which we measure successes and failures. Therapists apply norms or standards to themselves and to their patients in determining their own professional successes and failures. “Help,” “therapy,” “cure,” “health,” “adaptation,” “maturation,” “relief,” “growth,” “normal,” “pro-social,” “realistic,” “respect,” “self-respect,” “acceptance,” “ego ideal,” “goals,” “objectives,” “well-being,” “patient interests,” “rational autonomy,” “sanity,” “risk,” “disorder,” their opposites, and almost every other professional word in vocabularies of psychotherapists are value-laden words or concepts. Values are an integral part of their very meaning; they all involve measuring their intentional objects by norms or standards. According to highly plausible philosophical definitions, “value objects” are just the entities to which we apply norms or standards, “valuation” is the activity that involves measuring things by appropriate norms or standards, and “valuable or good things” are those that “measure up” or “fulfill their norms or standards” (Hartman, 1967). All psychotherapeutic processes and activities have goals or objectives (value objects), norms or standards are applied (valuation, which may hereafter be called “evaluation”) in determining whether and the degree to which these objectives are met, and a good or successful therapeutic strategy is one that achieves therapy’s objectives by bringing about value objects like self-esteem, realistic self-knowledge, pro-social behaviors, personal growth and maturation, rational autonomy, self-control, responsibility, and freedom from disturbing and debilitating problems in living.

            If human personalities are structured around values, then knowing these values is the essential key to understanding human personalities, whether “normal” or “abnormal.” This claim  might seem unpromising at first to therapists because they assume that we have no way to measure and rationally order human values or to link personality traits and behaviors to them. Shortly I will introduce a powerful, efficient, and effective way to do such things. It will be obvious hereafter that my thinking has been deeply influenced by a former philosophical colleague, Robert S. Hartman, now deceased.

 Three Basic Kinds or Dimensions of Human Values and Valuations

Not all human values and evaluations are exactly alike or on a par. Philosophers and others have traditionally recognized at least two basic kinds of value objects—intrinsic values and extrinsic values; and Robert S. Hartman recognized and identified a neglected (but still pervasive) third kind of value object—systemic values. Hartman also identified normal or normative human responses to or evaluations of these value objects.

            Hartman made an important and illuminating distinction between what we value—values or value objects, and how we value—valuations. We should try to be as clear as possible about the differences between values (what we value) and evaluations (how we value), and we can profit from what Hartman had to say about such things.

 Three Kinds of Good or Valuable Things—Value Objects (What We Value)

If we ask, “What things are good?,” we must recognize at least three basic kinds or dimensions of goodness or value. As identified by Hartman, the three elemental kinds of valuable things are:

(1) Systemic Values, (S): conceptual constructs that exist in our minds.

Examples: definitions, ideas, concepts, ideals, norms, standards, rules, beliefs, truths, doctrines, musical notations, mathematical and logical systems, and the like.

(2) Extrinsic Values, (E): tangible things, processes, actions, or roles located and observable in our common world of space and time that are actual or potential means to ends.

Examples: physical objects and processes, bodies, books, houses, cars, human actions and  behaviors, and social relations, roles, conventions, and groups, and established institutions.

(3) Intrinsic Values, (I): things that have value in, of, and for themselves; things that should be evaluated intrinsically because they are ends in themselves, desirable or valuable for their own sakes.

Examples: unique centers of conscious experience, choice, thought, and valuation such as human persons, non-human animals, and God—according to Hartman. Other philosophers suggest that the pleasures of human intercourse, the enjoyment of beautiful objects,  knowledge and/or its pursuit, pleasure or happiness as such, freedom, dutifulness, desire fulfillment, etc., are intrinsically good; but such things exist only within the lives of those unique conscious individuals (like us) who exist for themselves. They are good-making properties that enrich the lives of unique conscious individuals.

 Three Kinds of Valuation (How We Value)

From the very beginning, people have attached value to things in many different ways. All evaluations include cognitive or mental elements, i.e., value standards or concepts by which objects of value are measured. Evaluations involve judgments by persons about objects of value, judgments that valued objects measure up to standards, or that they fail to do so to some degree. The good ones measure up; the fair, average, poor, and bad ones do not, or they do so only by degrees. Evaluation also includes feelings, affections, emotions, and desires that range on a continuum from minimal (systemic), through ordinary (extrinsic), to maximal (intrinsic) personal involvement.

 (1) Systemic Valuations, (S): dispassionate, “objective,” or “cold and calculating” feelings and judgments, as well as black or white, all or nothing, oversimplifying judgments.

            Examples: “2 + 2 = 4”

            “This session will end at 10:35 a.m.”

            “If you are not for me, you are against me.”

            “Race is all that counts.”

(2) Extrinsic Valuations, (S): commonplace feelings, role involvements, practical motives, activities, and judgments.

Examples: ordinary everyday practical feelings, likes and dislikes, emotions, appetites, needs, and interests, practical actions and vocations, fulfilling social-role expectations, practical value judgments, classifications, and comparisons.

(3) Intrinsic Valuations, (I): complete self-identification with valued objects; intense personal involvement with, concentration upon, or investment in value objects; judgments of identification,  totality, and uniqueness. This kind of evaluation includes all the ways in which conscious individuals like us combine or unite ourselves totally, intensely, and passionately, (either positively or negatively), with objects of evaluation, so that distinctions between self and valued-other cease to matter or to be noticed, and “the subject/object distinction” is overcome or overwhelmed psychologically and valuationally.

Examples: profound love and empathy, intense delight and joy, conscience, creativity, deep religious devotion, worship, communion, and mystical union.

            Without going into it here in detail, negative systemic, extrinsic, and intrinsic disvalues and disvaluations, the opposites of the preceding positive values and valuations must also be recognized. Also, anything can be evaluated in any dimension, as when some people relate only with detachment to other people, or treat other people as mere things, or relate with total intrinsic devotion and self-identification to material possessions or to ideological dogmas.

“Better than”and the Hierarchy of Values and Valuations

Hartman offered a formal definition of “better” to complement his formal definition of “good.” He wrote that “‘Richer in qualities’ is the definition of ‘better,’ ‘poorer in qualities’ is the definition of ‘worse’” (Hartman, 1967, p. 114). For clarity, I find it helpful to add “good-making” to this definition, especially since so many philosophers use this terminology. Let’s define “better than” as “having more good-making properties than.” Given that definition, we can then ask if any of the above three dimensions of value and evaluation are better than any of the others. The answer is definitely affirmative.

            Hartman’s “Hierarchy of Value” affirms that intrinsic values are better than extrinsic values, and extrinsic values are better than systemic values.

            Given this formal definition of “better than,” intrinsic values have more good-making properties than extrinsic values, and extrinsic values have more good-making properties than systemic values. In application, this means that people have more good-making properties than mere things, and real things and people have more good-making properties than mere ideas of things or of people. Our value priorities should thus put people first, things second, and ideas of or about  people and things third. Many if not most serious human moral problem arise from assuming that people are less valuable than things or beliefs, or from valuing only a few people intrinsically but not everyone.

Systemic, Extrinsic, and Intrinsic Values and Valuations in Psychotherapy

The principal concerns and goals of psychotherapy all fall under the rubric of one or more of these three kinds of value and evaluation. Each of the many “schools” of psychotherapy may stress its own distinctive values and evaluations, but they tend to hold many general goals in common. They differ mainly in their explanations of the causes of psychiatric problems and, most importantly for present purposes, in the therapeutic strategies they employ to reach their goals, but not in the goals themselves. Some examples might help.

            “Cognitive scripts” that people run through their minds are systemic values, and helping patients to run realistic and pro-social scripts through their minds is a significant systemic therapeutic value, goal, or objective of most psychotherapy. On a moral level, if people repeatedly run violent and vengeful scripts through their heads, they are likely to feel and act violently and vengefully. Cognitive scripts are involved in psychological self-esteem, so how and what people think of themselves is of great therapeutic significance. Some people run negative cognitive scripts about themselves constantly through their minds, fill themselves with anxiety and self-doubt, and make themselves feel insecure, inadequate, inferior, depressed, threatened, or suicidal. By contrast, narcissistic individuals overvalue themselves with unrealistic ego-inflated scripts of grandeur and superiority, and when these systemic self-images are challenged, they feel defensive, threatened, angry, or shamed (Marten, 2005). But how should they value themselves cognitively or systemically in order to have a “healthy” self-image? Cognitive psychologists tell us that how we think definitely affects how we feel. By changing and controlling how we think about self, others, world events, and conceptual beliefs, we can change and control how we feel about such things. Sadly, many people don’t realize this until someone else, e.g., their therapist, tells them!

            External or bodily behaviors directed toward themselves, others, things, institutions, ideologies, etc., are extrinsic values. They are means to ends beyond themselves. Are your patients well behaved, or misbehaved? Do they “act out” in ways that injure, degrade, or destroy themselves, other people, property, the environment, or universal human ideals? If so, for what troublesome ends or goals? Are their extrinsic values pro- or anti-self, anti-social, anti-material, anti-environmental, anti-ideological, or what? Are the means they employ to achieve their ends effective or ineffective? Do they value other people so little, or disvalue them so much, that they are excessively aggressive or downright violent batterers or abusers? If your patients are the victims of others with such anti-person values, how do you help them to live in a world that has such people in it? What values or disvalues motivate abusers and victims? What more “constructive” values are you trying to get them to adopt? To what extent is your therapy concerned with the extrinsic values and disvalues of your patients, e.g., with means to their sometimes questionable or hopefully more desirable ends, or with their fixation on things and social status? Are your patients excessively involved with the pursuit of high social status, i.e., with overvalued “superiority,” and, if so, at what costs to themselves and other people? What ends do prosperity, possessions, and high status serve, or do your patients regard them as ends in themselves? Or are your patients too little concerned with their own social connections? Do they attach too little value to their own place in society, thus being prone to social apathy, withdrawal, and isolation? What counts as a “realistic” concern with prosperity, possessions, and social standing?

            Many therapeutic modalities, as means to therapeutic goals or objectives, are available to  today’s psychotherapists. To your competent patients (or their proxies if not competent) do you explain both alternative goals or ends and alternative means to them, in the interest of obtaining their informed voluntary consent? Obtaining informed voluntary consent is a very concrete and practical way to treat patients as ends in themselves and not as mere means to someone else’s ends.[A3] 

            Do you try to help your patients value themselves and other people in the very best way possible? If so, is that the systemic way of detachment or dissociation, or the extrinsic way of “normal” everyday involvement and caution, or the intrinsic way of empathy, love, intense personal identification, and caregiving? [A4] Or is it all of the above in harmony or balance in their proper place? Patients who attach too little intrinsic worth to themselves have too little self-esteem and suffer all of the consequent social and personal liabilities. Do extremely anti-social, alienated, withdrawn, and negligently-social patients attach too little intrinsic worth to other people? What value correctives do you envision for and offer to such patients? To what standards or norms of correct or proper pro-social behavior do you or should you appeal in answering such questions? How do you measure such things?

            Are the personalities of at least some of your patients organized globally in such a way that systemic values are dominant and overvalued? Are some of your patients dogmatists, ideologists, potential terrorists, “ivory tower intellectuals,” or authoritarians who have comparatively little sensitivity to the extrinsic worth of physical or social things and processes and/or to the intrinsic worth of unique persons in their full concreteness. Are they all too ready to sacrifice property, personal relations, and persons themselves for the sake of ideological or dogmatic “truths”? Or do they instead undervalue and under use their cognitive capacities, thus forfeiting all the help such capacities could give them in solving their problems, mastering their occupations, improving their interpersonal relations, living more morally and abundantly, understanding their situations in life, and controlling their destinies?

            Are some of your patients predominately oriented extrinsically? Are they almost completely absorbed in the material or sensory world and/or in the pursuit of social power, control, or dominance? Are they too thoroughly “worldly,” as the theologians might say, or too “commonsensical” and “down to earth,” as they might view themselves, in their values? Are they so focused on instrumental “practical” values that they have little understanding of or appreciation for intellectual systemic and personal intrinsic values? Are they comparatively insensitive to the value of thoughts and ideas, and/or to the value of people as unique centers of conscious experience, activity, and value? If so, what should you do to help them? What goals for them should the “helping professions” promote? If your patients overvalue or undervalue observable things and behaviors in ways that create serious problems in living for them, what would it be like for them to properly value things and activities that make life worthwhile? What would it be like to get it just right, to neither overvalue nor undervalue the extrinsic? To what hierarchy of values and valuations do you appeal in answering such questions? What should the priorities of your patients be? What should your own value priorities be?

            Comparatively speaking, are some of your patients excessively intrinsic, dwelling too much, too sentimentally, romantically, or narcissistically on intrinsic values (e.g., “my beloved,” or “my absolute uniqueness”), while they neglect their systemic cognitive and extrinsic practical capacities, or while they intrinsically evaluate only themselves? Are they intrinsic “love slobs,” desperate to be loved, but unable or unwilling to give it? Or do they undervalue the intrinsic altogether and consistently fail or refuse to respect either themselves or other people as ends in themselves? Are they so extremely antisocial and psychopathic that they do not even need the approval of others and are devoid of intrinsic valuational capacities like empathy, conscience, and remorse? Do they fail to love others as themselves because they do not love themselves? Do they devalue others because they devalue themselves? What global value-restructuring of their personalities do you envision and prescribe for intrinsic over- or under- valuers? In helping your patients to re-create themselves, what values and evaluations should have priority over others. To what hierarchy of value priorities do you appeal?

[A5]  Introducing the Hartman Value Profile

What, if any, psychological instruments are available to help psychotherapists deal with the preceding value-laden issues? You may have an answer already, but I would like to introduce you to an easy and quick-to-use personality profile that I believe to be more powerful and effective than any and all others[A6] , (even though learning to score and interpret it correctly is not easy and quick). It is not a “psychological” profile at all in any traditional sense of the term; rather it is a value profile, an “axiological” profile, that gets at people’s personalities by getting at their values and how they rank or order them. If values are the real keys to human personalities, as Robert S. Hartman believed, his profile, the Hartman Value Profile, goes right to the heart of the matter. If administered at the outset, it can answer many of your troublesome value questions about patients before your very first extended interview with them. Many readers may be acquainted already with the Hartman Value Profile (HVP), but I will try to introduce it to those who are not. Of necessity, this introduction must be only a short beginning, not the whole story.

            Robert S. Hartman realized that systemic, extrinsic, and intrinsic values and valuations can be combined with one another in many different ways, that some of these combinations enhance or increase value (e.g., milk chocolate and nuts), and that other combinations decrease, degrade, or destroy value (e.g., milk chocolate and motor oil). The HVP consists of two parts; each contains eighteen value-combination items; nine are positive and nine are negative. (Three basic entities or types of value can be combined with one another in eighteen logically possible ways.) In each value combination item, one value or evaluation is dominant in the sense that its combination with the other value either enhances or diminishes overall value.

            Those taking the profile are asked to rank eighteen items from best to worst by assigning the numbers “1” through “18” to each item on each part of the profile. In the nine positive, desirable, or good items, three intrinsic values are dominant, three extrinsic values are dominant, and three systemic values are dominant; the same logical distribution exists for the nine negative, disvalue, undesirable, or bad items.

            An ideally correct ranking based on the aforementioned threefold hierarchy of value is presupposed. Ideally, given the hierarchy of value, the three intrinsic-dominant positive items should be ranked “1,” “2,” and “3;” the three extrinsic-dominant items should be ranked “4,” “5,” and “6,” and the three systemic-dominant items should be ranked “7,” “8,” and “9.” The bad, but least bad, systemic-dominant negative items should be ranked “10,” “11,” and “12;” the slightly worse extrinsic-dominant items should be ranked “13,” “14,” and “15;” and the decisively worse intrinsic-dominant disvalue items should be ranked “16,” “17,” and “18.” Individuals will actually rank these items from “best” to “worst” in an incredibly diverse number of ways, but just how individual persons rank them discloses their basic personality structures.

            If you are curious about the nature of the value items on the Profile, here they are for Part I, which deals with the self’s evaluation of the world, and for Part II, which deals with the self’s evaluation of itself. On the Profile itself, the items are randomly ordered, but in the lists below they are ordered in proper rank from one through eighteen. Of course, persons taking the Profile do not have access to this “correct ranking” information, and cheating on the profile by second guessing what is expected is almost impossible.

 HVP, Part I.

Here people are asked to rank these eighteen items from “best” to “worst.”

A baby

Love of nature

A mathematical genius

“By this ring I thee wed”

A devoted scientist

A good meal

A uniform

An assembly line

A technical improvement

Nonsense

A fine

A short-circuit

A rubbish heap

A madman

Slavery

Burn a witch at the stake

Blow up an airliner in flight

Torture a person

 HVP, Part II.

Here people are a asked to rank these eighteen statements or quotes according to the degree that they apply or do not apply to themselves.

 “I enjoy being myself.”

“I love my work.”

“I love the beauty of the world.”

“My work brings out the best in me.”

“I feel at home in the world.”

“I like my work—it does me good.”

“My work adds to the beauty and harmony of the world.”

“The more I understand my place in the world, the better I get in my work.”

“The universe is a remarkable harmonious system.”

“The world makes little sense to me.”

“No matter how hard I work, I shall always feel frustrated.”

“My work contributes nothing to the world.”

“My working conditions are poor, and ruin my work.”

“The lack of meaning in the Universe disturbs me.”

“My work makes me unhappy.”

“My life is messing up the world.”

“I hate my work.”

“I curse the day I was born.”

             Most people finish the Profile, both parts, in twenty minutes or less, so it affords therapists  an opportunity to gain an enormous amount of information about patients, or people in general, in a very short amount of time.

            The Hartman Value Profile is copyrighted by the Robert S. Hartman Institute for Formal and Applied Axiology. (See http://www.hartmaninstitute.org.) A very small royalty must be paid for each professional use, but the wealth of information it yields about patients (and others who take it) makes it well worth the price.[A7]  Currently it is used extensively in business consulting and should be more widely used in psychotherapy[A8] . Scoring and interpreting the HVP are somewhat complicated, but these are explained in its Manual of Interpretation (Hartman, 1973). Scoring the HVP yields 57 interpretive score scales (Hartman, 1973, p. 1), some of which are much more revealing than others. What was once done laboriously by hand can now be done almost instantaneously with computers, and today most consultants and therapists who use the HVP have developed their own scoring/interpreting software or have affiliated with distributors who supply it to them. When properly scored and interpreted the results can be extremely significant in diagnosing a person’s strengths and weaknesses. It can pinpoint serious problems in living, aid immensely in planning a therapeutic regimen, and measure therapeutic progress with repeated applications over time.

            Of course, no therapist in her or his right mind would accept such seemingly exorbitant  claims without considerable substantiation and evidence, but the required work on that has been done. In July 2005, clinical psychologist Leon Pomeroy published his work of a lifetime, The New Science of Axiological Psychology [A9] (Pomeroy, 2005). Pomeroy, now retired, spent most of his career as a clinical psychologist at a Veterans Administration Hospital in New York City . His work there was combined with an appreciable private clinical practice. Over the years he administered the HVP to hundreds of patients having problems in living, some obviously more serious than others, many with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). He also administered the HVP to hundreds of college students in many countries, to many stutterers and general medicine patients, and to many physicians and other high-achieving professionals. In this book, he both validates the HVP and provides a preliminary exploration of its clinical, consulting, and other professional uses; and he repeatedly invites replication and expansion of his results by other qualified investigators.

            Pomeroy decisively demonstrates the reliability and validity of the standard HVP; he devotes whole chapters to analyzing and justifying it using Factor Analysis, Construct Validity, Discriminant Validity, and Concurrent Validity methodologies. Using Concurrent Validity methods, he correlates the scales of the HVP with the scales of the “gold standard” MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory) and the Cattel CAQ (Clinical Analysis Questionnaire), and he finds not merely minimal statistical significance but truly amazing statistical correlations between their scales and those of the HVP. To do this, of course, he had to get his patients to take all three. He also finds significant HVP scale correlations with those of the Cornel Medical Index (CMI) and the Index of Autolethality (AL).[A10] 

            To make a very long story very short,[A11]  the scales of the HVP most directly measure a person’s overall value sensitivity, including his or her abilities to distinguish between different kinds of value, to have a sense of proportion about them, to see and solve value problems, to distinguish between good and bad, and to discern, differentiate between, and prioritize values in individuals, in the world, and in systems (Hartman, 1973, pp. 1-2). In turn, all of these value capacities can be and in fact are with good evidence correlated with a vast array of personality and behavioral traits. Hartman himself did it originally through his own profound personal knowledge of and insight into human nature and individuals, as expressed in both his theory of values in the Structure of Value (Hartman, 1967) and in his Manual of Interpretation (Hartman, 1973). Pomeroy does it by drawing upon his years of clinical experience as a professional psychologist and through employing the above validation methodologies as developed and applied extensively in his book.

            You will just have to read the book to get all the details[A12] , but one way to get a sense of how the scales of the HVP connect with psychological and behavioral concepts of interest to psychotherapists would be to scan the psychological/behavioral words in Pomeroy’s “Index.” There we find detailed entries for such things as affection, aggression, alcoholism, alienation, amorality, anger, anti-self, anti-social, anxiety, atychal, authority problems, balance, behavior(s), belief(s), bipolar, bizarre behavior(s), boredom, brain disease, brooding, calm, clinical insanity, compensation, compulsive, conformity, conscience, consciousness, creativity, criminal, defenses, denial, dependency, depression, diagnosis, dissociation, dissonance, distrust, dominance, ego inflation, ego strength, emotion, empathy, extroversion, family solidarity, fanaticism, fascism, fear, female,  fixation, fundamentalism, guilt, harmony, heterosexual discomfort, hostility, hyperactivity, hypersensitivity, hypochondriasis, hypomania, hysteria, identity, imbalance, individualism, inferiority, insanity, intelligence, intimacy, introversion, irrationality, irritability, know thyself, know thy world, lassitude, left-brain, love, maladjustment, male, manic, mental health, mental illness, mind, moral education, moral insanity, moral psychology, moral science, moralistic, motivation, naivete, negativity, neuroses, obsessive, optimism, organic symptoms, outpatients, pain, paranoia, passivity, pathology, perfectionism, personalities, pessimism, phobias, pleasure, prejudice, priorities, problems in living, projective, pro-self, pro-social, psychoanalytic, psychometrics, psychoses, psychosocial, psychosomatic, psychostasis, psychotic, psychoticism, rationality, rational autonomy, rational thinking, rationalization, religion, repression, right-brain, sanity, schizophrenia, self value-vision, self-confidence, self-definitions, self-destructive, self-esteem, self-identity, self-reliance, self-valuation, sense of self, sensitivity, sexual, social, somatic, splitting, stuttering, suffering, suicidal, superego, survival, symptoms, tension, terrorism, thick skin, tough love, tough poise, trauma, uniqueness, value-vision, violence, war, weakness, well being, work, work-confidence, work-world, world value-vision, worry, and worth—just to cover the high points!

            The New Science of Axiological Psychology further strengthens its case for the validity of the Hartman Value Profile with highly original work done with collaborating physicians that correlates its scales with biomedical factors like levels of cholesterol, vitamin C, sodium, chloride, iron, lead, mercury, calcium magnesium, potassium, etc., as measured in blood and hair samples ( Pomeroy , Ch. 13). Pomeroy also gives the results of extensive HVP cross-national studies of college students in the United States , Indonesia , Japan , Mexico , Russia , and the Canary Islands of Spain (Pomeroy, Chs. 16-17). In these studies he finds a hard core of universal human values overlaid by a relatively small but significant contingent of culturally variant values. He shows that the HVP, in translations, provides a hard, effective, empirical, scientific [A13] methodology for approaching issues of value relativity versus value absolutism—something that has been approached previously only by what social scientists would have to classify as “anecdotal” evidence.

 Conclusion

            In conclusion, if Pomeroy’s book gets the attention it deserves, it should revolutionize psychology and psychotherapy by refocusing them on human values and their genuine measurability,  by reorienting these disciplines toward what and how we value as the real keys to who and what we are. The Hartman Value Profile offers a powerful and effective way to get to know patients (and others) through their values. Try it; you’ll like it! As Robert S. Hartman himself often said, “The proof of the pudding is in the eating!”[A14] 

 References

            Hartman, R. S. (1967). The structure of value. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press.

            Hartman, R. S. (1973). The hartman value profile (HVP): Manual of interpretation. Muskegon , MI , Research Concepts.

            Martens, W. H. J. (2005). Shame and Narcissism: Therapeutic Relevance of Conflicting Dimensions of Excessive Self Esteem, Pride, and Pathological Vulnerable Self. Annals of the American Psychotherapy Association, 8(2), 10-17.

            Pomeroy , Leon (2005). The new science of axiological psychology. Amsterdam - New York : Editions Rodopi.  

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                                   Last Updated: 01/28/10