A Quadrune Mind Primer – Quadrune Mind

The quadrune mind model explains why there is so much variability in how people behave, feel, think, and live. By understanding each of the four minds, we can better understand ourselves and others and, more importantly, use that understanding as a gateway to acceptance and compassion. Ultimately, acceptance and compassion for the immature minds in ourselves and others is the only path to the Grownup mind. Through understanding, acceptance, and compassion, we can build better relationships, better communities, and a better world.

The traits discussed in the quadrune mind model are not merely theoretical, but are immediately apparent in the way people—including ourselves—behave, feel, think, and live. We hope that the following synopses of each mind provide a basic understanding to begin to recognize these minds in the world.

Each mind correlates to an increasingly higher level of consciousness and an increasingly larger circle of concern—from the self, to the in-group, to those deemed worthy based on ideological criteria, to all of existence.

It’s a big leap from the adolescent to the Grownup¹ mind, but one we all must take now that our modern age, which is very much the Age of the Adolescent, has created global crises that can only be solved with global compassion. As more and more individuals become parenters² to their own immature minds and in their relationships, the Grownup mind will become more prevalent. Maturity in individuals and relationships is cumulative and will lead to the Age of the Grownup, a time when the Grownup mind is supported by the culture in which we live. Only then will we find effective, creative, long-lasting solutions for such crises. As Albert Einstein said, “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.”

Some key ideas to keep in mind when considering our four minds:

First, we see these minds in adult human beings of all ages and all walks of life. It may take some adjustment to see a world leader in his 70s who’s behaving like a powerful dictator as actually acting from his infantile mind, or a giant linebacker who seems so strong when taunting the opposing team as expressing his childish mind, or a scientist who sounds so brilliant when discussing the creation of a new technology without regard to human consequences as thinking from her adolescent mind. But these are all prime examples of the immature minds in the world. They may seem “powerful,” “strong,” or “brilliant,” but its analogous to a toddler throwing a temper tantrum, a child fighting on the playground, or a teenager acing a science test.

Likewise, the quadrune mind model shows us that someone who is not traditionally “successful,” but who lives with mindfulness, nonduality, compassion, and universal love, is fulfilling the highest purpose we have as human beings—to live our spiritual human nature. One of our greatest hopes in sharing the quadrune mind model is that it helps us understand in a new way why so many of the traits celebrated by mainstream culture are problematic and inspires us to embrace the traits of the Grownup mind instead.

Second, no mind is “bad,” they are all essential. All of the violence, cruelty, and harm that we see in the world arises when individuals get stuck functioning at an immature level of consciousness. However, it does not follow that the goal is to eliminate the immature minds. For one, the purpose of the Grownup level of consciousness is to integrate our immature minds with the Grownup mind, not to negate or even overcome them. In other words, our goal is to love, heal, and include each of our immature minds in order to live our spiritual nature.

The Grownup mind does have unique spiritual traits that only it can express, but these traits grow out of accessing the three other minds. Bodily homeostasis becomes equanimity, familial love becomes universal love, and understanding of others becomes compassion for them. This is not possible without the learning and skills of the infantile, childish, and adolescent minds. This fact is even evident in the way brain networks call on different regions of the brain to create compassion—it’s not just the prefrontal cortex, but the way the prefrontal cortex networks with many other parts of the brain.

In addition, even unintegrated immature minds can express themselves in healthy ways that can contribute to reducing suffering and increasing healing—if not for all, then at least for certain individuals or groups. For example, if we are expressing an unintegrated childish mind that sees the world as “us versus them,” it is far healthier and better for ourselves and others if our childish mind is preoccupied with how much it loves “us” rather than how much it hates “them.”

Third, our minds are fluid, not fixed. We will function from a different mind in different contexts and throughout our days, weeks, and lives. In fact, the very idea of some permanent, fixed state doesn’t appeal to the Grownup mind. This mind doesn’t seek permanence or certainty, like the infantile mind, but instead recognizes and embraces the uncertainty and flux of life. We want to live more and more of our moments from our Grownup mind, but we don’t want to beat ourselves up if we catch ourselves engaging in an infantile behavior, childish groupthink, or adolescent ideology. As mentioned above, only through acceptance and compassion can change come, and that includes accepting when unintegrated immature minds show up, both in ourselves and in others. We welcome these moments as flashes of mindfulness and insight that create the opportunity for growth.

Fourth, it’s about understanding and embracing, not judging and dividing. There is a risk is presenting these four minds as we have below that, despite the points above, one would be tempted to use this info to label yourself and others as “infantile,” “childish,” “adolescent,” or “Grownup.” In fact, with the exception of occasionally using Grownup as a noun, we’ve been careful to keep our terms about the mind, and not the person. No good comes from labeling people as (permanently) immature—it takes away their possibility for growth, change, and fulfilling their human nature. The goal of the quadrune mind model is not to further label and judge (which is often our collective default in this Age of the Adolescent) but rather understand, accept, and, paradoxically, change. Of course, a major difficulty is that explaining a model and thinking about a model are, in and of themselves, the prerogatives of our adolescent mind. However, the Grownup mind integrates all immature minds, including our adolescent mind, in a healthy way. As a result, the Grownup mind can take the understanding created by the adolescent mind and dedicate it to the spiritual purpose of reducing suffering and increasing healing for all, not only conceptually, but in the world of experience.

The Four Minds

Infantile Mind³

“Behavioral mind”—also called the “reptilian mind” in popular culture

Highest priority = Survival of the self

Highest good = Homeostasis, maintaining the status quo

Brain region⁴ = Brain stem

Like an infant, this mind is only concerned with its own survival—not through any conscious intention, but because this is the only way an infant knows how to be. Survival is very much felt in the body, and anything that makes the body feel uncomfortable (for example, by triggering a subconscious, negative gut reaction) is experienced as a threat.

Undifferentiated object relations—i.e., treats everything outside as an extension of themselves and therefore only considers how others and the environment can serve their own needs

Traits:

Seeking pleasure
Avoiding change at all costs
Avoiding emotionally-charged situations—you cannot change this mind through overwhelming love, safety must come first
Mindless, routine behaviors (being on autopilot)
Automatic reaction/response (involuntary behavior triggered by a stimulus before conscious thought)
Defensive, many threats to survival of the self in the world
Dogma, hard and fast rules, legalism—i.e., principles cannot be considered rationally, but must be strictly followed behaviorally
Ritual⁵l
Irredentist worldviews (treating land as undifferentiated from survival of the self)
No concept of past or future
How the body feels takes precedence over emotions, rational thought, or the spiritual way of being

Childish Mind

“Emotional mind”—also called our “herd mentality” in popular culture

Highest priority = Survival of the family/group

Highest good = Loyalty to the group

Brain region = Limbic system

Like a child, this mind identifies its own survival with the survival of its group, which is very much true for a child relying on their family’s caregiving. Threats to survival are often felt emotionally, and anything that triggers a “negative” emotion is experienced as “bad.”

Attached (partially differentiated) object relations—i.e., clinging to their family, nation, sports team, or other important group (to which the individual identifies) as if their own survival depends on it (which it does, to the childish mind)

Traits:

Seeking happiness
Avoiding interactions with people outside their “tribe”
Avoiding negative emotions
Resistant to rational arguments—you can’t change this mind through reason alone, it has to feel positive emotions first
Supreme importance of the family or other group that the person identifies with, and the idea that this group is better/right no matter what
Play
“Us versus them”
Oriented toward the past (may wish for the “good old days” of “family values”)
Emotions take precedence over rational thought or the spiritual way of being

Adolescent Mind

“Intellectual/Cognitive mind”—considered the “Apollonian mind” in popular culture

Highest priority = Survival of one’s ideology

Highest good = Abstract concepts, technology

Brain region = Neocortex

Like an adolescent, this mind thinks it knows everything about life. However, also like an adolescent, it has so much living still to do. The adolescent mind is unable to see anything outside of the scientific, rational, or observable as legitimate.

Individuated object relations—i.e., able to form a distinct self-concept (note the importance of conceptualizing) outside of the group

The adolescent mind is often considered to be our highest level of consciousness among those who think that rationality is what “makes us human,” i.e., what separates us from animals.

This mind probably looks very familiar to many of us. It is the predominant mind in our current age.⁶ As a result, our very society may keep us “stuck” at this level of consciousness, simply because much in our lives, from technology to our education system, cater to this mind.

Traits:

Seeking meaning
Avoiding slowing down, quiet, time experiencing the body and emotions
Difficulty having direct experiences of life—these need to be conceptualized first
Modernity, technology, the Age of Reason
Abstractification, atomization, reductionism—breaking things apart into smaller and smaller pieces for the sake of conceptualization and scientific understanding
Science for science’s sake, technology for technology’s sake
STEM as the purpose of education
Labeling, judging, differentiating, discriminating, categorizing
Morality (based on dualistic thinking about right and wrong) is seen as the most noble human trait
Oriented toward the future—“progress” is a constant refrain
Rational thought takes precedence over the spiritual way of being

Grownup Mind

“Spiritual mind”—similar to the “whole person” concept in popular culture

Highest priority = Reducing suffering and increasing healing for all beings and the earth

Highest good = Integration and interbeing

Brain region = Prefrontal cortex

Integrated object relations—i.e., integrating that which had previously been divided and separated during the developmental process into a new, healthy whole. This is not the same as infantile undifferentiated object relations in which there is no concept of others as separate, but rather a re-integration that goes beyondseparation while still recognizing others as individuals.

Our Grownup mind is the only mind that can integrate the needs and messages of our immature minds and direct them toward our spiritual highest purpose as human beings.

It builds upon the other minds, extending the infantile need for safety to all beings; childish connection and love of family to all beings; and the adolescent need for truth to understanding both relative and ultimate truth. It is the only mind from which we can express our true human nature. Through the Grownup mind, we fulfill our highest purpose as human beings.⁷

Traits:

Abiding in true joy without seeking
Nothing is to be avoided (as long as it does not cause harm), it is all a part of life—discomfort is recognized as essential to growth
Healthy body regulation, emotional regulation, and reasoning in the service of our spiritual nature
Spirituality beyond rationality—a recognition that rationality is not our highest ability as human beings, and our Grownup mind is capable of engaging in a level of spirituality that is not always comprehensible to our rational, adolescent mind
A non-dualistic view of the world, oneself, and one’s place in it
Going “beyond the ego,” as commonly conceived in wisdom traditions
Compassion (which goes beyond empathy), universal love
The sacred in all things
“Interbeing”⁸ that is both understood conceptually and felt internally
“Unconditional positive regard” for self and others⁹
Impermanence, uncertainty, flux, flow, the ineffable
Ease of being, harmony of intent and action, equanimity
Past and future are present in the present, which is where life is lived—“Be here now”
Nothing takes precedence over the spiritual way of being, which comes naturally to the Grownup mind

The reason it’s the “quadrune mind” model, and not just the “four minds” model, it because of the incredible integrative power of our Grownup mind.

Although the model is simplified as a developmental hierarchy, that idea is a bit misleading. The Grownup mind does not transcend the other minds in the sense of leaving them behind. The Grownup mind is our highest level of consciousness because only it can put the “-une” in “quadrune mind.” “Quad” tells us that we are trapped in a false sense of separateness when we experience the world from one of our immature minds. Only when live from our Grownup mind do we finally experience the “-une,” the fact that our brain, our minds, and all of existence are integrated in an interconnected whole.

We capitalize “Grownup mind” to signify that “grownup” is used differently in the quadrune mind model than in everyday language. Often, “grownup” and “adult” are used interchangeably to denote someone who has finished developing biologically. However, the quadrune mind model says that we can be biologically an adult but still function from our unintegrated immature minds. Being an adult does not necessarily—and, in fact, rarely—means that we are living from our Grownup mind. The Grownup mind, not simply being an “adult,” represents our ultimate maturity as human beings.
We often use the term “parenter” in the quadrune mind model. We use this term as a nod to the fact that this is a developmental model of consciousness and many of the afflictions that can limit our access to our Grownup mind arise from a lack of skillful parenting during our developmental years. Therefore, as adults, other adults (or we ourselves) can fill this role of creating the healing environment that gives our immature minds the safety and care they need to dare the developmental leap into the Grownup mind. However, we want to be careful to note that “parenter” is not the same as “parent.” For one, we are not talking about literal parents and children. But beyond that, there are so many concepts around the idea of parenting someone else that we want to avoid. Most significantly, this is not a hierarchical relationship where one person is “better” than the other or “always taking care of” the other. These are relationships in which adults can trade off taking on the parenter role depending on who is accessing a healthy, high level of consciousness in the moment. In fact, we don’t even need to be using our Grownup mind to be a parenter (although this is ideal)—a healthily expressed unintegrated childish mind can offer the connection an infantile mind needs to move outside of itself, and a healthily expressed unintegrated adolescent mind can offer the rational outlook that can help a childish mind see the world in broader terms. Finally, being a parenter to ourselves is one of our most important roles, which means treating our own immature minds with the care and love a healthy parent would show a child, giving ourselves the sense of safety and acceptance that our immature minds need to develop toward our Grownup mind.
The quadrune mind model previously used evolutionary language similar to Paul MacLean’s “brain-types” to describe the four minds of the human brain: reptilian, old mammalian, and new mammalian—which are the same as the triune brain model—and Human. We initially described our fourth mind, the spiritual mind, as the Human mind, with a capital “H,” to denote that it is unique to human beings. This is the language that’s used in earlier essays on this website. However, in further developing the model, we determined that developmental language was useful in helping us see how we can continue to develop through these minds in adulthood. More importantly, we wanted to avoid any idea that individuals functioning from one of the minds we previously called “pre-Human” were somehow “less than human.” Therefore, we have updated the quadrune mind model to use human developmental stages to describe the four minds of the adult human brain: infantile mind for the reptilian brain-type (brainstem), childish mind for the old mammalian brain-type (limbic system), adolescent mind for the new mammalian brain-type (neocortex), and Grownup mind for the spiritual brain-type (prefrontal cortex). We believe essays written during the earlier stage of the model still offer valuable information that may be of interest to readers. However, we would recommend viewing these resources with the updated, developmental language in mind.
The quadrune mind model grew out of Tom’s work inspired by neuroscientist Paul MacLean’s triune brain model. Tom was first introduced to the triune brain model, developed by MacLean in the 1960s, at a 1984 training on alcohol treatment in which he was working at the time. Obviously, neuroscience has progressed in many ways since the 1960s, most notably in the increased emphasis on the importance of brain networks, which recognizes that many regions are involved in most human functions. However, Robert M. Sapolsky’s 2017 book, Behave, still uses the triune brain model as a “metaphor,” noting that the biggest disadvantage is the model’s simplicity. However, there is a certain amount of understanding that can come from this simplistic metaphor, especially in light of how much MacLean’s triune brain model has influenced popular understanding of the brain and, more significantly for us, how people behave. Therefore, we continue to refer to brain regions in this more “metaphorical” way, à la Sapolsky, to aid in understanding each of the four minds phenomenologically, rather than strictly neurologically.
The concept of ritual is a good place to remember that each immature mind can express itself in healthy or unhealthy ways, even when performing the same behavior, and this is true with ritual. A ritual that mindlessly harms others (such as sacrificial animal slaughter) is clearly unhealthy. And, in fact, any ritual performed mindlessly that encourages unquestioned loyalty to a group sets the stage for harm and would fall toward the unhealthy end of the spectrum. However, ritual has gained great popularity in the wellness dialogue of late, and for those who engage in it mindfully, it can serve as a healthy way to express and heal the infantile mind in order to pave the way to the Grownup mind. In some cases, ritual may even be a component of how an integrated Grownup mind, which of course includes the infantile mind, expresses itself.
For a deeper understanding, we highly recommend the philosophy of Jean Gebser. He goes into great detail about the many traits of our current “deficient mental structure.” Seeing Through the World: Jean Gebser and Integral Consciousness by Jeremy Johnson provides an introduction to his work. We only recently discovered Gebser, but, like so many synchronistic recent discoveries, it shows us how the quadrune mind model fits into a broader trend of thinking concerning human consciousness and spirituality.
So, how do we come to live more from our Grownup mind? There is so much already available to help us here in the world’s wisdom traditions, in the writings of Humanist psychologists like Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow, and in modern neuroscience like Dan Siegel’s Mindsight practice. As for further specific practices, this is one of the many topics we explore in much more detail in our planned upcoming book. We hope you’ll watch our website and Instagram for updates on this book, or contact us about presentations or discussion groups.
A term coined by Thich Nhat Hanh to capture the interconnectedness of all beings and all of the universe. We might also think of “I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity” of John 17:23 in the Bible.
This concept was developed by the brilliant Carl Rogers. According to the quadrune mind model, only the Grownup mind can take the nondual attitude that we must simultaneously accept and develop beyond the immature minds. And, in fact, acceptance is the paradoxical necessary pre-condition that creates the safety needed for developing beyond each immature mind in ourselves and others.