If I was a psychotherapist, I would include this in my mission statement:

Here's the same thought applied to the medical field: one of the goals for doctors, medicine, and hospitals, should be to bring you to a state where you don't need them. When you check in for something, the doctor prescribes you something to take care of the problem now. But they don't really prescribe you something that will make sure you never need to come back. Preventative healthcare seems inherently underdelivered.

Here's how I got this idea: After reading The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, I thought to myself, "there are some people who wouldn't ever need to read a book like this." There are people who are already centered. There are people who naturally practice win/win thinking. Why? Were they just raised better? Is it their temperament? How do I become that person?

This pattern of thinking could be termed, "the negative space approach to self-development." Look at this picture, for example. What do you see?

This is a classic figure-ground optical illusion. It takes a second for your mind to switch between seeing the vase versus the two faces.

A similar duality exists in healing; a kind of cause-symptom illusion. Having to take medicine is itself a kind of symptom. Whenever we reach for help, whether in the form of a self-help book, a couples counselor, or meds, we should be thinking about the meaning of our actions. Is our action a cure, symptom, placebo, or a combination thereof?

Here's this thinking applied to 7 Habits: The book has an overarching theme of principle-centered living, but shouldn't we ponder those people who don't need principles?

People who don't need principles don't need hard rules to live by. These people just may be more "intelligent." According to Sternberg's Triarchic Theory of Intelligence, there are three main areas of intelligence. Two of them we're generally familiar with: analytical and creative intelligence. But the third one is interesting: contextual intelligence. Contextual intelligence is, as its name suggests, about putting everything into context. Contextual thinkers don't look at traits in isolation. They look at what surrounds them.

Contextual thinkers, theoretically, wouldn't really need principles. A principle, in my understanding, is a context-free rule.

Actually, in a way, contextual thinkers seem to uphold a meta-principle that kind of annihilates principle-centered thinking:

Sometimes, when you ask people for advice, they respond, "well, it's case-by-case." This usually happens when you ask a question that is too general, such as, "Should I only date men older than me?" A flexible, contextual, thinker would respond, "Well, that all depends." A rigid thinker would respond, "Never."

People with autistic spectrum disorder, in particular Asperger's syndrome (fyi: take the AQ Test) tend to have rigid thinking. They would, according to Triarchic Theory, have a poverty of contextual intelligence. They tend to, for example, treat questions literally, and don't weigh in other factors, such as the emotions of the asker.

Further Reading: