Your Life Lesson?

?(Excerpt from Dr. Frank Wilson's Forward to LifePrints by Richard Unger)

The single overarching theme common to modern psychology, classical mythology, fairy tales, great novels and movies – and it is a theme that everyone understands – is some version of the narrative concerning what we like and do not like about ourselves. What Richard has found in fingerprints is not simply a fresh way of referencing this inevitable inner dichotomy – what we commonly think of as our "strengths and weaknesses" – but a compelling argument for treating them as complementary, inseparable, and in fact equally essential agents for healthy psychological development.

As a physician, the most impressive benefit I find in Richard's readings is the implicit invitation to discern in our most intimate and intractable frustrations (and, for some, in unexplained physical disabilities) not bad luck but a unique and intimate code of personal meaning. Learning to read that code can yield entirely unexpected self-understanding and a clear vision of what any particular person, irrespective of life history, can do to move toward a life of real and progressive fulfillment.

Richard's use of fingerprints to unmask the healthy dynamism of inner conflict seems absolutely unique to me, and I think it is not an overstatement to suggest that he may have developed one of the most accessible and fruitful constructs in the history of human psychology. Although I am utterly at a loss to explain how fingerprint patterns could possibly provide such a compass, I am satisfied that the interpretive system he describes in this book is not only psychologically wise but profoundly constructive.