In ancient times, around 380 BC, the philosopher Plato (n.d., [2007]) described his beliefs about knowledge. He differentiated wisdom from intellect. The intellect is comprised of various disciplines of knowledge such as science, mathematics, geography and history. These are subjects that can be studied and learned. However, Plato considered that the intellect needs to be understood in relation to the Good. Plato described the Good with stories and compared it to the sun, illuminating all other things. The Good is transformative and allows knowing to occur, but it is beyond simply knowing. It is not just morality or intellect. An awareness of the Good is like an orientation towards the sun. Without it, there is no deeper insight and knowledge becomes an instrument to achieve a particular end, likely driven by selfishness. Plato believed that the Good developed understanding into a responsibility towards others: Knowledge without caring for others carries no wisdom at all. A life can contain pleasure, authority, success, and the person may be well liked, but without awareness of the Good, a person will miss truth, order, and an alignment with what is fundamentally important. As a consequence, Plato suggested that it is possible for a person to be both intellectually clever and also to be foolish and without wisdom. They can know facts without having a deeper understanding. They may feel misaligned despite being high functioning and successful. Our modern society emphasises intellect because it is easily quantifiable, but wisdom can often be sidelined despite arguably being the most important source of knowledge of all. The orientation provided by the Good shifts a person away from rules to follow in life or paths to success and instead prompts the question “in life, what kind of person am I trying to be?”.
Plato’s ideas of wisdom echo in more recent theories. For instance, the BACP guidelines for counsellors (2018) emphasise how the ethics of behaviour towards clients is founded in the counsellor’s values. These values, if internalised, become core beliefs about how to treat others and can become intrinsic to everyday behaviour. Values inform principles, which are explicitly expressed beliefs that can provide guidance to oneself or others. Thus, values dictate behaviour. Plato would have described these beliefs as truths, pieces of wisdom perceived through reliance on the Good. However, he believed that wisdom can only be obtained through experiences, not abstract learning: These experiences are primarily painful but can be potentially transformative if interpreted with reference to the Good. That wisdom is founded in suffering is an observation that has been repeated by many theorists since Plato’s time. Viktor Frankl (1946, updated 2006) proposed a theory of existentialism founded in a person’s search for meaning. Frankl believed that life presented difficult situations to each person and that meaning was found in how they responded. Frankl began to formulate his beliefs about wisdom while an inmate in a Nazi concentration camp during the Second World War. He noted that those people who were able to carry meaning in their response to their environment were more resilient and, in some respects, were less likely to perish. For example, while incarcerated he thought of his wife, noted moments of beauty in nature, and recognised moments of humanity that he shared with others. Meaning does not represent optimism or positive thinking. In his view, meaning was an objective truth, not a subjective invention by the individual. The meanings developed by a person are tangible observations that require an openness to perceive. Without these meanings, a person can become overwhelmed by their suffering. Each person adopts an attitude towards their suffering which remains after all else – work, relationships, health, autonomy – may have been lost. Suffering is not meaningful in itself but, when unavoidable, meaning develops through the way it is carried by each person. In this way, attitude can preserve a person’s moral agency and maintain a sense of self, restricting the capacity of trauma to totally define them as a victim. Survival is helped by holding a future-oriented meaning, a deeper relation to someone or something to whom they have to answer, and a reason to maintain one’s own humanity in an inhuman circumstance. Meaning is not a guarantee of survival, but it is a protective factor. However, survival is not a moral achievement and is not redemptive. Frankl believed that wisdom is earned through experience. Wisdom is not gained through intellect and cannot simply be read from a book without the reader already having experience within their own life to interpret what is said. Thus, wisdom is the most difficult form of knowledge to obtain. In his view, the development of wisdom reduces idealism but is instead rooted in humility, compassion, and an ethical foundation. Like Plato, Frankl believed that wisdom illuminated a responsibility to change situations that are unjust.
Robert Sternberg (1990) re-emphasised that intelligence does not equal wisdom and agreed that wisdom is the guide for using intelligence well. He defined wisdom as a value-driven application of intelligence towards a common good. His Balance Theory of Wisdom (2001) contended that the use of wisdom should accommodate three types of interest: Intrapersonal interests, which are what the person wants; interpersonal interests, which is what others want and the perceived consequences for the person; and extra-personal interests, which are the effects upon institutions and societal systems. Contemplation of these three interests should also include the type of environment and possible changes over the short-term and long-term. Sternberg argued that wisdom develops through reflection after making imperfect choices to ambiguous or complex life events. Future behaviour is then altered or improved. As a consequence, wisdom requires time for a person to fail and readjust. Intelligence without wisdom can both cause and justify harmful behaviour, especially as societies will often prioritise and reward ability without promoting the need for an accompanying sense of responsibility. Sternberg believed that a failure of wisdom led to authoritarianism and societal injustice.
David Kolb (2015) developed the Experiential Learning Theory (ELT) to show how experience can become learning. Kolb believed that experience must be transformed so as to become knowledge. The experience alone is not sufficient to create change: Some people repeat the same mistakes throughout life while others accrue wisdom through adversity. At the time of an event, the experience is raw and direct, it could carry high emotion and the meaning may not be obvious. After the event a person is able to reflect upon what happened. In Kolb’s theory, this will normally lead to abstract conceptualisation, a process of identifying patterns, forming hypotheses, and interpreting experience with a narrative. However, there is one further stage which is active experimentation: A person changes their behaviour to create a different new experience. This new experience can in turn also be reflected upon, leading to personal growth and awareness. Kolb contended that experiential learning was necessary for moral development, as it requires exposure to real dilemmas and consideration of their consequences and complexities. Trauma can disrupt the cycle of experiential learning, as a person may get stuck in repetition without reflection, they may use abstract conceptualisation prematurely to avoid experiences entirely, or they may become stuck in rumination. However, what Kolb’s model makes clear is that attaining wisdom is the employment of a process, not a trait of character or the result of high intellect.
Judith Herman (1992, updated 2015) agreed with Frankl in believing that trauma had a role in developing wisdom. However, while Frankl viewed wisdom as an existential test of meaning and morality while under extreme distress, Herman focussed on the abuse of power associated with the trauma. In Herman’s view, trauma is usually accompanied by domination, betrayal, loss of voice, and a helplessness that is enforced by the abuser(s). Herman recognised that disparate forms of traumatic experience often lead to a similar kind of injury to the self: Combat, sexual abuse, domestic violence, and political terror will all impact and disturb a person’s self-concept, potentially causing a collapse of morality and identity, as well as causing emotional dysregulation and impairing relations with others. Often these experiences are caused by a violation of relationship, trust, and morality as a person or system uses their power to control or silence another. Thus, Herman calls trauma ‘an affliction of the powerless’. Domination may involve any kind of abuse such as physical, sexual, and emotional as well as deprivation, intimidation and gaslighting, silencing and humiliation, isolation from friends and family, and turning others against the abused person. Betrayal occurs when harm originates with or is compounded by people whom the abused person should have been able to trust. These could be partners, caregivers, peers, figures of authority such as teachers, clergy, and other professionals, and institutions. Betrayal can take two forms: Betrayal of the perpetrator by actively hurting the person and betrayal of witnesses by not believing, minimising, victim blaming, punishing, and treating the abused person as the problem. The result of trauma created by domination and betrayal is not just a fear of being hurt, but it constitutes a moral injury: A violation of what is considered right and just presents a crisis of meaning leading to a moral, existential collapse. For Herman, therapy is not just a matter of processing memories: Positive change begins by being believed without judgement, repairing boundaries and external stability, recognising the wrongdoing and relocating blame, and restoring the client’s agency. Accuracy of meaning, which is associated with wisdom, is developed through the process of repair and personal reintegration. In this context, all wisdom is hard-won. Wisdom can include a heightened moral awareness and an intolerance for injustice, stronger boundaries, and compassion without naivete. Wisdom rebuilds morality after it has been desolated. Both Frankl and Herman noted that some people do not develop wisdom after trauma, instead becoming embittered as life’s meaning collapses around the focus on past events. This will be discussed further in the page on bitterness and forgiveness.
References
BACP., (2018) Ethical framework for the counselling professions. [online] Available from https://www.bacp.co.uk/events-and-resources/ethics-and-standards/ethical-framework-for-the-counselling-professions/ [Viewed 6 January 2026].
Frankl, V.E. (2006) Man’s Search for Meaning. Revised and updated edn. Translated by I. Lasch. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
Herman, J.L. (2015) Trauma and Recovery. New York: Basic Books.
Kolb, D.A. (2015) Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. 2nd edn. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.
Plato (2007) The Republic. Translated by D. Lee. 2nd edn. London: Penguin Classics.
Sternberg, R.J. (1990) Wisdom: Its Nature, Origins, and Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sternberg, R.J. (2001) Why Schools Should Teach for Wisdom. Educational Psychologist, 36(4), pp. 227–245.