As humans, we are endowed with brains that can solve problems. Through learning, practice, and experience, we enhance these capabilities. Yet, there are hitches: for all the problem-solving we accomplish, there are squirrelly, elusive, confounding problems that linger and defy easy or deft solutions.
My esteemed colleague, Dr. Siegfried Othmer (scientist and visionary extraordinaire) differentiates between simple problems and wicked problems.
Put “simply,” simple problems are those whose solutions involve clear, straightforward, and usually foreseeable steps. Though simple problems may not necessarily be easy, their solutions are achieved through following predictable and defined steps and/or rules. Wicked problems, by contrast, are those that elude solutions due to extraneous influences and variables that are difficult to predict or control. Complexity is not the obstacle per se, as many problems have numerous steps, complications, and necessary sequences and detail. Simple problems can be complicated, yet lend themselves to ready solutions. Wicked problems often have defined and delimited elements, but the control of those elements and variables (whether few or many) dodges and baffles their appropriate constraints to fully solve the problems.
For example, the development of the COVID vaccine was a simple problem, expedited rapidly and with the application and persistence of modern science. However, the management and elimination of COVID is a wicked problem. The conditions for its containment (though mostly known) are exceedingly difficult to meet.
Closer to my bailiwick, in the domain of mental health, problems that turn out to be wicked are often and initially framed and conceived as simple. For instance, depression is viewed (and researched) as a homogenous condition. In clinical practice (and pragmatic reality), there are different types, causes, and manifestations of the symptoms we collectively label as depression. Similarly, this applies to anxiety, ADD, psychoses, mood disorders, and many diagnoses used for the convenience of communication, treatments, and reimbursement.
In cases of depression, anxiety, and mood problems, the traditional simple solutions involve medication, various psychotherapies, and/or in my practice, EEG neurofeedback and Voice Technology. These interventions have significant impact upon the alleviation of symptoms. On the basis of my decades of experience, I would argue that EEG neurofeedback and Voice Technology have more lasting and pervasive relief (not to mention the obvious disadvantages of medications’ necessity of daily dosages and many side effects, including habituation). Similarly, interventions for ADD are successful in reducing distraction and improving concentration, memory, and task completion.
However, patients presenting for treatment (and the millions of others who suffer without intervention) have histories of vulnerabilities, intrusive social contexts, and stressful circumstances or crises that expand the simple clinical problem into a wicked longer term condition that precipitates regression, relapse, or recurrence of the vulnerable condition.
Examples include the high incidence of comorbidities with ADD (often compounded by learning disorders and insufficient educational remediation and habit formation) or anxiety and depression infused with trauma and self-medication or addictions.
In the aforementioned examples, conditions and variables that impede problem solution may be unforeseen or present themselves as pieces of the problem puzzle are solved. When COVID vaccines arrived, it was assumed that this would end the pandemic. However, vaccine mistrust and aversion, mutant variants, and inconsistent behavior have fostered the continuation of this wicked problem.
Despite the development of effective treatments for mental health conditions, these issues can become persistent and severe when social, behavioral, biological, economic, or historical variables override the relatively straightforward problem of symptom abatement and brain balancing. One interfering factor is the minimally broad and affordable access to quality appropriate treatment. Another is compliance, which can falter for numerous reasons.
Though mental health sufferers need not be plagued by their conditions lifelong, the tenacity of these afflictions typically has roots in genetic vulnerabilities exacerbated and triggered by traumas and unfortunate life events. At an individual level, trauma such as abuse, rape, and family breakup can induce psychological affliction. But the degree of recovery and positive enduring response to intervention often depends upon the resilience and neuropsychological soundness of the person victimized by the trauma.
At a collective level, we see markedly differential responses to natural disasters and societal traumas. Earthquakes, fires, floods, sociopolitical upheavals, pandemics, etc. selectively opportunize to overwhelm those more vulnerable by virtue of fragility, poor resilience, and a variety of underlying conditions. Over the past forty years, I have seen this time and again in the differential responses and recoveries to collective tragedies in my patients and others around me: 9/11, California earthquakes and wildfires, political unrest and division, and now COVID. The essential organizing principle that parlays simple problems into wicked psychological problems is the individual constitutional degree of resilience, response to trauma, and neurological self-regulation that characterizes the functioning of people before they become victims. Some people rebound from horrible events and circumstances, while others become mired in depression, addictions, and negative obsessions.
Traditional theorists attribute this differential to childhood upbringing and/or character deficiencies. The mistake of these views is not only their mysterious and undecipherable specificity and proof, but importantly their lack of connection to effective, timely, and predictable resolution. While all would agree that we can’t change the past, some think (and practice) that the recovery path necessitates “reprocessing” and “psychological awakening and insight.” Unfortunately, such traditional approaches have had dismal results. Becoming aware of the roots and causes of dysfunction does little to remediate it. Alternatively, we can learn from the positive and sustaining responses of durable individuals about predicting, interpreting, and making inroads into wicked problems of a psychological nature.
By addressing mental health symptoms and conditions with dual efficacy to relieve symptomatic distress and build neuropsychological resilience, self-regulation, and resilience, we can indeed transform behavior and character!
Encountering other stubborn dilemmas that beset us, we see that among them are problems that qualify as wicked. Examples are:
Climate change
Racism
Homelessness
Food insecurity
Economic inequity
Addictions
Loving and forgiving others who have wronged us
That wicked problems are difficult to solve is an understatement. More to the point, wicked problems contain a variety of simple problems whose solutions are necessary but not sufficient to solve the architecture of the superordinate wicked problem. The COVID pandemic is one example, where vaccination is a major step, as are masking, social distancing, and avoidance of large gatherings. Each is important, but separately, they seem insufficient (so far).
The larger context of racism embeds some simple problems that may be solved step-wise: equal rights legislation (and enforcement), appropriate antidiscrimination training in public and private sectors, contiguous socialization and cooperation in neighborhoods and workplaces, promotion and saturation of minorities within the fabric of professions and the marketplace, education and public messaging, addressing and demythologizing fears and stereotypes, etc. Yet, the wicked problem persists, as the whole seems greater than the sum of its parts, incompletely identified or resolved as progress is made.
Analyzed into components, we know the factors that comprise homelessness: unaffordable and unavailable housing, job loss and low wages, mental health issues, deleterious effects of shame and pride, addictions, and so forth. Despite its human toll and embarrassing reflection on our economic largess and “civilized” society, homelessness grows, not so hidden, but too often minimized or ignored— a wicked problem, notwithstanding the significant humane efforts to reduce it.
In a world with abundant food—so much food that overeating and bad diet are the devastating flip sides of food insecurity—in this country as well as around the world, many populations cannot regularly get enough to eat. The production of food is relatively simple. Yet, distribution, the ineluctable effects of supply and demand, glaring economic inequities, and the global interference of politics obfuscate this basic problem.
The reality of climate change augurs a gloomy future forecast by current and increasing weather catastrophes and natural disasters. As well, the abuse of our planet has caused multiplying health problems and the decline of ecosystems and the beauty and balance of nature. This, indeed, is a wicked problem. Limiting and correcting the damage will take multigovernmental regulation, along with evolving science and the commitment by individuals to modify habits and lifestyles. Though each of us walks the earth for a limited time, we leave individually and together lasting carbon footprints.
And then there is the universal complication of human nature: for we are sentient, compassionate, connected, but also given to selfishness, denial, anger, avoidance, and the “not in my backyard’ mentality.
This combination of human foibles is embodied in the “eye for an eye” justifications that accrue from trauma, fear, and ignorance. Overcoming revenge, hate, and retribution is indeed a gigantic wicked problem. Arguably, it infiltrates the festering of other wicked problems, since it mitigates cooperation and collaboration.
At the risk of advocating love as a cliché or panacea, let me say that loving is something that most people do in various and prolific ways. And most of us have experienced some degree of forgiveness and have rendered it to others. But the rubber meets the road where exhibiting love and forgiveness as habits of heart and lifestyle pervade the instances where we are the objects and victims of offense and hurt. Most of us are pretty good at simple solutions and sporadic forgiveness and cooperation. Tackling wicked problems requires more selflessness and maturity.
Many problems are easily or routinely solved through ingenuity, technology, and practice. Other problems remain elusive, resistant, broad, and expansive. So, what is the relevance of identifying simple and wicked problems?
At a pragmatic level, distinguishing between simple and wicked problems allows perspective that aligns expectations and plans with the demands of the problem. If you know what to expect, you can better prepare for the resources and implementation needed, as well as make reasonably accurate assumptions about the outcome. When appropriate steps are followed, simple problems get solved, even if they require time and exactitude. Alternatively, approaching problems as simple ones, mistakenly underestimating their wicked identity, leads to frustration, impatience, and potential errors or abandonment.
Although simple problems may call for assistance and resources, the steps and solutions are typically straightforward: just follow the map and you will get there. Alternatively, wicked problems are tricky and hard to isolate from extraneous and changing influences. Almost always, they demand more resources and time than anticipated, even with modified plans and timelines. Thus, wicked problems call for adjustments in assumptions and expectations, renewed capacity to tolerate setbacks and frustrations, and invariably their solutions depend upon teamwork and community collaboration. Such tall orders run against the grain of independence, pride, and rugged individualism.
Wicked problems make us grow—in humility, flexibility, adaptation, and respect and collaboration. They reinforce our need for others who enhance our effectiveness and contribute complementary skills, experience, and resources.
Wicked problems force us to mature and develop wisdom. They remind us that what you see is not always what you get and that life unfolds in both natural and supernatural dimensions.
Simple problems require simple solutions. Wicked problems require compound and collective solutions. Simple problems reflect natural laws, tangibility, and logic. Wicked problems conceal the depth of supernatural and transformational processes.
If you believe that life and the natural universe involve more than what can be measured or apprehended through mind and senses, then you are open to multidimensional transformation that harmonizes and colludes with observable nature. This is the essence of spirituality, the understanding and alignment of what we know with what we don’t know that still affects us. Wicked problems bring us to the crossroads of the tangible and intangible.
When comparing simple problems with wicked problems, I’m reminded of a Yiddish saying and a biblical counterpart:
Kleyn kinder, kleyn tsouris; groys kinder, groys tsouris
translates roughly to:
Small children, small troubles; big children, big troubles
In encountering wicked problems, there is undoubtedly a spiritual dimension—for wicked denotes the existence of evil and its propensity to deceive. I am fortified by a scriptural passage in 1 Corinthians 13:9-13:
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.
Thus, we progress in the process of growing up, dispelling myths and falsehoods, and putting previous simplicity behind. We accumulate experience, wisdom, caution, and patience, all informed and tempered by mistakes and maturity. We respect the unknown and modulate ambition with the refinement of anticipating what is beyond the limits of our immediate knowledge.
While proud of accomplishments and the conquering of simple problems, we demur in the face of wicked problems that confront us with the intangible and that call for compound, collective solutions, cooperation and dependence upon others, and the relinquishing of all that impedes the love and forgiveness needed to do so.
— Mark Steinberg, PhD
