Steven Segal

The Hermeneutic Circle as a Mood for Navigating Uncharted Territories

Dr Steven Segal is a psychologist, philosophical counsellor, leadership coach, and former Associate Professor at the Macquarie Graduate School of Management. For more than two decades he has worked at the intersection of psychology, philosophy, leadership, and organisational life, exploring how individuals and communities navigate uncertainty when familiar ways of making sense no longer provide clear direction.

Drawing on phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existential thought, Steven’s work focuses on the moods through which uncertainty is encountered and the possibilities that emerge when people learn to work thoughtfully within the uncharted rather than seeking premature certainty. He has worked extensively with leaders, professionals, and organisations facing disruption, complexity, and change.

He is the author of Business Feel: Leading Paradigm Shifts in Organisations and Mandela’s Leadership Legacy: Emotional and Existential Wisdom (Routledge). His forthcoming book, Philosophical Reflections and Insights for Psychotherapists and Psychologists, explores how philosophical reflection can deepen psychological practice and help practitioners work more effectively with uncertainty, complexity, and the challenges of contemporary life.

His current work explores the role of mood, lived experience, and practical wisdom in navigating situations where the map no longer works.

Join this great workshop – 

How does the way we experience the uncharted influence our response to it, and how does that response influence what unfolds?

To navigate the uncharted is to discover that we are not only responding to change. We are ourselves being changed by the very changes we seek to bring about.

The workshop explores the hermeneutic circle as a lived process. The moods through which we encounter the uncharted influence what matters, what becomes visible, and how we move forward. In turn, our responses participate in shaping what unfolds.

The distinctive feature of this dialogue is that it works from within lived experience rather than through disembodied models of change.

Central questions include:

• What are the moods through which the uncharted is encountered? 
• What do these moods disclose? 
• What are they asking us to attend to? 
• How do our responses influence what unfolds?

The Dialogue Process

The workshop is conducted as a facilitated dialogue working within the lived experience of a hermeneutic circle.

Participants are invited to bring their own experiences of navigating situations in which familiar maps, assumptions, and sources of orientation no longer provide clear direction. The dialogue begins with the moods through which such situations are encountered.