Chapter 1 provides an introduction to evolving complexity theory (ECT) of talent development (TD), a new theory that adopts a relational developmental-systems perspective on how talent is developed and human excellence achieved. A developmental-systems theory has to address the questions of what develops, how it develops, when it takes place, where (i.e., social-historical conditions and cultural contexts) it takes place, with each constraining one’s chance of success. Evolving complexity refers to the nature of TD as encompassing biological, experiential, cognitive, and sociocultural aspects in developmental self-organization, resulting in distinct individuality, of which specific talent achievement is a manifestation. ECT distinguishes itself from other TD models in its emphasis on the primacy of action/interaction, and the nature of TD as adaptation to task affordances and constraints. ECT also views TD as the means to an end of creating a productive, fulfilling life, and there are many niches and pathways to excellence within and across domains.

A model of care defines how health services are delivered. It typically has four elements: goals; pathways and processes; treatment programmes; and evaluation in which a logic model relates resources delivered to sustained health gains and defined outcome measures. The elements of therapeutic security – environmental, relational, procedural and managerial – influence specifically forensic models of care. Services that manage serious risks must ensure judgement support frameworks, resilience and sustainable levels of service. Population needs and prison morbidity surveys should shape services at a national level. Prison in-reach services based on screening, diversion and continuity of care are an integral part of a forensic model of care, along with highly supportive and structured community services for the conditionally discharged patient. Forensic psychiatry services may to some extent be a bellwether for both positive and problematic aspects of the larger model of care for mental health for a population and may be the first places to see signs of service strain elsewhere. Tertiary highly specialised services should aim for excellence. Excellence is the process of leading continuous improvement of outcomes for patients through the virtuous cycle of research, development, teaching and training. Investing in excellence as a key priority and value is essential.

This chapter presents an overview of the book and positions it in the context of the development of expertise and the pursuit of excellence. It presents the historical context of the development of expertise and the theoretical context of the study of expertise.

This chapter concerns the pursuit of aretē among the sophists. It argues that such pursuit did not mean what it came to mean to Plato and his heirs. For the latter, the goal of human life, called eudaimonia, is personal flourishing; and aretē is used to refer to some highly valued psychological condition crucial to achieving eudaimonia. The sophists use aretē to refer to a psychological condition once. Predominantly, they use aretē to refer to a life of civic success, conceived as success in public affairs, saliently involving the agent’s making significant positive contributions to his fellow citizens and polis. As such, sophistic ethics tends to be civic ethics. Granted this, there is limited evidence of anti-civic ethics among the Sophists. Given traditional views of the Sophists, the locus of this evidence is ironic. It consists of attributions to the Socratic Aristippus and content in the Athenian Antiphon’s On Truth.

Straddling the line between knowledge and business, public and private, or between its local ties to the state and its reach toward the global economy of higher education, the modern university seems to have found in brands a tool to construct a coherent and attractive image, if perhaps only skin deep, of itself, its role, and its “excellence.” This chapter looks at the specificity of academic brands compared to their corporate counterparts, focusing in particular on the distinct notion of “origin” that they signify (and how that frames the ways in which such brands may be tarnished), the relationship between academic brands and academic rankings, and the fundamental role of students in the establishment of such brands. One of the suggestions put forward here is that, rather than an adoption of a corporate trend, academic brands may have in some way predated that trend.

The Conclusion sketches two notions: a metaphysical one – that much human goodness depends on implicit or explicit rankings and positionality; and an epistemic one – that we use implicit or explicit comparison to know what position we occupy in this continuum of goodness. Envy’s signaling value may be much more important than previously thought. If most of human goodness is relational, comparative, competitive, or positional, then it is not surprising that envy is a universal emotion. It safeguards our chance at happiness.