Dr. Franklin Tennyson White
Wellness and Career Guidance
for
Creative, Intellectual and Spiritual Types
Oxford Anthropologist and Wellness Consultant
PhD in Anthropology
Diploma* in Career Guidance
*equivalent to full Bachelor’s degree
Available for online consultations
on
Fulfillment
(Work, Vocation, Career)
and
Holistic Well-Being
(Easefulness, Happiness, Fulfillment, Satisfaction)
Techniques taught include:
Contemplation, Visualization, Affirmation, Dream Interpretation, Shamanic Trance, and others drawn from Sufism, Yoga, Tai Chi Chuan, the I Ching, and the Tarot
I offer wellness and career guidance using expertise that I learnt and was examined on for my BA, MRes and PhD in Anthropology, and using counselling skills that I was trained in and assessed on for my Diploma in Career Guidance.
Guidance is an ongoing discussion based relationship which provides a structure designed to help you to figure out your deepest needs and desires, as well as the best way for you to attain those goals.
I give ideas for goals which might be good for you to work towards, alongside ideas for strategy and techniques which might be effective for attaining those goals.
I spent five years at the University of Oxford, completing a BA in Archaeology and Anthropology and an MPhil in North African Studies. I then moved to the University of Aberdeen, where I completed an MRes and a PhD in Social Anthropology.
My areas of expertise include natural impulses (which has implications for well-being), consciousness (which has implications for fulfillment), and cognition (which has further implications for well-being), as well as various activities including Sufism, yoga, tai chi chuan, the I Ching, the Tarot, and the latihan.
From my research on natural impulses, I have developed twelve practices for well-being that revolve around opening ourselves up to being what the planet needs us to be.
From my research on consciousness, I have developed three practices for fulfillment that entail discerning cyclic patterns of change (in the world of human affairs and beyond), and using such patterns as sources of life guidance.
Also from my research on natural impulses, I am engaged in developing a way of becoming knowledgeable about things (that applies equally to everyday life and to academic research) that increases the well-being of all concerned rather then diminishing it in any way.
On each of these three themes, I have a book in progress.
Testimonials
Letting Go: The Other Half of Rewilding
Letting Go is a guide to how we can bring about a decent state of affairs both in our own lives and on the level of communities and ecosystems, by adopting personal practices that revolve around taking our cues directly from the planet. There are a lot of books on the state of global affairs already out there. But almost all of them take a top-down approach, looking through the lenses of politics and economics, and floating ideas within those frameworks. Practically none of them is informed by the qualitative study of human beings: anthropology. Everyone agrees that the world is in a mess; and rewilding – stepping back and giving other species the space to be themselves – has become a fairly mainstream idea. Yet there is a side to it that is talked about much less: the potential in rewilding ourselves. Letting Go does two things. It presents an ecological mechanism for how the planet as a whole may cue certain behaviours in individual organisms. And, based on such behaviours, it presents twelve practices that are simultaneously conducive to personal, social, and ecological well-being. The theme that links them is the need to let go of our notions of what we are. Only by letting go of what we think we are, and what we think we need, can we open ourselves up to being what the planet needs us to be.
Finding Where We Stand: Handling Life through the Hero’s Journey
Finding Where We Stand is a guide to bringing about fulfillment in our individual lives by taking inspiration from stories. Specifically, the central theme is the hero’s journey: the archetypal structure found in myths and fairy tales. Presenting three practices, Finding Where We Stand demonstrates the benefits of training ourselves to interpret the occurrences which life throws at us through the lens of this kind of narrative. This is not the first book to suggest this, but it is the first book to identify and spell out the logic underlying such narratives. With this understanding in hand, we see how we can not only use existing stories, but systematically construct and refine such narratives ourselves, and use them to help ourselves make fruitful life choices.
Foraging for Truth: The Problem with Science and the Need for Anthropology
Foraging for Truth is about the real-world consequences of different methods of investigating the world. Part One presents the argument that science, which to a large degree we are accustomed to thinking of as the judge of reality, actually has certain problems built into it. The focus is on problems of environmental ethics: the idea that, by definition, to do science is to do harm to the planet. Using the insights of anthropology, Foraging for Truth shows three ways in which habitual use of the scientific method shapes our sensory perception and our cognition in particular ways, and thus indirectly but necessarily brings about adverse repercussions in the world. Taking this as a jumping-off point, Part Two lays out the foundation stones of another way of knowing, another way of engaging with the beings and things of the world, that avoids the pitfalls of science. This is a method that, in several variants, has been in use by anthropologists since the 1980s. It is a way of knowing that flows from basic principles of ethics – and turns out to bear an unexpected resemblance to foraging.
1983-2002: Grew up in London, England.
1999: Discovered Appalachian music; got first banjo.
2000: Discovered Lyall Watson’s work on sensitivity and interconnection in living systems. Began practising raja yoga in the lineage of Swami Vishnu-Devananda.
2002-2005: Completed BA in Archaeology and Anthropology at Oxford University.
2004: Began practising tai chi chuan in the lineage of Dan Docherty.
2005-2007: Completed MPhil in North African Studies. Discovered Tim Ingold’s work on language and sensory perception as skills, and on the continuousness of the development of skills throughout the human lifespan.
2009-2010: Completed MRes in Social Anthropology at Aberdeen University.
2010-2015: Completed PhD in Social Anthropology under Tim Ingold at Aberdeen University.
2010-2011: Completed preparatory research. Discovered David Abram’s work on sensory perception in animals, plants, and ecosystems.
2011-2012: Completed fifteen months of doctoral fieldwork, learning Sufi practices under Neil Douglas-Klotz (of the Sufi Ruhaniat International) and the latihan under Daniel Smith (of Subud).
2012: Began practising weightlifting.
2015: Completed first draft of doctoral thesis.
2016: Began independent post-doctoral research on well-being.
2017: Completed final draft of doctoral thesis. Continued with independent research projects.
2022: Began working as career counsellor.
2023-2025: Completed Diploma in Career Guidance.