The intellectual tradition of individualism treats the individual person as the fundamental unit of analysis and reduces all things social to the motives and actions of individuals. Most methods in clinical psychology are influenced by individualism and therefore treat the individual as the primary object of therapy/training, even when recognizing the importance of nurturing social relationships for individual wellbeing. Multilevel selection theory offers an alternative to individualism in which individuals become part of something larger than themselves that qualifies as an organism in its own right. Seeing individuals as parts of social organisms provides a new perspective with numerous implications for improving wellbeing at all scales, from individuals to the planet.

个人主义的思想传统将个人作为分析的基本单位，并将所有社会事物归结为个人的动机和行为。临床心理学中的大多数方法都受到个人主义的影响，因此即使认识到培养社会关系对个人福祉的重要性，也将个人作为治疗/培训的主要对象。多层次选择理论为个人主义提供了另一种选择，在这种选择中，个体成为比自身更大的事物的一部分，而这些事物本身就具有资格作为有机体。将个人视为社会有机体的一部分提供了一个新的视角，对改善从个人到地球的各个层面的福祉都有许多影响。