I have always been curious about how we talk about problems. Not just what we say, but the words we choose, the silences we allow, the frames we reach for when something feels too big, too messy, too much. 

At Spiral Aloe Health & Wellness, we are in the business of healing — but not the kind that arrives in a neat bottle or a pre-scheduled intervention plan. We deal with lifestyle-related illness, with burnout, grief, disconnection, shame. Our work sits in that liminal space between the clinical and the communal, between physiology and story. And often, the very language we use to talk about people’s lives gets in the way of helping them. 

So when I found myself sitting in a session titled “Framing Problems and Solutions – Understanding Complexity Before Acting”, part of an interdisciplinary community service learning course, I was more than intrigued — I was confronted. 

The session drew on two key readings: Alford and Head’s (2017) work on wicked problems and Wanzenböck et al.’s (2020) framework for Mission-oriented Innovation Policy (MIP). Both grapple with the messiness of contemporary challenges — those issues that are politically contested, technically complex, and socially uncertain. In other words, the kind of issues we meet every day in our practice. 

What struck me most was not the concept of wickedness itself. We know these problems: chronic illness that defies neat prescriptions; loneliness in an age of hyperconnectivity; communities fractured not only by catastrophe, but by the slow erosion of meaning-making traditions. What challenged me was the invitation to stop rushing to solve them. 

We are conditioned to fix. Especially in health. Someone sits across from you, shares their pain, their confusion, their fatigue, and you want to help. You want to do something. But as Alford and Head (2017) argue, wicked problems are not fixable in the traditional sense. They do not have clear causal chains or endpoints. You do not “solve” burnout. You do not “solve” disconnection from community. You do not even solve health inequity — not in any final way. 

Instead, you work with it. You understand it better. You manage it more ethically. You shift its course, however incrementally. 

In their typology, Alford and Head (2017) distinguish between tame, moderately wicked, and fully wicked problems, based on both the nature of the issue and the diversity of actors involved. And here’s the thing: much of what we treat in wellness spaces is wicked — but we approach it as tame. We prescribe the yoga class without asking about the trauma. We host the community garden event without asking whether people feel safe stepping outside. We build the intervention on sand. 

It is not that these solutions are wrong. It is that they are lonely — disconnected from context, from complexity, from real people’s real lives. 

At Spiral Aloe, we have been leaning more and more into narrative practice. It is slow work. Sometimes circular. Sometimes frustrating. But deeply necessary. We ask questions like: What brought you here? Where do you want to go? And what stands in your way? These are deceptively simple questions. They require people to move from symptoms to stories. From a diagnosis to a sense of meaning. From the what to the why. 

This, I realised during the session, is a form of complexity work. It resists the illusion of “communication as solution,” which so often masks a lack of connection beneath the surface of well-meaning interactions. It is not enough to say the right thing — we have to mean it, feel it, hold space for it. And to do that, we need to understand that problems are performative as much as they are descriptive. They live in narrative form. 

Wanzenböck et al. (2020) offer a beautiful model for navigating this. Their framework for mission-oriented innovation policy (MIP) identifies three dimensions of wickedness — contestation, complexity, and uncertainty — and argues that both problems and solutions can be divergent or convergent. It is a dynamic, relational approach. One that resonates with how we build programmes at Spiral Aloe: iteratively, reflectively, and with care. 

What I appreciated in their work is the emphasis on process rather than outcome. MIP is not about reaching a perfect solution. It is about moving toward coherence — between actors, goals, and values. Sometimes that means starting with the problem and letting solutions emerge organically (the problem-led pathway). Other times, you begin with a solution you believe in and adapt it to the terrain you encounter (the solution-led pathway). Most often, it is a hybrid, and that is okay. 

That hybrid space — that in-between — is where narrative lives. It is where meaning is negotiated, where change becomes possible. 

But let’s be honest. Sitting with complexity is hard. It is exhausting. It is much easier to slap a slogan on a campaign and call it empowerment than it is to trace the historical, economic, and emotional roots of a community’s health crisis. It is easier to write a report than to sit with a woman grieving a diagnosis that no one seems to understand or validate. 

Still, what the session taught me — what I am still learning — is that this difficulty is not a flaw in the system. It is the system. It is the work. As one participant insightfully asked: Who decides when we stop calling it a problem? When do we say enough? These are ethical questions, not just technical ones. They demand care, not just competence. 

And yes, it means rethinking success. At Spiral Aloe, we have had to shift our metrics. Instead of asking, “Did we solve it?” we now ask, “Did we listen well? Did someone feel seen? Did we learn something? Did we leave space for healing to continue beyond us?” These are subtler forms of progress. But they matter. 

They matter especially in a world that increasingly rewards speed, certainty, and performative solutions. Wicked problems invite us to move differently. To honour pace. To celebrate ambiguity. To learn from not knowing. 

And so, what do we do? 

We continue to build with care. We design our programmes with the understanding that people’s lives do not follow linear trajectories. We collaborate across disciplines — medicine, psychology, anthropology, and the arts — not to find consensus, but to create synergy. We stay close to the ground, listening to what communities are already doing, what they already know, and what they dream about when no one is watching. 

We also invite policymakers, funders, and fellow practitioners to join us in reframing success. Let’s stop measuring impact by volume alone. Let’s count the depth of trust, the longevity of relationships, and the degree of comfort people feel returning to themselves. 

And perhaps most importantly, we allow ourselves to be transformed by the work. Because if we are honest, wicked problems do not just live out there. They live within us — in our assumptions, our fears, our desire to be helpful without being accountable. Confronting complexity means confronting ourselves. It means saying: I don’t know. But I am willing to listen. 

That is not weakness. That is the beginning of wisdom. 

References 

Alford, J., & Head, B. W. (2017). Wicked and less wicked problems: A typology and a contingency framework. Policy and Society, 36(3), 397–413. https://doi.org/10.1080/14494035.2017.1361634 

Wanzenböck, I., Wesseling, J. H., Frenken, K., Hekkert, M. P., & Weber, K. M. (2020). A framework for mission-oriented innovation policy: Alternative pathways through the problem–solution space. Science and Public Policy, 47(4), 474–489. https://doi.org/10.1093/scipol/scaa027