need help: psychology and chaos
AAM
I'm a clinical psychologist student from Instituto Superior de Psicologia
Aplicada de Lisboa, Portugal. To complete my graduation I have to defend a
thesis. The subject I have chosen to work out is the possible articulations
between the theory of chaos (complex, dynamic and non-linear systems) with
meta-psychologic models of psyche (especially the object-relations theories
from Klein, Bion, Meltzer...). As you can see, my framework is a dynamic one
and that is precisely my problem: I can find lots of material from a
cognitivist standpoint (artificial intelligence models, theory of
communication...), I can find philosophical approaches to chaos... but I
find only two or three papers on my subject. So, if anyone knows something
useful to me please do respond to my message. Thank you.
John M Price
Well, here are some cites. I personally am very cautious about using
chaos for this stuff. But people do. My main concern is the metrics
involved. And just what are the attractors being considered?
Best of luck with the dissertation. There is one listed herein.
PROVIDED FOR EDUCATIONAL USE ONLY
1. (PsycINFO result)
BOOK CHAPTER
Sameroff, Arnold J.
General systems theories and developmental psychopathology.
IN: Developmental psychopathology, Vol. 1: Theory and methods.
Wiley series on personality processes.; Dante Cicchetti, Donald J.
Cohen, Eds. John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY, US. 1995. p. 659-695.
Abstract: (from the chapter) discuss ...alternative models for
understanding living systems; (argue) that the appropriate model
for understanding developmental psychopathology is one that matches
the complexity of human behavior; (present) a conception based on
general systems theory that attempts to integrate individual and
contextual processes in a model for understanding developmental
psychopathology... world hypotheses and root metaphors (formism,
mechanism and organicism, contextualism); models of development;
the transactional model; transactions and psychopathology; the
environtype (cultural code, family code, rituals, individual code
of the parent, environtype as a system); general systems theory
(wholeness and order, self-stabilization, self-organization,
hierarchical interactions, dialectical contradiction); chaos theory
and dynamic systems perspectives; general systems theory and mental
health; from theory to practice; developmental regulations
(macroregulations, miniregulations, microregulations);
transactional model of intervention (remediation, redefinition,
reeducation); lessons from the study of developmental
psychopathology.
2. (PsycINFO result)
Will, Herbert.
Zur Phanomenologie der Depression aus psychoanalytischer Sicht. /
The phenomenology of depression: A psychoanalytic view.
Psyche: Zeitschrift fur Psychoanalyse und ihre Anwendungen, 1994
Apr, v48 (n4):361-385.
Language: German.
Abstract: Describes 5 characteristic types of depression based on the
cardinal symptom represented by the nature of the feelings
prevalent in each case: superego depression, oral-dependent
depression, ego depression, narcissistic depression, and
realistic-creative depression. The author notes that, in diagnosing
depressive patients, analysts appear to be influenced by their own
theoretical preferences and clinical experiences. A scientific,
generalizing theory of the nosology of depression is elusive and
complex. Perhaps the theory of nonlinear and dynamic systems
(theory of chaos) may provide an adequate framework. The author
stresses that the 5 different types of depression can overlap.
Moreover, depression, like anxiety, is a ubiquitous state, being
part of the human condition, and is not always necessarily a
psychopathology. (English abstract) (PsycINFO Database Copyright
1994 American Psychological Assn, all rights reserved).
3. (PsycINFO result)
BOOK
Mann, David W.
A simple theory of the self. W. W. Norton & Co, Inc; New York, NY,
US, 1994.
Abstract: (from the jacket) (The author) proposes an entirely new
perspective on psychodynamics.... He begins by revisiting the
original concept of theory: a particular point of view. Then he
traces the origins of scientific theory to self-experience,
ultimately demonstrating that science is the self-portrait of the
mind. After exploring various theories of psychoanalysis, their
origins and shortcomings, he proposes a new view of the self as
defined by the dimensions of reflexivity, bodiness, and time,
which, fused in feeling, form the kernel of psychic reality, the
irreducible center of being.... Exploring the normal and
pathological states of the self as variations of this model, Mann
shows how the theory can restructure one's understanding of the
gamut of psychiatric disorders. The model suggests an unseen order
to the chaos of classical psychopathology.
Contents:
Preface.
Language, theory, science and self.
Physics and metaphysics: A cautionary tale.
Self statics I: The structure of the self.
Self statics II: A mathematical model of the self.
Self kinematics I: The possibilities of the self.
Self kinematics II: The pairing of selves and the concept of
kinematic normality.
Owning and belonging: A simple dynamics of the self.
Psychiatric pain and deliberate suffering.
A consultation.
Group discussion of the interview.
Notes and sources.
Index.
4. (PsycINFO result)
DISSERTATION
Nelson, Andrea.
The application of chaos theory to the understanding of
psychological transformation.
Dissertation Abstracts International, 1992 Feb, v52 (n8-B):4477.
5. (PsycINFO result)
Grotstein, James S.
Neant, non-sens, chaos, et le "trou noir": L'importance du neant,
du non-sens et du chaos en psychoanalyse. (Nothingness,
meaninglessness, chaos, and the "black hole": The importance...
Revue Francaise de Psychanalyse, 1991 Jul-Aug, v55 (n4):871-892.
Language: French.
Abstract: Argues that the psychoanalytic concept of psychopathology was
written in terms of power (e.g., of drives or of the environment).
In contrast, the author stresses the power of powerlessness as it
reflects the inability to achieve meaning and meaningfulness in
one's self and object world to withstand the entropic pull (death
instict) toward nothingness and meaninglessness and ultimately
toward chaos/randomness (the traumatic state of the "black hole").
The nature of chaos and its relationship to random, turbulent,
hyperirritable states are discussed. Chaos theory semes to suggest
a universal mathematical theory that connects emotional phenomena
to a unified field theory that embraces far more than the
emotional. A polysemous concept of the superego function as a
counteraction to chaos is examined. (English, German & Spanish
abstracts) (PsycINFO Database Copyright 1992 American Psychological
Assn, all rights reserved).
6. (PsycINFO result)
Sabelli, Hector C.; Carlson-Sabelli, Linnea.
Process theory as a framework for comprehensive psychodynamic
formulations.
Genetic, Social, & General Psychology Monographs, 1991 Feb, v117
(n1):5-27.
Abstract: Proposes a method for developing integrative psychiatric
formulations based on process theory, as contrasted to eclectic
attempts to combine separate, often disparate, theories. Congruent
with chaos theory and thermodynamics, process theory proposes that
normal development and psychopathology are creative processes open
to chance, choice, and meaningful coincidences and governed by
harmonious and conflictual interactions between opposites. The
method is illustrated by discussing a case of a 52-yr-old man,
previously described by S. Perry et al (see PA, Vol 75:8222) from 3
psychoanalytic perspectives. The case is interpreted to result from
a possible neuroamine depletion, poor family life, social defeats,
and habitual conflictual/depressive patterns of interaction.
(PsycINFO Database Copyright 1991 American Psychological Assn, all
rights reserved).
7. (PsycINFO result)
CONFERENCE PAPER
Duparc, Francois.
Les pieges de la complexite. (The pitfalls of complexity.) 50th
Congress of Francophone Psychoanalysts of the Romance Countries
(1990, Madrid, Spain).
Revue Francaise de Psychanalyse, 1990 Nov-Dec, v54 (n6):1623-1624.
Language: French.
Abstract: Discusses pitfalls of complexity, or pseudocomplexity, hiding
a theoretical poverty, to which psychoanalysts are exposed when
extrapolating scientific paradigms of contemporary science for use
as metaphors in psychoanalytic contexts. Perhaps psychoanalysis
gave the natural sciences the richness of some of its theories that
have become embodied in the common cultural field (e.g., the
complexity of the unconscious, the paradoxes of time and lived
history, the influence of the observer on the observed phenomena).
The apparent complexity of fractal structures and the theory of
chaos are not always suitable metaphors for psychic processes of
humans, who are neither snowflakes nor fractals. The fractal
metaphor can apply equally to normality and to psychopathology.
(PsycINFO Database Copyright 1991 American Psychological Assn, all
rights reserved).
8. (PsycINFO result)
CONFERENCE PAPER
Grotstein, James S.
Nothingness, meaninglessness, chaos, and the "black hole": I. The
importance of nothingness, meaninglessness, and chaos in
psychoanalysis. Harry Stack Sullivan Award Lecture on the...
Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 1990 Apr, v26 (n2):257-290.
Abstract: The psychoanalytic concept of psychopathology has been written
in terms of power (e.g., of drives or of the environment). In
contrast, the author stresses the power of powerlessness as it
reflects the inability to achieve meaning and meaningfulness in
one's self and object world to withstand the entropic pull (death
instinct) toward nothingness and meaninglessness (and ultimately
toward chaos/randomness, the traumatic state of the "black hole").
The nature of chaos and its relationship to random, turbulent,
hyperirritable states are discussed. Chaos theory seems to suggest
a universal mathematical theory that connects emotional phenomena
to a unified field theory that embraces far more than the
emotional. (PsycINFO Database Copyright 1990 American Psychological
Assn, all rights reserved).
--
John M. Price, PhD jmp...@calweb.com
Life: Chemistry, but with feeling! | PGP Key on request or by finger!
Email responses to my Usenet articles will be posted at my discretion.
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