Nonlinear Dynamic Systems Theory A Useful Source of Metaphors For The Clinical Treatment Setting.

This download is copyright by PEP and the original publisher.
It is made available for the personal use only of the subscriber: guimevi.
Reproduction and/or distribution are strictly prohibited without written consent and violate applicable laws. All rights reserved.
Nonlinear dynamic systems theory: a useful source of metaphors for the psychoanalytic
treatment setting
Claudia Lament
cmlament@msn.com
Institute for Psychoanalytic Education
- An Affiliate of NYULangone Medical Center
31 Washington Square West,
PHA New York
New York 10011
United States
Abstract
Nonlinear dynamic systems theory has provided the contemporary psychoanalyst with
inspiring metaphors with which to contemplate developmental theory and how we
understand the nature of health and pathogenesis as demonstrated by a host of researchers
and thinkers in the field. From the vantage point of this model, the mind is parsed through
a perspective that envisages a series of complex, heterogeneous systems in continuous
mutually interactive flow, and always influenced by the environmental surround. Mental
non-conscious systems that arise in development, such as symbolization, cognition, or
attachment undergo many transformationsoften idiosyncratic, novel, and
unpredictableon nonlinear pathways. Slips and glitches on these pathways are more
frequent than not, and may contribute to psychological disturbance. The purpose of this
paper is to demonstrate how the dynamic systems paradigm opens up fresh possibilities
for conceptualizing ways to re-think our therapeutic activities in a way that may be
intuitive for some clinicians, but not yet formally formulated and theorized about. I will
show how the application of the relevant principles of this model to an adult patient helps
to delineate treatment issues that can be brought into a broad tent, as regards clinical
theory.
1
This download is copyright by PEP and the original publisher. It is made available for the personal use only of the subscriber: guimevi.
Introduction
In a compelling paper that reads like a call to action, Govrin ( 2006) asserts the
importance of bringing new bodies of knowledge to the psychoanalytic canon for a
number of reasons, among them: to bring new metaphors and vocabularies to
psychoanalytic knowledge which will enliven our field; to discover and solve clinical
problems that may not have been identified as such; and lastly, to mirror cultural
changes unrecognized by the old schools, thus transforming psychoanalysis into an
updated and relevant body of knowledge (p. 527). To his point, it is true that even our
founding father mandated that our field integrate new findings, derived from neighboring
disciplines, into the psychoanalytic clinical setting (Freud, 1905).
Developmental theory is ranked second only to clinical experience in what shapes
psychoanalytic theory-making and its practice in the consulting room (Galatzer-Levy,
2004). Whether avowed or not, the psychoanalysts preferred developmental theory is
always hovering in the wings of her practice and institute teaching. However, as Gilmore
pointed out (2008), many of the assumptions that saturate the current psychoanalytic
developmental literature are erroneous or dated.
In this paper, I will discuss how the application of relevant principles of nonlinear
dynamic systems theory can provide needed guardrails against falling into mistaken or
outmoded assumptions; and more broadly, how these principles may invigorate our field,
especially in the way we identify clinical problems in the treatment setting and formulate
strategies to address them. I view these clinical matters as ones that are ubiquitous in
2
human nature, and can be usefully applied in individuals that span the spectrum from
those who are healthier to those who are more disturbed.
Modern conflict theory and other contemporary theories in the psychoanalytic
canon tend to focus on a one-system approach, wherein the dynamic unconscious
inclusive of object relations, wishes, fantasies, defenses, motives, self structures, and so
forth-- is the principal system under investigation in both one-person and two-person
models. (One notable exception are the treatment models which target patients with
learning disability disorders, such as Rothstein, 1998; Rothstein and Glenn, 1999;
Bernstein, 2015 and similar neurologically driven defects and anomalies.) There are also
analysts and researchers in Britain, such as Fonagy, Gergely, Jurist, & Target, M. (2002)
and in Latin America and Europe, such as Ferro, (2002; 2003), da Rocha Barros & da
Rocha Barros (2011) and Civitarese (2008) who have brought attention to a single system
outside of the dynamic unconscious: mentalization, in the case of the investigators in
Britain and symbolization or figurability in the case of the Latin Americans and the
Europeans. Both of these perspectives highlight the importance of object relations as a
point of reference for the development of mentalization (Allison and Fonagy, 2016) and
symbolic processing, as exemplified in the recent explosion of interest in Bions (1962)
highlighting the function of the mothers reveries. What I am bringing forward is a
multi-foci perspective that is inclusive of a host of systems, and that does not necessarily
foreground object relations as the primary point of reference for the development of these
capacities, as anomalies and deficits may also arise from sources located within the
individual, whether dispositional, constitutional or neuro-psychological. Why is this
important for our patients?
3
Borrowing from nonlinear dynamic system theorys model, all systems of mental life
are at play for the patient, as the dynamic unconscious and its domainunconscious
fantasy, memories, defences, desires, object relations-- will be influenced by, and in turn,
will influence those adjacent mental systems that may show fragilities, or delayed, or
anomalous growth. Detractors may argue that what I am saying is old hat: the
contemporary psychoanalyst has come a long way in grasping the complexity of mental
life, over-determined meanings, and the importance of considering the status of those
systems that abut the dynamic unconscious: in a word, theoretical sophistication has
come a long way. Yet, as Sroufe (1997) points out, despite the fact that the medical
model--a view of mental disorder in which a singular, endogenous pathogen is
responsible for mental disturbance--is pass, the residua of its influence continues to
exert a subtle, and often hidden, dominant influence (p. 251). Even if the complexity of
understanding health and disturbance is acknowledged, appreciating these matters is
different from theorizing about them; the attempt I make here is to assist in creating an
integration of what we know intuitively with how we theorize more formally. Instead
of the scatter-shot and fragmented schools of thought that elevate one system or another,
such as mentalizing, or symbolizing for example, we can bring them together using
non-linear dynamic systems theory as a guide. Considering this approach does not upend
our fields traditional model of conflict-theory; rather, it provides a developmental
paradigm of the process of growth and how it impacts the adult mind.
Secondly, these mental systems that abut the dynamic unconscious arise in childhood
and adolescence in ways that follow a nonlinear path of development, although the
anticipated outcome follows a predictable end point, from an evolutionary point of view.
4
Nonlinear dynamic systems theory provides stimulating analogues for the psychoanalyst
to ponder how these nonlinear mental systems function and may go awry.
By way of introduction, I first will describe pertinent principles of nonlinear dynamic
systems theory that highlight a multi-systems approach to mental lifea model that has
had wide applications in biology, neuroscience, mathematics, psychiatry and economics,
among others (Mayes 2001; Galatzer-Levy 2009). Secondly, I will identify several of the
widely held misconceptions about the developmental process and how they skew the way
we conceptualize disturbance. Lastly, I will show how the application of nonlinear
dynamic systems principles with an adult patient helps to identify and differentiate
features that contribute to our patients disturbances, and to keep them in our sights.
Basic tenets of Nonlinear Dynamic Systems Theory that are relevant to psychoanalytic
clinical theory
There has been a paradigm shift across a diverse spectrum of disciplines spurred by
the influence of nonlinear dynamic systems theory. Even within psychoanalytic thought,
researchers and theorists such as Abrams & Solnit (1998), Abrams (2001; 2007), Mayes
(2001), Sander (2002), Galatzer-Levy (1995, 2004, 2014), Harrison (2014), Knight (2011,
2014), Tyson (2002) and others, have brought forward ways of considering how
nonlinear dynamic systems theory has provided our field with a new set of metaphors that
have already been usefully applied toward helping us think about the developmental
passage.
Developmental science, too, has felt the impact of nonlinear dynamic systems theory,
as a number of thinkers are approaching growth from the perspective of dynamic,
variable, self-organizing and dissipative nonlinear systems. Research in cognitive and
5
action development, socio-emotional development, and gender development in middle
childhood have demonstrated principles of nonlinear dynamic systems. The selectionist
theory of Edelman (1987) whose work is inclusive of neuro-embryology, Gibsons work
in ecological psychology (1988), and Vygotskys interpretation of culture through
language and thought (1978; 1986) have also shown how nonlinear dynamic principles
underwrite an account of development through the use of time scaling that explains how
attention to process on the local level permits a way of understanding global and
evolutionary outcomes. Such efforts keep our field aligned with the direction the
developmental sciences are moving toward in contemporary thinking and research.
Using the language of this model, the mind may be pictured as analogous to an open,
complex system, continuously influenced by environmental forces, and comprised of
heterogeneous parts that are in free communication with one another. Although this is a
system that shows periods of stability, it is one that shows far from thermodynamic
equilibrium (Thelen and Smith, 1994, (p.53) for the very fact that it is continuously fluid:
as it is always affected by outside forces, it is therefore subject to variability and change.
When change occurs in the outside forces that impact the system, or if constituents within
the human system are altered (for instance, due to physiological growth or hormonal
production), a crisis point, develops that puts into motion a transformation. New
assemblages occur and multiply until they take over and govern the patterns that
comprise the system (Thelen and Smith, 1994; Thelen 2005). In other words, the
changing system demonstrates points of instability and incoherence, where the free-
flowing energy can serve as a focus for attracting novel elements. This way of thinking
about changes in development are usefully applied in our traditional psychoanalytic
6
model of development when we speak of new levels of cognitive and psychological
organizations as children move through their hierarchies of growth. For example, when
the oedipal organization morphs into middle childhood, one witnesses the in-transit
position of instability and transformation toward a new platform of growth that
encompasses all mental systems. (This does not preclude the possibility that
transformational change may happen along a spectrum of speed: exceedingly slow, more
moderately gradual to sudden and swift. Some children are observed to display a robust
or lackluster quality in this regard, as well (Neubauer, 2003). Change may also occur at
such a rate that it may be overwhelming. When this happens, the individual can be
subject to symptoms or signs of disturbance that either disappear, once the system re-
stabilizes, or ossify for a variety of reasons, and may result in fixed features of character.)
According to the nonlinear model, a system begins to organize itself according to
several modes of behavior. Individual elements in the system do not dominate the events
that occur. Instead, it is the band of elements together as a collective force that is
responsible for the patterns that emerge, and will determine the degrees of freedom that
each element utilizes. In this way, the system self-organizes according to these
behavioral patterns. Their formations, and their expression of repetitive, and relatively
settled behaviors provide a deceptive cast of rule-based appearances, which is
anything but the case. What were separate constituents now co-operate and connect in
ways that could not have been forecasta different vantage point from seeing their
configurations as having been driven by innate givens, for instance. These configurations,
then, are softly assembled from the interactions of their component elements (which are
by themselves subject to change due to growth), as they are always in open energy
7
exchange with the external surround, which create the conditions for variability. Thus,
shifts in the components or in the context may influence the patterns that emerge and will
continue to unfold in the future (Thelen and Smith, 1994; Thelen 2005). This does not
obviate the possibilitywhich we observe in many of our patientsthat psychic
structures emerging from these configurations may become rigidified and resistant to
further transformations for a number of reasons, be it trauma, or constitutionally based
variants, or toxic environmental forces. Neubauer (2003) referred to such an occurrence
as a failure of transformation, possibly paving the way toward troubling symptomatology
over time.
Notions of what are normal and expectable paths toward change and growth are not
appropriate in this model, as individual variations are the order of the day. (This does not
mean that there are no expectable and anticipated outcomes by the close of development,
such as the capacity to love in the face of disappointment; the ability to delay
gratification; to move beyond belief systems that typify the immaturities of cognitive
schemata of childhood, and so forth.) The term, butterfly effect, is an important feature
of these variations. Newtonians would take the view that small changes in natural
systems produces equally small effects. But quantum theorists overturned this
assumption in their discovery that randomness and chance are elemental features in
nature, and can produce unanticipated fluctuations and behavior. For example, Lorenz
(1963) demonstrated that small changes in open systemswhen the system interacts in
some new way within itself or with the environment or both--may produce surprisingly
massive effects. This observation has become known as the butterfly effect, or
sensitive dependence on initial conditions and can be observed in open, dynamic
8
systems (Thelen and Smith 1994; Chamberlain and Butz 1998). Its application in
psychoanalytic theory can be found in the wide variations that are seen in responses to
trauma, or to slight changes within physiological growth or environmental change. Some
individuals cope swiftly and adaptively to horrendous experiences, while others are
capsized by inconsequential events, or even, by the expected progression of hierarchical
changes in the developmental passage.
Three Developmental Fallacies: the Normative, the Genetic and the Causal
The developmental process consists of the biologically-fueled program that sets in
motion the progressive, epigenetic hierarchy of psychological organizations. The
interplay between this innate program; the facilitating environmental surround that
releases the programs potential; and dispositional and maturational systems, such as
cognition, action, symbolic functioning, mentalization, affect regulation, patterns of
attachment, and others create emergent organizations at specific nodal points, as defined
in Auchincloss and Samberg (2012). What occurs in early childhood organizations do
not necessarily provide accurate forecasts about what happens in middle childhood;
likewise, the latter organization is not reducible to what occurred in the early years of
growth. A new organization is a fresh iteration, testimony to the creation of the childs
arrival at an unprecedented place that culminates in novel ways of experiencing the world.
These appear as chaotic-appearing bursts of sudden changes that are best described as
quantum leaps. As I mentioned above, there are children who do not experience such
transformations (for clinical discussions of several examples, see Abrams, 1990; Olesker
2003) for a variety of reasons. When the failure of such quantum leaps do not occur, we
will observe in our adult patients the persistence of immature forms, assumptions and
9
ways of thinking. The clinical case of Raymond that I will present later in this paper will
illuminate some of these.
This pull forward is unique to the developmental trajectory and ends at the close of
emerging adulthood (Arnett, 2015). By its very nature, the developmental journey is
subject to wide variations and prolonged periods of disequilibria. The continuous
interaction of biology and environment results in a persistence of instability as regards
the creation of new structures and functions, a property that is anticipated, if not
desirable (Mayes 2001; Knight, 2011).
What I wish to stress is the transformational feature that re-organizes all mental
systems and brings them to a higher level of sophistication. This is inclusive of the
system of the dynamic unconscious, as well as the mutual interactivity of non-conscious
systems such as, cognition, action, symbolic functioning, mentalization, affect regulation,
and patterns of attachment that interact with and influence the dynamic unconscious. It
is this interactive feature among multiple systems that has tended to be underplayed in its
role in how health and disturbance in adulthood has been understood.
Different dimensions of timemoment to moment vs. years or generations-- allow for
different perspectives. The linear picture of predictability lies on a timescale that reflects
broad swaths of time-- years, decades, or generations. By contrast, nonlinear dynamic
systems theory relies upon different timescales; they reflect moment-to-moment, day-to-
day, week-to-week, tracking. This smaller order of magnitude in mapping time shows
that these systems noted above do not follow a straight line of growth, despite the fact
that eventually, in most instances, children will end up at the same place: with an ability
for abstract thinking, for instance; or with a capacity to understand that feelings about
10
oneself do not equal objective truths about oneself. But it is the journey to getting there
that differs from one child to the next.
Anna Freuds (1965; Edgcumbe 2000) most revolutionary contributions to our field--
her careful explication of the developmental lines-- was an early reflection of some of
the principles of nonlinear dynamic systems theory, though it is unlikely that Anna Freud
would have been unaware of its emergence in allied fields. Her lines demonstrated the
erratic, novel, disharmonious and even crab-like movements of a childs sojourn through
her first twenty years of life and also tapped into the notion of the interactivity of multiple
systems. Here, Anna Freud effectively subverted the normative fallacy. (The normative
fallacy refers to the mistaken belief that certain developmental trajectories are normal
while others are pathological (Coates 1997; Auchincloss and Vaughan 2001). For
instance, a child may show rapid oscillations when experimenting with gender roles,
while her peers swings are more regularly paced; she may show empathic connections
that far outstrip others her age, while her symbolic capacities are even with her
classmates. That childs affect regulation may show unpredictable displays of discomfort,
as though she is always experiencing the pea beneath that endless pile of mattresses. But
with that feature in tow, how is it that her ability to self-reflect is exceptionally adroit?
What Anna Freud saw was that plasticity, fluidity, adaptability and experimentation in
the day-to-day were signs of healthy growth. In fact, what might be normal--- a
childs predictable sameness in behavior, although hewing closely to average
expectable norms in those linear-based steps-- could well signify pathology.
Ahead of her time in 1965, Anna Freud was keenly aware of the interplay of multiple
systemsaffect regulation, symbolic forms, the hierarchies of cognitive growth,
11
capacities for empathic attune-ness to ones own mind and those of others (in
contemporary parlance, mentalization (Fonagy and Target, 2002), structural qualities in
mental representations that reflect robust or porous boundaries-- beyond the purview of
the dynamic unconscious alone that are perpetually in disequilibrium and are major
players in the form that development takes. There is no normative and predictable step-
by-step course up that ladder of growth, although the final outcome is predictable. She
observed that even a subtle shift in one system, affect regulation, for example, could
produce a massive change in another. In nonlinear dynamic systems terms, a small
change in one system could trigger a cascade of changes in one or many adjacent
systems. Thus, a highly complex pattern of development may unfold that reflect both a
universal order and individualized unpredictability with an individualized response that
may or may not be able to react to unusual circumstances in biology or environment.
Regardless of how these patterns grew the more mature forms of growththat universal
order--would have occurred by adulthood, unless there have been serious obstacles that
have impeded their unfolding.
A second mistaken notion that persists today among many clinicians is that
development gone awry at certain periods of growth explains the adults pattern of
dysfunction as it appears in internalized object relations, the unconscious fantasies that
govern her life decisions, and the underlying motives that propel her toward action
(Galatzer-Levy, 2004; Gilmore, 2008). Theories of pathology were created that leaned
heavily upon the linear dimension of development. These purported a method of cross-
hatching between certain epochs in childhood and specific psychopathology in
adulthood. Virtual through-lines were drawn, wherein the former produced the latter:
12
e.g., borderline phenomena, or difficulties in separation, or weaknesses in symbolizing
psychological experience (Ferro 2002; 2003; de Rocha Barros & de Rocha Barros 2007)
were seen as the result of unresolved issues from the preoedipal period. (Often, a
neglectful or aberrant parent was cited as the central agent of blame). Despite the fact that
analytic thinkers have debunked the oversimplifications in these suggested causal
networks commonly referred to as the genetic fallacy (Hendrick 1942; Hartmann 1945;
Lampl de Groot 1939; Inderbitzin and Levy, 2000), they continue to be casually and
openly sprinkled over our clinical conversations in national and international forums as if
they are widely held maxims. Regrettably, too infrequently are such notions actively
challenged, but instead are taken as acceptable methods of understanding pathology.
Sroufe (1997) stresses the problems in this mode of thinking, by taking attachment
patterns observed in infancy as an example:
Nor is anxious attachment viewed as causal of later disturbance in a simple sense. After
all, as is true of most singular risk factors, the majority of individuals showing early
anxious attachment do not show serious disturbance later. Whether disturbance results
depends on the successive combination of liabilities and supports that maintain the
individual on a pathway to pathology or bring them back toward positive adaptation (p.
263).
Closely related to the genetic fallacy is the privileging of one particular feature of
development as the predominant source or cause of pathology. Developmental theories
that accompany certain psychoanalytic paradigms tend to revolve around specific features
of development that have been plucked out of the wide swath of interweaving systems
that constitute the childs mind, and then elevated, as though other features or systems
play lesser roles in the patients disturbance. Essentially, the part has been substituted for
the whole. Sroufes remarks (1997) are especially relevant here, when he states that:
13
Claims for the importance of a broad causal net, and for an emphasis on process, may be
the mode, but in reality priority is often still given to the search for particular endogenous
pathogens of a disorder (p. 253).
While Bions (1959; 1962) work-- which accented the mothers capacity to reverie
her child and promote symbolic processing-- has been an important contribution to
understanding a caretakers influence in a childs developing capacity at a particular time
in early childhood, the whole of developmentand the whole of a patients disturbance--
cannot be reduced to that matter alone. Yet, one sees this trend occurring in how patients
are presented in our contemporary literature. (For a detailed commentary on one such
clinical example, see Lament 2015). One wishes for a more nuanced and complex grasp
of the numerous variables that interweave during the developmental passage, as this point
of view guides the clinician to attend to the multi-causal and non-deterministic nature of
health and disturbance that is the signature feature of the developmental orientation
(Auchincloss and Samberg 2012). For example, the adults weakness in symbolization is
not necessarily the result of a caretakers neglect in her role as assisting the child toward
symbolizing: children may also have anomalies in non-conscious mental systems, such as
in their basic apparatus that serves symbolization, or display constitutional fragilities (for
example, children on the spectrum, or more broadly speaking, atypical children), or
structural fragilities or rigidities in self and other boundaries that are resistant to sensitive
environmental input. Such innate vulnerabilities may play, in certain instances, a more
significant part in considering the elaborate and intricate portrait of the adults intra-
psychic world. And too, all of these agents, to a greater or lesser degree, may play a role
in such a problem. It is often difficult, if not impossible, to assert with certainty which
14
contributant and how much of it make for the phenomena we observe in our patients.
But what is important is that the clinician can be guided about these matters in a way that
takes a broad scope of mental life into consideration.
Peter Neubauer (2003), one of our leading developmental thinkers in child analysis,
warned about such fallacies, too:
We find references in case reports about the childs age-related conflicts, but what also
is required is the focus on the developmental transformation of pathology or the various
points of fixation, or an assessment of the normal discontinuities along with the
discontinuities, of the strength or weakness of the developmental pull forward, and so on.
An additional glaring contemporary clinical deficiency is the tendency to assign all
pathology to the earliest mother/child dyad, attributing to it the inevitable core of lasting
malfunction. This might be called the continuity fallacy. Uncorrectable early
pathology is well known, but this cannot be so readily generalized while ignoring so
many of the complexities or variations in ego development, transformation, and the effect
of discontinuities on development (p. 166).
Clinical Presentation: Raymond
In a few instances, I refer to Piagets (1932; 1967) general organizational categories
when I speak of Raymonds cognitive anomalies. I do this in the knowledge that the
specific detailing of Piagets hierarchical schema has been rightfully under fire (Thelen
and Smith, 1994; Carey, 2009). With this qualification in mind, I rely on his broad
conceptualizations from the perspective of the view from above, as Piagets outline
provides a general framework, albeit imperfect, from which to reflect upon Raymonds
cognitive modes of thinking from childhood that ebbed and flowed in his adult mind.
In this section, I will describe Raymonds presenting features, the multi-faceted
nature of his disturbance, and how change occurred within the paradigm of a dynamic
systems approach. To protect my patients confidentiality, I will report only upon
specific aspects of his life and history that are relevant to the clinical material that follows.
15
Raymond, an eastern European emigre in his early thirties, was referred for treatment
for longstanding difficulties in his romantic relationships. He clung to women who
tended to use him as a narcissistic self-object to bolster their self-esteem or to enliven
their sense of self. Yet, as I came to know him, I found that the same could be said of
him: his own sense of identity seemed fractured and often child-like in quality. He was
charming, personable and articulate, but a deeper impression of loneliness imbued his
chatter about his work and dating life. His descriptions of his parents were that they were
overly involved with themselves, and insensitive to his needs and desires as a person in
his own right, separate from them. At times, one or other of his parents would leave on
business trips or to tend to an ill grandparent who lived abroad, for extended periods of
time. In his growing up years, he complied with the identity they created of him, found
himself doing things on their terms, but split off his own rage, profound disappointment
and guilt about these matters. As Raymond and I reflected upon his childhood and
adolescent past, we could see that he used action as a way of managing these reactions
that he didnt experience consciously. When some build up of tension became too
stronghe couldnt identify the feeling beneath the anxietyhe might not go to school if
he was frightened of a test, or use exercise as a means of ridding himself of free- floating
anxiety. Until he came to understand the complex dynamics that operated between him
and his parents, he continued his pattern of being drawn to women that fit the bill of his
parents.
At times, one or other of his parents would leave on business trips or to tend to an ill
grandparent who lived abroad, for extended periods of time, which probably helped to set
the stage for Raymonds feelings of being dropped or left. From an early age and
16
persisting throughout his childhood and adolescence, Raymonds paternal aunt Cassie
resided with the family on and off, due to financial hardships. She was an important and
loving figure in his life, as unlike his parents, she was able to take him in as an individual.
But in the analysis, it became clear to Raymond and me that despite her positive
characteristics, she often reverted to overly simplistic views of how the world worked,
which made an impact on his own thinking, even as he moved forward as an adult. With
respect to his cognitive operations, there was a fluidity of different cognitive schemata
that permeated his perceptions, akin to A. Freuds notions of disharmonies that can grow
within systems (1965). He frequently reverted to assumptions and theories about the
world that typified dichotomous thinking: decisions obtained an absolutist axis of
morality, i.e., right or wrong, often on condition of their reception by his parents or
parent substitutes. The notion of assessing the dimensionality of solutions to life
dilemmas and considering their complexity and relativity was not possible for him in the
early days of his analysis; he revealed an overall naivet in his perceptual assemblages of
the world. He lacked a steady, evaluative internal function, independent of others views.
What appeared to further compromise him was a conjecture that he and I considered
together that he also was highly suggestible to others opinions and provided an
additional means of understanding his vulnerability to his aunts limited constructions.
He noted that he felt he melted into others at times, particularly family members,
leading him to doubt where he ended and the other began. An apparent structural
permeability of self and other boundaries seemed to have been operating. His black and
white perception of the world, or, in Piagets lexicon, a concrete operational way of
thinking, reigned (Piaget, 1932; 1967). Yet, he was also capable of thinking like an adult,
17
and could handle sophisticated abstractions and engage in impressive problem-solving
strategies at work.
With respect to symbolization processing, Raymond elevated the immediate and the
sensory in his surround. He defined his identity by way of the concrete, frequently
privileging bodily attributes, such as his physique and clothing. How things looked on
the outside, the actuality of things within his possession, were all. The world of the mind
was back-lit, lacking status as the primary driver of his motivations and preoccupations.
The literal value of things trumped metaphorical meaning-making.
In the system of affect regulation, Raymond often felt that his feelings were out of
control. In particular, he verged on the brink of panic states when he was not in full
command of his future activities. Ensuring that matters were unequivocally fixed, far
beyond what most people would consider a timely fashion, was crucial in quelling
overwhelming anxiety. A persistent state of emotional pain and angst always
accompanied him.
Raymonds patterns of language and communication did not always consider the
listeners perspective and need for logical consistency. For instance, in his analytic
sessions, he regularly omitted pronouns or the subject names of people in his world, as if
the analyst already knew the identities of the individuals to whom he was referring. His
capacity for mentalizing, identifying his own mind and recognizing the difference
between his and others perceptions, thoughts and feelings, was stunted. He tended to
project his own self-loathing onto others and fear rejection when there was no evidence
for it, creating narratives that repeated again and again his own perceptions (and
seemingly reality-based occurrences) of being rejected.
18
Now, if I shift vantage points and observe Raymond from the perspective of the
dynamic unconscious, different sets of constituents emerge: Raymonds communications
were also rife with dynamic meaning. In other words, these non-conscious systems
impacted his unconscious fantasy life, defenses, object relations, and underlying motives.
His relationships to significant others were deeply inflected by the story that everyone
knew better than he; self-narratives pivoted on his position as an incompetent, hapless
and helpless person with unreliable moral direction. By contrast, his creation of others
was marked by glowering figures of gargantuan proportion whom he allowed to
adjudicate over his life choices and happiness. The circumstance of being alone
without the company of another personwas a frightening prospect and often,
intolerable for him to bear. Feelings of rage and guilt and fears of abandonment
accompanied these states of mindthese were reinforced by the periodic parental
absences-- but as I mentioned above, they were un-owned and split off from awareness.
These configurations-- their staying power I conjecture, were how his psychological
system self-ordered and found its relative equilibrium.
The targeting of multiple systems in therapeutic action
What if we visualize the canvas upon which we work with our patients as reflecting a
constellation of fluid, interdependent systems: the dynamic unconscious, non-conscious
systems, and, the analysts interventions as another system? I believe we can. One way
of seeing what occurs is a dynamic synergy that impacts all systems at once with an
effect that is unpredictable. One system that is targeted in the analysts intervention will
touch other systems; the impact is multi-directional. A process akin to the butterfly effect
is set in motion as one can observe how systems converge in novel ways. The
19
disequilibrium that occurs from such a disruption is necessary for change to occur that is
nonlinear, that does not occur in a straight line. As these systems bump up against
each other time and again through the analysts interventions, the individual can identify
them and associate to the connections with further systems and their attendant meanings.
This produces a rich, layered, and differentiated network that promotes the possibility of
seeing from a new promontory. On a lower register you may hear, in the hour with
Raymond that follows, the multiplicity of systems from various points of childhood that
are playing in keys that are discordantthey arise from a range of stages (from a linear
dimension of development) but are also remnants of process (the nonlinear dimension
of development) from the long ago past that were not so perfectly transformed into their
adult forms of thinking and reasoning, or mentalizing ones own mind and the mind of
others, or regulating intense feeling, or processing the concrete into symbols. Listening
to this plurality of voices assures that the clinician keeps her attuned to the multiplicity
of variants that re-assemble and re-organize over the many years of the developmental
process. The hour below occurred in the fifth year of Raymonds analysis; my
commentary on our exchanges will follow. (A caveat: this analytic material is presented
to illustrate the topic at hand, and does not do justice to the co-constructed, inter-
subjective field that exists between myself and Raymond. The examination of this
perspective would require a separate study.)
Listen in:
Raymond says, Every decision I make in my life feels do or die; even a coffee date with
a friend has to be set in stone or I am terrified that itll never happenI cant trust that I
20
can rely on peoples words. And if I make a mistake, its a disaster, and I freak outI go
into panic mode! It all feels like my mistake cant be righted: its permanent.
I intervene, It reminds me of how it might have felt for you when you really were a child
and words were cheap; the currency that meant something was what people did, how they
actedand what you could feel and sense about them.
Raymond replies, It was like Id never see them again. And this type of thinking was so
much like Aunt Cassie. It was all so black and whitethere was never room for
anything more nuanced. If someone was mad, shed turn against the person and not
speak to him for what seemed like forever. It all seemed like forever to me. And I see
that I think that way now, even though another part of me knows its not true. But that
panic I feelwhen I get into that state of extreme fear, Ill do anything to get out of it
and thats when I can be impulsive. I just want to capture somebody, to get them, to
possess them, to make sure Im not going to be all alone. Its that thing I also do when I
feel like good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad peoplethis
child part of me believes its really true! I see it and its been so hard to get out of it.
I say, That little boy part that took it in as truth feeds the panic feelings.
He interjects, I have to get away from that no matter whatbecause in that way of
thinkingI am bad, I am never going to have good things in lifeI will only have
21
disaster after disaster. Its why I cant deal with mistakesits like proof that Im a bad
person.
After a pause, Raymond says, This is hard to talk about, but I do feel afraid that youll
see me as bad too. Like if I need you too much, if I need to schedule an extra
appointment because I get scared or frightened, and I can see that I use you like a mom
like a good mombut then deep down Im afraid youre just fed up with me and you
want to drop me. Like, can I truly rely on you, trust youthat you want to listen to me?
I respond, I understand your fears and worries about what is actually going on inside of
me that you cant know or see. You can only trust in your experience of how I have been
with you over our years of working together that I want to listen, that Im not dropping
you. But its so hard to do as you see yourself as so unworthyas just plain bad.
It is so moving that you say that he says. I could see tears welling up in his eyes. I
always felt that everybody wanted to get rid of me when I wanted too much. And I felt
that if things looked good on the outside, it should make me happy and feel good. Like if
I had expensive toys, or got to go on big trips, or that we owned a glossy housethat
meant that everything was OK. Why should I be whining? Complaining? Like,
Whats wrong with you? I didnt understand until our work that having things doesnt
mean youre OK.
I say, Like that your wanting stuff was a way of wanting closeness with people.
22
He says, Where I am now, theres no grandiosity, theres no having the thing that will
make my life feel greatits an entirely different place.
After a brief pause, Raymond speaks again: I feel good, I feel like things are coming
together. But now, even as I say this, I hear a part of me say that Im going to lose
everything, Im just a loser, no one really loves me, Im just a fake. Its that thing about
bad things happen to bad people. If feel Im badthese good things cant really be
happening to me(I can hear a rising pitch of anxiety) something bad is going to
happenits just a matter of time.
I say, Young children put together different thoughts and feelings in fixed ways that
arent based in whats actually true. So, the way you feel afraid of taking on an adult
role and standing up to the little boy part, you are bad and so bad things will happen to
you.
Raymond interjects, And I think it has something to do with why Im so rigid about
making plans in advanceof pinning down time, like its some fleeting thing that has to
be caught. Like its a thing! It feels to me like in the background somewhere, Im
always afraid of being leftthat makes me completely terrified! And the thing is, if I
know I have somewhere to go or someone wholl be there with me in that plan Im
making, it gives me the feeling, even though it may not even be true, that Im cared about,
that Im really lovable. Im not a kid who isnt loved.
23
And the new, adult Raymond is starting to put all of this together in a different way, I
offer.
Yeah, he replies. But Im not all there with it. It feels kind of out-of-body. He
paused a moment. And then there are times when I really do feel like a grownup, and
its totally naturaland I feel so proud of myself. My boss relies on me for my views on
things that he values as smart and useful to him in our work. I have these two minds
going on at the same time! How can that be? Im not used to boredom or ordinary
human misery. Where I am now is theres no perfectits an entirely different place.
I pose several questions, Could it be just now that you feel scared of being separate from
those old parts of youthat you can be an adult in your own right? Its a big stretch.
And, too, that you could feel guilty for moving away in your mind from the past, from
your parents, your aunt, in your mindso you bring yourself right back to those old parts
where you can feel bad, but close to them?
The weird thing is, he says, is that I know this whole drama Im creating is making up
the same world I lived in with Cassie. This is exactly like her. I lived it with her. I
became her. You know, that thing I have that is so suggestibleI go over to the other
persons being, like I become them and I dont know who I am. I cant believe it.
Commentary
In this hour, we are witness to multiple systems that are in continuous, reciprocally
active motion. At the outset of this session, Raymond speaks of his distrust of language,
24
the ineluctable nature of promises, and unreliability of the others there-ness. Instead,
he favors the concrete-ness of setting things in stone with another, as if this provides a
predictable indicator of connectionotherwise, he panics and freaks out. Raymond
also alludes to his sense of temporality as set and fixed; in this way of thinking, the
notion of things changing over time, which the more adult side of him is aware of, eludes
him in this moment of panic. Here we observe how this cognitive style of concrete-ness
converges with his emotional dis-regulation: if its not set in stone, I panic. In my
intervention, I took up the collision of these two systems: the cognitive system -- that
privileges concrete schemata as typical of a young childs point of view (or in Piagets
lexicon, a pre-operational mind-set)and how it made him feel very frightened: this
is what it might have felt as a young child An under-fives teleological mode of
operating, where action is used to deal with states of mind, also informs my remarks.
Raymond then fleshes out this way of thinking to include significant people in his past,
in his reference to Aunt Cassies influence in this cognitive style and how it affects his
tendency to be flooded with feelings and panic. He then takes an unpredictable turn in
including a new dimension to these interacting systems in his mistaken ideas that good
things happen to good people, and bad things happen to bad people. Intellectually,
Raymond was aware that this is fallacious reasoning, but simultaneously, he saw that on a
feeling level, it was a way of thinking that he held onto as an objective truth. These
cognitive schemata, the child-like reliance on erroneous logic and the adult perspective
that grasped its falseness were operating at the same time and were in fluid contact: at
one moment either perspective might acquire prominence in his thinking, while the other
schemata receded, but always hovered in the wings.
25
My intervention that followed, That little boy part that took it in as real truth feeds
the panic feelings was aimed at highlighting how these two systems interact: the
illogical, child-like cognitive system sets off an affective storm or panic states, when he
has the thought, Good things happen to good people/bad things happen to bad people.
At this juncture, Raymond makes a dramatic addition to these convergences as he
includes me in his world of systems: I am now at the fulcrum of those whirling cognitive
schemata and their connectivity with his affective dis-regulation, when he says,
but I do feel afraid that youll see me as bad too. Like if I need you too muchthen
deep down Im afraid youre just fed up with me and you want to drop me. Like can I
truly rely on you, trust youthat you want to listen to me? Raymonds issues in
mentalization are on view here, as well as my attempt to help him with his difficulty in
thinking about me as a person with a different mind than his, as someone outside of
himself. That is, Raymond equates his internal belief system with external fact, in the
concrete psychic equivalence mode: as he feels himself to be bad, he believes that I, too,
see him that way, and am not authentically interested in listening to him or in paying
attention to how he sees the world. He now draws me inside his internal space, as I am
another system outside of his own internal systems: all of these are heightened at this
moment, i.e., his concrete psychic equivalence mode and his un-modulated fear of being
dropped (affect regulation). My words mirrors these fears and I explicitly lay out why he
must perceive my interest in him as suspect, as he can only rely on his lived experience
with me over the day in, day out, of our being together over time. Can he trust his
experience, I say, as it is so saturated by his own state of mind that indicts him as bad
and undeserving, as in, bad things happen to bad people? Raymond feels moved by the
26
links I make that both connect and differentiate his experiences of himself, of me, and
how these relate to his concrete mode of thinking. The excrutiating pain and humiliation
of the inter-connections among these systems have been pulled apart, so that Raymond
immediately feels the psychological truthfulness of my separateness from him, that I do
not see him as bad, or as unworthy. Nevertheless, I grasp the complex psychic place from
which he has created his story.
And then, in the blink of an eye, he lands upon yet another system: symbolization. He
continues his narrative by reflecting on his former self that believed his neediness
prompted others to want to get rid of himand how he felt that he should squelch his
yearnings through appreciating objects; yet, those things felt so unsatisfying. He couldnt
understand why. Self-lacerating voices followed closely behind: why behave like such a
whiny, discontented child when he had everything anyone could ever want? As we knew,
he had lived his life as one that needed to be filled up with beautiful things and would
feel torrents of rage if he couldnt afford them, endlessly obsessing until he alighted upon
a successful strategy to acquire them. He sees how much he has learned from our
workin particular, my having floated to him alternate ways of imagining what objects
might mean or represent in the way of desiring intimacy with people. He considers how
he has grown, as he now is able to foreground metaphoricity over the literalness of things.
Then, an especially fascinating and capsizing sequence of experience: as he feels the
stretch of his expanding narrative that include the bouncing back and forth from one
system to another, he realizes that he is no longer imprisoned by the old Raymond: he
feels good; things are coming together. Suddenly, with nary a hint of its arrival,
Raymonds keen self-observing skills alight upon the inverse of this point of view: But
27
now, even as I say this, I hear a part of me say that Im just a loser, no one really loves
me, Im just a fake. Its that thing about bad things happen to bad people. I intercede
here to emphasize the workings of the dynamic unconscious system, that perhaps his
turning on himself is to do with his unease about moving away from how these multiple
systems functioned for himas keeping him close to his primary objects in unconscious
fantasy. To stand alone without them means that he is a bad boy who desires
separateness. Raymond elucidates on my thoughts to include the notion of fear of
punishment through being abandoned as an unlovable child. I then introduce the idea of
experiencing the stretch of feeling different by moving away from the old identity
(which is comprised of how those systems operate for him) and feeling himself to be at a
new place, where those systems constellate differently. The discomfort in that novelty
that newness of beingmay be associated also with guilt, I say. Raymond ponders this
and offers up his engagement with yet another systemthe possibility of structural
porousness in self and other boundaries, which he and I have referred to in our previous
work. He sees that he has identified with Cassies mode of operating in the world, but he
also remarks on that part of him that is prey to suggestion, and that seeps through the
invisible boundaries that connects yet separates him from others. Thus, Raymonds
internalization of Cassies perspective is reinforced by an apparent structural weakness of
his own. (Whether that weakness predisposed him toward Cassies influence, or was a
result of their bond, is something we kept open.)
Focusing on this interplay of fluid systems with novel and idiosyncratic features, and
their transformational and reorganizing potential over the course of the developmental
passage act as balustrades to help the analyst evade those commonly held fallacies about
28
developmentthe genetic, causal, and normative. Thus, the analyst does not view her
patient merely as a product of a specific phase or phases that went awry, or the product
of specific developmental features that caused pathological forms, or that pathology is
the result of a non-normative trajectory of growth. Perhaps some exceptionally astute
clinicians feel that they work this way already, by intuition. Yet, it may be argued that
the value of re-vitalizing psychoanalytic theory-making is in the bringing forward of a
theoretical point of view from a neighboring discipline that transforms a softly intoned
tune that one hums without awareness, to the unabashed ownership of a full-throated aria.
Moving Forward
The dynamic unconscious gifts the analyst with an earthy, tangible and highly
accessible field of semiotic codes and tropes that have been the principal drawing card for
our therapeutic activities. This plummy territory of the dynamic unconscious has also
expanded its reach into the patient analyst exchange, where the narcissistic gratifications
and rewards of delving into the ways in which our own unbidden wishes and fantasies
become the very stuff of therapeutic understanding of our patients difficulties, exert an
irresistible appeal. So then, why expand our research and investigative efforts into a
dimension that accentuates a range of systems rather than a concentration on the domain
of the dynamic unconscious as expressed in our fields principle interest in object
relations, unconscious fantasy, desires and motives?
Nonlinear dynamic systems theory provides the contemporary psychoanalyst with
inspiring ways to contemplate both the linear and nonlinear dimensions of developmental
theory and how we understand the nature of health and pathogenesis. The linear
dimension of cognitive and psychological development--from an evolutionary or wide-
29
angle lens vantage point-- enables us to view the broad patterns of growth that track how
children move forward, using decades and generations as its preferred timescale. Its
complement, the nonlinear point of view, uses timescales that reflect moment-to-moment,
day-to-day, week-to-week, tracking of those systems. It offers us a close up lens on the
process of how the patterns of growth happen, which are characterized by their
opportunistic, unpredictable and fluid qualities. It also shows us new paths in the interest
of advancing technical interventions and strategies with our patients in the consulting
room. From the vantage point of this model, the mind is parsed through a perspective
that envisages a series of complex, heterogeneous systems in continuous mutually
interactive flow, and always influenced by the environmental surround.
While it is true that adults do not have at their disposal the biologically driven
maturational forward pull in the developmental process as do children and adolescents,
opportunities for innovative outcomes may occur through new integrations of divergent
components that are more than the sum of their parts. These may be found within the
patient-analyst interactive space where the examination of the wide variation of multiple
determinants can happen. For instance, it is important to help the patient see that it is not
only fantasy formations that endure and cause trouble, but that cognitive schemata, for
instance, are also operating hand in hand with unconscious theories and assumptions
about how the world works that are illogical and invalid, but still taken by the patient as
true, and out of his conscious awareness. Delineating these with the patient in the
treatment setting allows him to profit by advancing his understanding of himself and how
these schemata impact his perceptions and behaviors. The same can be said of the
30
analysts pivot to systems such as affect regulation, symbolization, mentalization,
structure formation, attachment, action, and others.
From this context a newly found curiosity may develop about how narratives are
constructed, and how they may change. A patients capacity to invent new story lines
concerning the past demonstrates a plasticity of imagining (Hauser, et. al. 2006) which
moves beyond antediluvian narratives, addled by the limited apertures of childhood. It is
within the space between unconscious fantasy and those intersecting and overlapping
non-conscious systems in which the creation of untold stories may be heard through the
open windows of the new psychological house that our patients will occupy as they grow
into their future selves.
Drawing from the deep well of metaphors that accompany nonlinear dynamic systems
theory with its emphasis on interactive multi-systems and their perpetually fluid,
unpredictable and novel qualities, we may enliven the psychoanalytic therapy partnership.
It may be defined not only in terms of the genetic viewpoint, or that of dynamic fantasies,
or toward correcting a dysfunctional parental or sibling or dispositional system. Rather,
the therapeutic collaboration can assist in a transforming dialogue that sparks, for the
patient, the potential creation of surprising histories and new narratives about her life that
better suit the person she is becoming. If the present and future possibilities can be
leveraged in our thinking as much as our attentiveness to the imagined past, our eyes may
open to a hitherto unimagined, expansive way forward from our multi-faceted
observational promontories.
31
References
Abrams, S. (1990). Discontinuity in child and adult analysis. In: Child and Adolescent
Analysis: Its Significance for Clinical Work with Adults. Workshop Series of the
American Psychoanalytic Association; Monograph Six, pp. 23-35. Edited by Scott
Dowling, MD. Madison: International Universities Press
Abrams, S., and A. Solnit (1998). Coordinating developmental and psychoanalytic

processes. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 46:85104.
Abrams, S. (2001). Unrealized possibilities: comments on Anna Freuds Normality and

Pathology in Childhood. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child 56:105--119.
Abrams, S. (2007). A forward view: celebrating the 150th birthday of the founder of
psychoanalysis. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child 62:3-17.
Allison, E. & Fonagy, P. (2016). When is truth relevant? The Psychoanalytic Quarterly
LXXXV: 275-303.
Arnett, J. (2015) Emerging adulthood: The winding road from the late teens through the
twenties. Oxford University Press, 2014.
Auchincloss, E. L., & Vaughan, S. C. (2001). Psychoanalysis and homosexuality.

Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 49:1157-1186.
Auchincloss, E.L. & Samberg, E. (2012). Psychoanalytic terms and concepts. New
Haven and London: Yale University Press.
Bernstein, S. (2015) When the analytic patient has ADHD. Journal of the American
Psychoanaytic Association, 63:2, 213-245.
Bion, W. (1959). Attacks on linking. In: Bion, W. Second Thoughts: Selected Papers
on Psychoanalysis, 93-109. London: Karnac, 1984.
Bion, W. (1962). A theory of thinking. In: Bion, W. Second Thoughts: Selected Papers
on Psychoanalysis, 110-19. London: Karnac, 1984.
Civitarese, G. (2008). Immersion Versus Interactivity and Analytic Field. Int. J. Psycho-
Anal., 89:279-298.
Carey, S. (2009). The Origins of Concepts. New York: Oxford University Press.
Chamberlain, L. & Butz, M. (1998). Clinical Chaos: A Therapists Guide to Nonlinear

Dynamics and Therapeutic Change. Philadelphia: Brunner/Mazel.
32
Coates, S. (1997). Is it time to jettison the concept of developmental lines? Gender and
Psychoanalysis 2:35-53.
da Rocha Barros, E.M., & da Rocha Barros, E.L. (2011). Reflections on the Clinical
Implications of Symbolism. Int. J. Psycho-Anal., 92:879-901.
Del Giudice, M. (2014). Middle childhood: an evolutionary-developmental synthesis.

Child Development Perspectives 8, Number 4, 193200.
Edelman, G. M. (1987). Neural Darwinism. New York: Basic Books.
Edgcumbe, R. (2000). Anna FreudA view of development, disturbance and

therapeutic techniques. Philadelphia and London: Routledge.
Ferro, A. (2003). Marcella: The Transition from Explosive Sensoriality to the Ability to
Think. Psychoanal Q., 72:183-200.
Ferro, A. (2002). Some Implications of Bion's Thought: The Waking Dream and
Narrative Derivatives. Int. J. Psycho-Anal., 83:597-607.
Fonagy, P., G. Gergeley, E. Jurist, and M. Target (2002). Affect

Regulation, Mentalization, and the Development of the Self. New York:
Other Press.
Freud, A. (1965). Normality and pathology in childhood: assessments of development.

Writings of Anna Freud, Volume 6.
Freud, S. (1905). Three essays on the theory of sexuality. Standard Edition 7:130243.
Freud, S. (1920). The psychogenesis of a case of homosexuality in a woman. Standard

Edition 18:145-172.
Galatzer-Levy, R. (1995). Psychoanalysis and dynamic systems theory: prediction and

self similarity. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 43:1085-1113.
Galatzer-Levy, R. (2004). Chaotic possibilities: toward a new model of development.

International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 85:419-442.
Galatzer-Levy, R. (2009). Finding Your Way Through Chaos, Fractals, and other Exotic
Mathematical Objects: A Guide for the Perplexed. Journal of the American
Psychoanalytic Association, 57:1227- 1249.
Galatzer-Levy, R. (2014). A non-linear lens on Berta Bornsteins Frankie. The

Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 68:177-190.
Gibson, E. J. (1988). Exploratory behavior in the development of perceiving, acting, and

the acquiring of knowledge. Annual Review of Psychology, 39, 1-41.
33
Gilmore, K. (2002). Diagnosis, dynamics, and development: considerations in the

psychoanalytic assessment of children with AD/HD. Psychoanalytic Inquiry 22:372-90.
Gilmore, K. (2008). Psychoanalytic developmental theory: a contemporary

reconsideration. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 56: 885-907.
Govrin, A., (2006). The dilemma of contemporary psychoanalysis: toward a knowing

post-postmoderism. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 54:507-535.
Harrison, A. (2014). The sandwich model: the music and dance of therapeutic action.
International Journal of Psychoanalysis 95:313-340.
Hartmann, H., Kris, E. (1945). The Genetic Approach in Psychoanalysis. Psychoanal. St.
Child, 1:11-30.
Hauser, S.T. Golden, E. & Allen, Joseph P. (2006). Narrative in the study of resilience.
Psychoanalytic Study of the Child 61: 205-227.
Hendrick, I. (1942). Instinct and the ego during infancy. Psychoanal. Q., 11:33-58.
Inderbitzen, L. B. and Levy, S. T. (2000). Regression and Psychoanalytic
Technique. Psychoanal. Q., 69(2):195-223
Knight, R. (2011). Fragmentation, fluidity, and transformation: nonlinear development

in middle childhood. The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 65: 19-47.
Knight, R. (2014). A hundred years of latency: from Freudian psychosexual theory to

dynamic systems nonlinear development in middle childhood. Journal of the American
Psychoanalytic Association, 62, 2:203-235.
Lament, C. (2013). Three contextual frameworks for siblingships: nonlinear thinking,

disposition, and phallocentrism. The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 67: 84-99.
Lampl-De Groot, J. (1939). Considerations of methodology to the psychology of small

children. Int. J. Psychoanalysis, 20:408-417.
Lorenz, E. N. (1963). Deterministic nonperiodic flow. Journal of Atmospheric Sciences,

20, 130-141.
Mayes, L. (2001). The twin poles of order and chaos. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child
56:137170.
34
Neubauer, P. (2003). Some notes on the role of development in psychoanalytic

assistance, differentiation, and regression. The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child,
58:165-171.
Olesker, W. (2003). An analysis of a developmentally delayed young girl: coordinating
analytic and developmental processes. The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 58:89-111.
Piaget, J. (1932). The Moral Development of the Child. London: Kegan Paul.
Piaget, J. (1967). Six Psychological Studies. New York: Random House.
Rothstein, A. (1998). Neuropsychological dysfunction and psychological conflict.

Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 67, 218-39.
Rothstein, A., & Glenn, J. (1999). Learning Disabilities and Psychic Conflict: A
Psychoanalytic Casebook. Madison, CT: International Universities Press.
Sander, L.W. (2002). Thinking differently: principles of process in living systems and
the specificity of being known. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 12:11-42.
Sandler, A. M. (1975). Comments on the significance of Piagets work for

psychoanalysis. Int. R. Psycho-Anal., 2:365-377.
Sugarman, A. (2006). Mentalization, Insightfulness, and Therapeutic Action: The

importance of mental organization. Int. J. Psycho-Anal., 87:965-987.
Thelen, E., & Smith, L.S. (1994). A Dynamic Systems Approach to the Development of
Cognition and Action. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Thelen, E. (2005). Dynamic systems theory and the complexity of change.

Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 15:255283.
Tyson, P. (2002). The challenges of psychoanalytic developmental theory. Journal of

the American Psychoanalytic Association, 50:19-52.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in Society: The development of higher psychological

processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1986). Thought and Language. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.
Weinstein, L. (2008). Commentary on Is there a drive to love?

Neuropsychoanalysis, 10:178-182.
Wolff, P. (1996). The irrelevance of infant observations for psychoanalysis. Journal of

the American Psychoanalytic Association 44:369392.
35
36

Nonlinear Dynamic Systems Theory A Useful Source of Metaphors For The Clinical Treatment Setting.

Încărcat de

Informații document

Titlu original

Drepturi de autor

Formate disponibile

Partajați acest document

Partajați sau inserați document

Opțiuni de partajare

Vi se pare util acest document?

Este necorespunzător acest conținut?

Drepturi de autor:

Formate disponibile

Nonlinear Dynamic Systems Theory A Useful Source of Metaphors For The Clinical Treatment Setting.

Încărcat de

Drepturi de autor:

Formate disponibile

This download is copyright by PEP and the original publisher.

Institute for Psychoanalytic Education

- An Affiliate of NYULangone Medical Center

31 Washington Square West,

PHA New York

New York 10011

importance of bringing new bodies of knowledge to the psychoanalytic canon for a

number of reasons, among them: to bring new metaphors and vocabularies to

changes unrecognized by the old schools, thus transforming psychoanalysis into an

disciplines, into the psychoanalytic clinical setting (Freud, 1905).

Developmental theory is ranked second only to clinical experience in what shapes

psychoanalytic theory-making and its practice in the consulting room (Galatzer-Levy,

2004). Whether avowed or not, the psychoanalysts preferred developmental theory is

developmental literature are erroneous or dated.

those who are healthier to those who are more disturbed.

Modern conflict theory and other contemporary theories in the psychoanalytic

canon tend to focus on a one-system approach, wherein the dynamic unconscious

outside of the dynamic unconscious: mentalization, in the case of the investigators in

Europeans. Both of these perspectives highlight the importance of object relations as a

symbolic processing, as exemplified in the recent explosion of interest in Bions (1962)

highlighting the function of the mothers reveries. What I am bringing forward is a

individual, whether dispositional, constitutional or neuro-psychological. Why is this

important for our patients?

model--a view of mental disorder in which a singular, endogenous pathogen is

understanding health and disturbance is acknowledged, appreciating these matters is

our fields traditional model of conflict-theory; rather, it provides a developmental

By way of introduction, I first will describe pertinent principles of nonlinear dynamic

had wide applications in biology, neuroscience, mathematics, psychiatry and economics,

we conceptualize disturbance. Lastly, I will show how the application of nonlinear

as a number of thinkers are approaching growth from the perspective of dynamic,

variable, self-organizing and dissipative nonlinear systems. Research in cognitive and

action development, socio-emotional development, and gender development in middle

childhood have demonstrated principles of nonlinear dynamic systems. The selectionist

theory of Edelman (1987) whose work is inclusive of neuro-embryology, Gibsons work

in ecological psychology (1988), and Vygotskys interpretation of culture through

developmental sciences are moving toward in contemporary thinking and research.

complex system, continuously influenced by environmental forces, and comprised of

as it is always affected by outside forces, it is therefore subject to variability and change.

about changes in development are usefully applied in our traditional psychoanalytic

model of development when we speak of new levels of cognitive and psychological

position of instability and transformation toward a new platform of growth that

According to the nonlinear model, a system begins to organize itself according to

settled behaviors provide a deceptive cast of rule-based appearances, which is

obviate the possibilitywhich we observe in many of our patientsthat psychic

further transformations for a number of reasons, be it trauma, or constitutionally based

variants, or toxic environmental forces. Neubauer (2003) referred to such an occurrence

as a failure of transformation, possibly paving the way toward troubling symptomatology

sensitive dependence on initial conditions and can be observed in open, dynamic

trauma, or to slight changes within physiological growth or environmental change. Some

capsized by inconsequential events, or even, by the expected progression of hierarchical

changes in the developmental passage.

The developmental process consists of the biologically-fueled program that sets in

motion the progressive, epigenetic hierarchy of psychological organizations. The

cognition, action, symbolic functioning, mentalization, affect regulation, patterns of

in Auchincloss and Samberg (2012). What occurs in early childhood organizations do

illuminate some of these.

subject to wide variations and prolonged periods of disequilibria. The continuous

interaction of biology and environment results in a persistence of instability as regards

desirable (Mayes 2001; Knight, 2011).

system of the dynamic unconscious, as well as the mutual interactivity of non-conscious

role in how health and disturbance in adulthood has been understood.

Different dimensions of timemoment to moment vs. years or generations-- allow for

broad swaths of time-- years, decades, or generations. By contrast, nonlinear dynamic