Chaos and Change in a Suicidal Family

Chaos theory is an important paradigm shift in science that has significant implications for psychological theory and psychotherapy. The concepts evolving from chaos theory can help clinicians identify patterns in family interactions that are critical if transformations are to occur. This article explores a specific case example from the perspective of chaos theory. Observing how suicidal behavior becomes part of a pattern of family interaction may offer a framework for clinicians to observe the dynamics of chaos.     

The Edge of Chaos: Enactment,Disruption, and Emergence in Group Psychotherapy

The author outlines his approach to the theory and practice of group psychotherapy. The emphasis is on therapy by the group rather than therapy in the group. The therapist's task is to help the group itself become the agent of change. The group is conceived as being composed of many multiple selves. The process of group psychotherapy unfolds through enactments that involve the whole group and the group therapist entering into the grip of repetitive and unmentalized self-states. These enactments are resolved when the group members, with the therapist's help and containment, can access alternative self-states that allow for new and unformulated experience to emerge. This dialectical movement between the rigid “familiar chaos” of enactment and the reflective and related working through is compared to the dynamic systems theory articulation of the tension between rigidity and chaos captured by Kauffman's notion that “life exists at the edge of chaos.” A group session is described that involves a painful enactment. It illustrates how the therapist allows the enactment to unfold by holding and containing intense affect and how the group members are helped to find their own meaning and new experience in interaction with each other.     

Chaos Theory,Philosophically Old,Scientifically New

In this article, the idea of chaos in relation to chaos theory will be explored in terms of its psychological meaning. Chaos theory has recently become a central area of scientific interest in psychology, and as a result it seems important to understand the deeper philosophical issues that surround the idea of chaos. Consequently, chaos will be explored in terms of its philosophical history through the ages, and some psychological speculations will be offered to explain both the disappearance and reemergence of such an important philosophical idea in modern science.     

Freud's Reich, the psychiatric establishment, and the founding of the American Psychoanalytic Association: professional styles in conflict.

Freud's vision of a unified theory of the neuroses has foundered on lack of agreed methods for settling scientific disputes in the field of psychotherapy. Clashes in professional styles and formation of self-validating sub groups have been the dominant trend, exemplified by the founding of psychoanalytic organizations.     

Women, money, and psychodynamic group psychotherapy.

Developmental concerns and sociocultural expectations may keep female patients and therapists from addressing financial issues openly in group psychotherapy. Interpersonal theory provides a different view of nurturing that may help women leaders deal better with financial discussions in group. This paper includes a review of the literature on group psychotherapy and fees; feminist literature relevant to leadership; money management in group therapy; countertransference; and case examples.     

Life,Chaos, and Transdisciplinarity: A Personal Journey

This article uses an autobiography as an object of research, to both illustrate some principles of chaos theory in analytic practice, and give those ideas a personal and social context, thereby producing a unique but explanation-rich history of chaos theory and recent intellectual history of transdisciplinarity and social research in the West. The ideas from Chaos Theory it uses and illustrates include: three-body analysis (Poincaré); fractals (Mandelbrot); fuzzy logic (Zadeh); and the butterfly effect (Lorenz).     

Religion, Ethnicity, and Attitudes Toward Psychotherapy

Many presume that White culture supports psychotherapy utilization. However, cultural analyses suggest that many aspects of White culture are antithetical to the values and practices underlying psychotherapy, which appear more congruent with Ashkenazic Jewish attitudes and values. The current research empirically tested this possibility by comparing older Jewish White people, non-Jewish Whites, and Black participants on attitudes relevant to psychotherapy. Results indicated that Jews had greater confidence in a therapist's ability to help, were more tolerant of stigma, and more open to sharing their feelings and concerns than participants in the other groups. Furthermore, initial differences between Whites and African Americans were lessened when Jewish identity was included in the analysis. Results suggest that Jewish culture is relatively accepting of psychotherapy, and that previous reports of different rates of mental health seeking attitudes and utilization by Whites and Blacks may be due, in part, to the inclusion of Jewish individuals in these samples.     

Motives,mechanisms, and emotions

Abstract

Intelligent animals are solutions to a design problem posed by: the varying requirements of individuals, the more permanent requirements of species and social groups, the constraints of the environment, and the available biological mechanisms. Analysis of this design problem, especially the implications of limited knowledge and a continuous flow of information in a rapidly changing environment, leads to a theory of how new motives are processed in an intelligent system. The need for speed leads to architectures and algorithms that are fallible in ways that explain why intelligent agents are susceptible to emotions and errors. This holds also for intelligent robots. A study of such mechanisms and processes is a step towards a computational theory of emotions, attitudes, moods, character traits, and other aspects of mind so far not studied in Artificial Intelligence. In particular, it turns out that no special emotional subsystem is required. This framework clarifies and refines ordinary concepts of mental processes, and suggests a computational approach to psychotherapy.     

God, Chaos, and the Quantum Dice

A recent noninterventionist account of divine agency has been proposed that marries the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics to the instability of chaos theory. On this account, God is able to bring about observable effects in the macroscopic world by determining the outcome of quantum events. When this determination occurs in the presence of chaos, the ability to influence large systems is multiplied. This paper argues that, although the proposal is highly intuitive, current research in dynamics shows that it is far less plausible than previously thought. Chaos coupled to quantum mechanics proves to be a shaky foundation for models of divine agency.     

The public's perception of psychotherapy and counseling: Differential views on the effectiveness of psychologists,psychiatrists, and other providers

This study examined the public's perceptions relative to the effectiveness of psychotherapy and counseling, expectations of treatment efficacy for different psychotherapy and counseling providers (i.e., clinical psychologists, counseling psychologists, counselors, general medical practitioners, marital and family therapists, psychiatrists, self-help groups, and social workers), professional characteristics, and factors that may influence treatment utilization in an adult population. The sample viewed psychotherapy or counseling as moderately effective and perceived psychotherapy/counseling to be effective for 26 to 50 percent of all cases. The perceived amount of time necessary for noticeable improvement in psychotherapy or counseling was approximately four months, and the expected necessary length of treatment was approximately eight months. Participants stated they were moderately willing to seek psychotherapy or counseling if they were to experience a mental problem, and reported discernible differences among the eight psychotherapy/counseling providers in terms of treatment efficacy. Differences were also found in the relative perception of providers' personal/professional qualities and characteristics.     

Process parallels in related groups

The theoretical basis for the repetition of themes in related groups is addressed by describing similar processes in four systems: inpatient psychiatric ward, inpatient psychotherapy group, supervisory group, and group psychotherapy division. The principles of general system theory help explain process parallels in allied groups and illuminate group process.     

The Application of Chaos Theory to the Career‐Plateaued Worker

This article uses chaos theory as a way to conceptualize the career‐plateaued worker. After discussing the literature regarding both chaos theory and career plateau, it applies some of the principles of chaos theory to career‐plateaued workers on the basis of a case study. The article concludes that chaos theory provides career practitioners a useful application for working with this type of client.     

Integrative counselling and psychotherapy: A relational approach,by Ariana Faris and Els van Ooijen

The movement towards registration of psychotherapists, especially towards statutory registration is under way across Europe. This is seen as a way of ‘protecting the public’ against abusive and/or incompetent psychotherapists. In what follows I argue that the dominant ethos of contemporary psychotherapy is based upon a metaphysics of subjectivism and that registration will reinforce this coercively through the law. My concern is that this subjectivistic notion of psychotherapy compounds the estrangement of soul (psyche) and world; that it continues, by way of rationalization and bureaucratization, the process of the ‘disenchantment of the world’. Psychology and psychotherapy are then ‘logically’ constituted out of this rupture between the psyche and nature. This closes our psychological consciousness off from a deeper ecological awareness and from a critical self-reflection on the way this rupture is maintained in psychological and psychotherapeutic theory and practice.     

Counseling chaos: Techniques for practitioners

The chaos theory of careers draws together a number of themes in current theory and research. This article applies some of these themes to career counseling. The chaos theory of careers is outlined, and a conceptual framework for understanding assessment and counseling issues that focuses on convergent and emergent qualities is presented. Three practical techniques focusing on emergent quality concepts derived from chaos theory are then detailed. It is concluded that a major ongoing challenge for career counselors is to assist clients to understand the reality and confront the challenges of living and working “on the edge of chaos.”     

Complications in group psychotherapy with AIDS patients

AIDS has a unique set of characteristics that makes group psychotherapy more complex than with other populations: (1) the threat of an early death, (2) a highly variable course of illness, and (3) stigma related to the illness and to the preexisting lifestyles of most patients. The specific ways in which the three factors seriously interfere with establishing and maintaining group cohesion are discussed, and clinical guidelines are suggested. In addition, a model for understanding and working with these and other issues in group psychotherapy, based on Erik Erikson's interpersonal theory of development, is presented. Finally, particular countertransferential difficulties are discussed in relation to the heightened emotionality common to AIDS psychotherapy groups.     

Chaos, Communications Theory, and God's Abundance

As the creator, God is the source of the abundance for immense variety manifest in creation. The reservoir for this abundance is the primordial chaos, identified as the Pandemonium Tremendum. God manages this inexhaustible “storehouse of the snow” through decisions or “willings,” giving rise to constraints that result in the ordered array of creation. Without this active and decisive vigilance, the Pandemonium Tremendum would scour and ravage the creation. Also, as an omniscient, unobtrusive, and impartial witness, God manages the primordial chaos without compromising its unfettered variety. What is the role of chaos as the Ungrund? All creatures are the consequence of acts of decision. God alone is self‐decisive and, hence, the uniquely sovereign creator. That is, God arises spontaneously through an aboriginal act of in–speaking. Otherwise, and in utter contradiction to its radically unprincipled character, the primordial chaos would provide the arche or sufficient reason for divine causation. This mythic and metaphysical account falls in the tradition of Meister Eckhart and Nicolas Berdyaev and is expressed in the rubric of communication theory.     

Chaos and Compassion

This article suggests that if the implications of chaos theory are accepted by the counseling profession, rather than rejected as it was at first by physicists, then it should make compassion, rather than control, the new desired competence. Chaos theory has turned our perceptual world upside down. Chaos and creativity become two sides of the same coin and a theme for personal reflection and self-renewal. Before chaos, Western society had no “scientific” tools to deal with disorder and unpredictability because science relied only on facts, on knowing. Reliance on faith, on believing, was left to religion. Now, when we see everything as connected to everything else in an unbroken wholeness, facts and faith and science and religion cannot be separated. Neither can order and chaos be separated. With chaos theory, knowing and believing are now seen as interconnected and both are considered authentic. Counseling should reflect this new authenticity.     

Mysteries of the Psychoanalytic Process: Reflections on Chaos,Complexity, and Emergence

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis - Psychoanalysis is inherently messy and mysterious. The mysteries of the psychoanalytic process are viewed through the lens of chaos and complexity theory....     

积极心理治疗模式的特色及启示

。积极心理治疗是以积极心理学思想为理论指导的一种心理疗法。作为心理治疗中的一个新生事物,它从人发展的可能性和能力出发,以解决冲突为核心,关注积极的人格特质,在治疗中借助讲故事的形式提供跨文化的观点。这一较符合人性特点的心理治疗模式,扩展了人们对心理治疗性质的认识,推进了心理治疗的本土化发展。     

Systematic Review of the Effects of Religion-Accommodative Psychotherapy for Depression and Anxiety

Integrating religion into psychotherapy may improve treatment for depression and anxiety. This review systematically examines clinical trials of religion-accommodative psychotherapy for depression or anxiety. Results indicate that integrating religion into psychotherapy does not lead to significantly more improvements in depression or anxiety than equivalent therapy without religious components. However, when compared with less stringent control groups, such as supportive psychotherapy, religion-accommodative therapy may be more effective, at least immediately post-treatment. Results from the 11 studies reviewed indicate that psychotherapy integrating religion is at least as effective for treating depression and anxiety as other forms of psychotherapy. Conclusions were limited by lack of power, comparable control groups, focus on anxiety, and treatment manuals.