Nonlinear Psychoanalysis: Notes from Forty Years of Chaos and Complexity Theory

281 Pages·8.604 MB·English

by  Robert M. Galatzer-Levy

Nonlinear Psychoanalysis
Nonlinear concepts from chaos theory, complexity studies, and fractal
geometry have transformed the way we think about the mind. Nonlinear
Psychoanalysis shows how nonlinear dynamics can be integrated with
psycho analytic thinking to shed new light on psychological development,
therapeutic processes, and fundamental psychoanalytic concepts.
Starting with a personal history of the author’s engagement with nonlinear
dynamics and psychoanalysis, this book describes how his approach applies
to diagnosis of psychological conditions, concepts of normal and pathologi-
cal development, gender, research methods, and finally the theory and prac-
tice of psychoanalysis and psychodynamic psychotherapy. This book is full of
new ideas about the basic nonlinear processes of human development, nonlin-
ear views of gender and fundamental psychoanalytic processes like working
through, and the nature of the therapeutic process as conceptualized in terms
of the theory of coupled oscillators. Galatzer-Levy questions many standard
psychoanalytic formulations and points to a freer practice of psychoanalysis
and psychoanalytic thinking. His new approach opens the readers’ eyes to
ways in which development and treatment can occur through processes not
now included in standard psychoanalytic theory. The book not only provides
useful theories but also helps readers take note of commonly passed over
pheno mena that were unseen for lack of a theory to explain them.
Galatzer-Levy brings an unusual combination of training in psychiatry,
psychoanalysis, and mathematics to this unique study, which summarizes
his forty years of exploration of nonlinearity and psychoanalysis. Nonlinear
Psychoanalysis will appeal to psychoanalysts and psychotherapists as well
as students of nonlinear dynamics systems.
Robert M. Galatzer-Levy, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral
Neuroscience at the University of Chicago is also a faculty member of the
Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis. He practices child, adolescent, and
adult psychoanalysis and psychiatry in Chicago.
Psychoanalysis in a New Key Book Series
Series editor: Donnel Stern
When music is played in a new key, the melody does not change, but the
notes that make up the composition do: change in the context of con-
tinuity, continuity that perseveres through change. Psychoanalysis in a
New Key publishes books that share the aims psychoanalysts have al-
ways had but that approach them differently. The books in the series are
not expected to advance any particular theoretical agenda, although to
this date most have been written by analysts from the Interpersonal and
Relational orientations.
The most important contribution of a psychoanalytic book is the
communication of something that nudges the readers’ grasp of clin-
ical theory and practice in an unexpected direction. Psychoanalysis
in a New Key creates a deliberate focus on innovative and unsettling
clinical thinking. Because that kind of thinking is encouraged by ex-
ploration of the sometimes surprising contributions to psychoanaly-
sis of ideas and findings from other fields, Psychoanalysis in a New
Key particularly encourages interdisciplinary studies. Books in the
series have married psychoanalysis with dissociation, trauma theory,
sociology, and criminology. The series is open to the consideration of
studies examining the relationship between psychoanalysis and any
other field—for instance, biology, literary and art criticism, philoso-
phy, systems theory, anthropology, and political theory.
But innovation also takes place within the boundaries of psychoa-
nalysis, and Psychoanalysis in a New Key therefore also presents work
that reformulates thought and practice without leaving the precincts
of the field. Books in the series focus, for example, on the significance
of personal values in psychoanalytic practice, on the complex interre-
lationship between the analyst’s clinical work and personal life, on the
consequences for the clinical situation when patient and analyst are
from different cultures, and on the need for psychoanalysts to accept
the degree to which they knowingly satisfy their own wishes during
treatment hours, often to the patient’s detriment.
A full list of all titles in this series is available at:
https://www.routledge.com/series/LEAPNKBS
Nonlinear Psychoanalysis
Notes from Forty Years of Chaos
and Complexity Theory
Robert M. Galatzer-Levy
First published 2017
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2017 Robert M. Galatzer-Levy
The right of Robert M. Galatzer-Levy to be identified as author
of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections
77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted
or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
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the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be
trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for
identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Galatzer-Levy, Robert M., 1944– author.
Title: Nonlinear psychoanalysis: notes from forty years of chaos
and complexity theory / Robert M. Galatzer-Levy.
Other titles: Psychoanalysis in a new key book series; v. 36.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2017. |
Series: Psychoanalysis in a new key book series; 36 |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016057099 | ISBN 9780415508988 (hardback) |
ISBN 9780415508995 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781315266473 (e-book)
Subjects: | MESH: Psychoanalytic Theory | Nonlinear Dynamics |
Psychoanalytic Therapy | Human Development
Classification: LCC RC506 | NLM WM 460.2 | DDC 616.89/17—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016057099
ISBN: 978-0-415-50898-8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-415-50899-5 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-26647-3 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by codeMantra
For Jeanne, for forty years of chaos and so much more
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Contents
Introduction: Mathematics, Psychoanalysis, and the
Human Sciences 1
1 A First Step—Qualitative Change from Quantitative
Change: Catastrophe Theory Psychoanalysis 33
2 Characterizing Our Ignorance 55
3 Chaotic Possibilities: Toward a New Model of Development 64
4 An Example of Nonlinear Developmental Thinking 92
5 Good Vibrations: Analytic Process as Coupled Oscillations 100
6 Inexact Interpretations and Coupled Oscillators 130
7 Prediction and Self-Similarity 137
8 Emergence 163
9 On Working Through: A Model from Artificial Intelligence 184
10 The Nonlinear Clinician at Work on the Edge of Chaos 208
11 Afterwards and Forwards 230
Bibliography 247
Index 269
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Introduction
Mathematics, Psychoanalysis,
and the Human Sciences
Though this introduction comes at the beginning, it is nearly the last
piece I wrote for this book. As I prepared it, my mind wandered.
I browsed the Internet. It had been years since I had looked at my
father’s writing, and, since it was his 111th birthday, I Googled him.
I knew my father had an enormous influence on my personality and
thinking. I am, after all, a psychoanalyst. Later you will see that
I also knew that some of my interest in nonlinear systems theory is a
reaction to his linear worldview.
Today, a major chunk of his publications is available online, includ-
ing one on the chemical embryology of the chick embryo, published
in 1952 (Levy, 1952). I remembered seeing this paper long ago. It stuck
out in my mind because it started with the chemical pseudo-equation,
Egg + O -> BaBy Chick + CO + side products
2 2
The equation typified my father’s sense of humor, gentle under-
statement, and irony, but the capital B as the third letter of baby
always puzzled me. Was it subtle humor or a typographical error?
Perhaps that it stuck out in my recollection was kind of screen mem-
ory standing in place of what came next. I firmly believed my father
had no notion even of the types of problems that nonlinear systems
theory would come to address. Yet it was there in this paper writ-
ten when I was eight years old, right after the baby chick equation.
He asked, how could it be that an apparent violation of the second
law of thermo dynamics, the chemical system consisting of the egg
and oxygen, could become vastly more ordered, developing into the