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Exploring psychological complexity through dynamic systems theory: A complement to reductionism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 August 2005

Robert M. Galatzer-Levy*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637; and Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis, Chicago, IL 60603 http://www.galatzerlevy.net

Abstract:

Dynamic systems theory (DS) provides tools for exploring how simpler elements can interact to produce complex psychological configurations. It may, as Lewis demonstrates, provide means for explicating relationships between two reductionist approaches to overlapping sets of phenomena. The result is a description of psychological phenomena at a level that begins to achieve the richness we would hope to achieve in examining psychological life as it is experienced and explored in psychoanalysis.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2005

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