2000-11-13Z2011-03-11T08:54:25Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1084This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/10842000-11-13ZThe Landscape of Possibility: A Dynamic Systems Perspective on Archetype and Change<p>Pre-existing possibility is recognized in complexity theory (for example, by John Holland: 1995, 27-28) and in cognitive science (for example, by Jeffrey Elman et. al.: 1998, 111-113). A self-organized dynamic system makes manifest a pre-existing possibility. The whirlpool is an example. The human personality must also be a dynamic system. In the personality, however, a pre-existing possibility (archetype) may enter consciousness. It then plays a double role. It had always acted as an unconscious organizing principle; when it reaches consciousness it challenges the conscious identity and may stimulate new development. Clinical evidence is given, together with evidence from biology and from cognitive neuroscience.</p>
<p>Current psychoanalytic theory recognizes that the personality can only exist (and can only change) within an intersubjective field of other personalities. But the personality is a dynamic system. Complexity theory shows that such systems change by co-evolving within a field of mutually interacting dynamic systems.</p>
<p>These two concepts (of pre-existing possibility and of change within an intersubjective field of co-evolving dynamic systems) are integrated. Their relevance to mythology and to clinical work is discussed.</p>Maxson J. McDowell