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.
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.
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.
%N ted %K complex dynamic system, self organization, emergent, representational redescription, cognitive psychology, cognitive science, implicit memory, a priori, co-evolution, fitness landscape, Daniel Stern, intersubjective, heterochrony, Plato, Jungian analysis, personification, archetype, image, evolutionary psychology, dream analysis, mythology, spiritual. %E Joseph Cambray %E Jean Knox %V Submit %D 2000 %I Blackwell %L cogprints1084