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ERIC Number: EJ834234
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2009-Apr
Pages: 10
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0278-3193
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
Positive Maladjustment as a Transition from Chaos to Order
Laycraft, Krystyna
Roeper Review, v31 n2 p113-122 Apr 2009
Dabrowski's theory of positive disintegration describes patterns and explains mechanisms of human development and has been successfully applied to understanding of gifted individuals. This article shows how the concepts of chaos theory and self-organization such as the sensitivity to initial conditions, positive and negative feedback, bifurcation points, and attractors provide new insights into understanding the personality development of gifted adolescents. According to Dabrowski, positive disintegration is the mental development described by the process of transition from lower to higher levels of mental life and is stimulated by tension, inner conflict, struggle, anxiety, and despair. This article introduces a conceptual model of this process as the sequence of transitions from a point attractor (the primary integration) through a periodic attractor (the unilevel disintegration), to a chaotic attractor (the spontaneous multilevel disintegration), and continues through the process of self-organization to an emerging order (the organized multilevel disintegration) and finally to an order with increasing complexity (the secondary integration). (Contains 2 figures.)
Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 325 Chestnut Street Suite 800, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Fax: 215-625-2940; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A