Robert M. Galatzer-Levy - Nonlinear Psychoanalysis: Notes from Forty Years of Chaos and Complexity Theory

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 psychoanalytic thinking to shed new light on psychological development, therapeutic processes, and fundamental psychoanalytic concepts.

Starting with a personal history of the authors engagement with nonlinear dynamics and psychoanalysis, this book describes how his approach applies to diagnosis of psychological conditions, concepts of normal and pathological development, gender, research methods, and finally the theory and practice of psychoanalysis and psychodynamic psychotherapy. This book is full of new ideas about the basic nonlinear processes of human development, nonlinear 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 phenomena 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 continuity, continuity that perseveres through change. Psychoanalysis in a New Key publishes books that share the aims psychoanalysts have always 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 clinical 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 exploration of the sometimes surprising contributions to psychoanalysis 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 fieldfor instance, biology, literary and art criticism, philosophy, systems theory, anthropology, and political theory.

But innovation also takes place within the boundaries of psychoanalysis, 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 interrelationship between the analysts 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 patients detriment.

A full list of all titles in this series is available at:
https://www.routledge.com/series/LEAPNKBS

Notes from Forty Years of Chaos and Complexity Theory

Robert M. Galatzer-Levy

First published 2017
by Routledge
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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, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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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 616.89/17dc23LC 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

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 fathers 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, including 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,