title: The edge of chaos: A nonlinear view of psychoanalytic technique.
abstract: The field of nonlinear dynamics (or chaos theory) provides ways to expand concepts of psychoanalytic process that have implications for the technique of psychoanalysis. This paper describes how concepts of "the edge of chaos," emergence, attractors, and coupled oscillators can help shape analytic technique resulting in an approach to doing analysis which is at the same time freer and more firmly based in an enlarged understanding of the ways in which psychoanalysis works than some current recommendation about technique. Illustrations from a lengthy analysis of an analysand with obsessive-compulsive disorder show this approach in action.
authors.affiliation: Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences, University of Chicago, Faculty, Institute for Psychoanalysis, Chicago. galatzerlevy@rgalatzerlevy.com.
authors.forename: Robert M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Galatzer-Levy
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D017711:Nonlinear Dynamics; D011574:Psychoanalytic Theory; D011575:Psychoanalytic Therapy / Q000379:methods*
keywords: chaos theory; edge of chaos; nonlinear dynamical systems theory; technique