A guide to self-education: The Theory of Positive Disintegration.

Contents of the PDF package.
≻ ⚀ 3 A guide to self-education: The Theory of Positive Disintegration (this page).
≻ ⚁ 3.9 Dąbrowski’s Approach to Testing: An Introduction.
≻ ⚁ Master References.

Key Menu:

Part One

Part Two

Expanded Menu:

⚁ 3.1 Introduction to This Guide.

This page serves as a guide to self-education in the theory of positive disintegration. It is meant to be used alongside Dąbrowski’s original materials.

As discussed at one of the conferences, I do not believe in “experts.” They too often express confidence but lack knowledge. Instead, I advocate for an archeological model where you, the learner, are empowered to dig deeply into the topic independently. This way, you can gain an overview of the theory at your own pace and subsequently delve into the details as you progress.

The page has two parts. Part one is a basic introduction and overview, while part two explores the deeper foundations and applications of the theory. This page is not intended to teach the theory or make you proficient in its complexity; the theory is best learned through first-hand experience. Therefore, this page simply serves as a guide to help you explore the ideas of the theory as outlined in the original materials.

I hope you enjoy the material.

Download the PDF package. DOWNLOAD PDF.

⚁ 3.2 Introduction to TPD. [Section 3.2 is reproduced from tab 1]

⚂ [3.2] 1.1.1 This website provides an academic introduction to the Theory of Positive Disintegration (TPD) formulated by Kazimierz Dąbrowski (1902-1980), a Polish psychiatrist and psychologist.

⚂ [3.2] 1.1.2 Dąbrowski’s works are archived and made available at no cost to the reader. The archive of Dąbrowski’s works consists of all his English publications, approximately half of his Polish books, and a few of his many Polish articles. The website also contains an extensive bibliography of materials related to the theory, many of which are available for download.

⚂ [3.2] 1.1.3 A variety of links focussed on the application of the theory, and on discussions aimed at a largely non-academic audience are provided and can be found: Here

⚂ [3.2] 1.2.1 “Personality: A self-aware, self-chosen, self-affirmed, and self-determined unity of essential individual psychic qualities. Personality as defined here appears at the level of secondary integration” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 301).

⚂ [3.2] 1.2.2 “The propensity for changing one’s internal environment and the ability to influence positively the external environment indicate the capacity of the individual to develop. Almost as a rule, these factors are related to increased mental excitability, depressions, dissatisfaction with oneself, feelings of inferiority and guilt, states of anxiety, inhibitions, and ambivalences—all symptoms which the psychiatrist tends to label psychoneurotic. Given a definition of mental health as the development of the personality, we can say that all individuals who present active development in the direction of a higher level of personality (including most psychoneurotic patients) are mentally healthy” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 112).

⚂ [3.2] 1.2.3 “Intense psychoneurotic processes are especially characteristic of accelerated development in its course towards the formation of personality. According to our theory accelerated psychic development is actually impossible without transition through processes of nervousness and psychoneuroses, without external and internal conflicts, without maladjustment to actual conditions in order to achieve adjustment to a higher level of values (to what ‘ought to be’), and without conflicts with lower level realities as a result of spontaneous or deliberate choice to strengthen the bond with reality of higher level” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 220).

⚂ [3.2] 1.2.4 “Psychoneuroses ‘especially those of a higher level’ provide an opportunity to ‘take one’s life in one’s own hands.’ They are expressive of a drive for psychic autonomy, especially moral autonomy, through transformation of a more or less primitively integrated structure. This is a process in which the individual himself becomes an active agent in his disintegration, and even breakdown. Thus the person finds a ‘cure’ for himself, not in the sense of a rehabilitation but rather in the sense of reaching a higher level than the one at which he was prior to disintegration. This occurs through a process of an education of oneself and of an inner psychic transformation. One of the main mechanisms of this process is a continual sense of looking into oneself as if from outside, followed by a conscious affirmation or negation of conditions and values in both the internal and external environments. Through the constant creation of himself, though the development of the inner psychic milieu and development of discriminating power with respect to both the inner and outer milieus—an individual goes through ever higher levels of ‘neuroses’ and at the same time through ever higher levels of universal development of his personality” (Dąbrowski, 19102, p. 4).

⚂ [3.2] 1.2.5 “In order to account for differences in the extent of development we introduce the concept of the developmental potential (Dąbrowski, 1970, Piechowski, 1974). The developmental potential is the original endowment which determines what level of development a person may reach if the physical and environmental conditions are optimal” (Dąbrowski, 1996, p. 10).

⚂ [3.2] 1.2.6 “…in our conception of development the chances of developmental crises and their positive or negative outcomes depend on the character of the developmental potential, on the character of social influence, and on the activity (if present) of the third factor (autonomous dynamisms of self-directed development). One also has to keep in mind that a developmental solution to a crisis means not a reintegration but an integration at a higher level of functioning” (Dąbrowski, 1972, pp. 244-245).

⚂ [3.2] 1.3.1 Dabrowski believed that socialization curtails individual growth.
≻ Mental health involves more than merely adopting and adapting to societal norms or expectations.
≻ Instead, mental health emphasizes self-transformation in creating and pursuing higher ideals that shape a unique, authentic, and autonomous personality.
≻ Disintegrating the initial socialized psychological structures is necessary to create opportunities for the individual to take growth into their own hands.
≻ Lower structures are replaced by integrations into new, higher structures.
≻ Higher structures are consciously chosen to reflect the values and essence of the individual.
≻ At the highest level, a unique and autonomous personality comes to guide behaviour.
≻ Disintegration requires a constellation of factors Dąbrowski called developmental potential.

⚃ Multilevelness and multidimensionality:
≻ Dąbrowski’s approach to analyzing human behaviour emphasized multilevelness – essentially comparisons of qualitative differences between the “lower, intermediary, and higher” levels of reality.
≻ Multilevelness also reflects an observable hierarchy of mental functions.
≻ This approach leads to a hierarchical description and analysis of psychological structures.
≻ Unilevel perceptions of reality characterize the lower levels, while multilevel perceptions reflect a deep awareness and breadth of perception.
≻≻ This schema is analogous to Plato’s description of the levels of reality.
≻ Multilevel analysis applies to all kinds and types of mental functions and, when combined with a multidimensional approach, creates a powerful descriptive and analytic tool.

⚃ Levels of Development:
≻ Dąbrowski proposed a hierarchy of five levels of development, beginning with a “primary” level of integration that is unilevel, egocentric and based on instinctual and social influences.
≻ In ideal development, three levels of disintegration culminate in a “secondary,” multilevel integration characterized by a highly autonomous, self-defined, self-chosen, and self-aware self: a “true personality.”

⚃ Positive disintegration:
≻ Disintegration is necessary for multilevel psychological growth.
≻ Disintegration is positive when it ultimately leads to growth.
≻ Disintegration involves breaking down “lower” existing psychological structures founded upon external mores, beliefs, and behavioural expectations that become incompatible with higher, self-evaluated, self-defined values, ideals, and potentials.
≻ Disintegration unfolds through psychoneuroses; comprised of strong internal conflicts, crises, and moral dilemmas.
≻ Role models of exemplary development also point the way.

⚃ Psychoneuroses:
≻ The principal vehicle of positive disintegration.
≻ A positive, creative developmental process leading to the formation of the conditions necessary for growth.
≻ Psychoneuroses are symptoms of disharmony and conflicts within one’s inner psychic milieu (one’s internal psychological environment) and with the external environment triggered and driven by strong positive developmental potential.
≻ Psychoneuroses and neuroses reflect and are analyzed based on a hierarchical representation of functions.
≻ Higher psychoneuroses are more psychic – psychological and mental forms of disorder, in comparison to lower neuroses which are more somatic and nervous in nature.

⚃ Developmental potential:
≻ Dąbrowski identified various “constitutional” (hereditary) factors that determine the character and extent of mental growth possible for a given individual.
≻ Developmental potential includes instincts, dynamisms, the third factor, overexcitabilities, and special abilities and talents.
≻ Dąbrowski said developmental potential can be assessed based on overexcitabilities, special abilities and talents, and the third factor.

⚄ The Third Factor:
≻ The third factor represents “the totality of all autonomous forces” expressed as a feeling one must discover, evaluate, and develop one’s deep essence or character. This evaluation leads to an image of one’s personality ideal – of one’s ideal self.
≻ The third factor moves the individual towards values and behaviours that reflect how things “ought to be” based on this unique self-evaluation and personality ideal.
≻ The third factor is central; “Along with inborn properties and the influence of environment, it is the ‘third factor’ that determines the direction, degree, and distance of man’s development” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 53).

⚄ Dynamisms:
≻ The theory seeks to understand the forces – the dynamics that motivate behaviour.
≻ Dąbrowski defined dynamisms as biological or mental forces that control behavior and its development. Instincts, drives, and intellectual processes combined with emotions are dynamisms.
≻ Dąbrowski described some 20 dynamisms that influence development and behaviour.

⚄ Overexcitabilities:
≻ Dąbrowski identified five types of overexcitability (psychomotor, sensual, emotional, intellectual, and imaginational) predisposing individuals to experience life more intensely.
≻ Overexcitabilities contribute to disintegration by heightening sensitivity and awareness.
≻ The prefix ‘over’ attached to ‘excitability’ serves to indicate that the reactions of excitation are over and above average in intensity, duration, and frequency” (Dąbrowski, 1996, p. 7).

⚄ Special abilities and talents:
≻ Another component of developmental potential – IQ plus things like musical talent or artistic ability.

⚃ Hierarchization:
≻ Hierarchization is the process of differentiating higher from lower levels in oneself and developing and activating these levels – this primarily involves emotions and values.
≻ Hierarchization is the beginning of the development of the inner psychic milieu.

⚃ Inner psychic milieu:
≻ The internal mental environment. The totality of mental dynamisms of a low or high degree of consciousness.
≻ The inner psychic milieu may be hierarchical, as in multilevel disintegration, or ahierarchical, as in unilevel disintegration.
≻ The development and differentiation of the inner psychic milieu is the distinctive feature of autonomous development.
≻ At the level of primary integration, there is no inner psychic milieu.
≻ At the second level, unilevel disintegration, psychological factors begin to play a role, and therefore, an inner psychic milieu appears.
≻≻ It is, however, ahierarchic, or without structure.
≻≻ The intrapsychic factors are not transformative, only disintegrative in respect to the cohesive structures of primary integration.
≻ With the appearance of multilevel transformative dynamisms, a hierarchically structured inner psychic milieu is formed.

⚃ The contemporary relevance of the theory.
≻ The conventional goal of psychological therapy is to ameliorate dis – ease, anxiety, and crisis, restoring stability.
≻ Dąbrowski took a radically different view, emphasizing that periods of disequilibrium, upset, depression, anxiety, and ultimately even chaos and crisis are necessary elements in the process of growth.
≻ For Dąbrowski, positive disintegration does not merely lead to resilience; rather, it creates a higher level of function than before.
≻ The theory predates and reflects the contemporary approach of posttraumatic growth.

⚃ Summary:
≻ The central thesis of the theory is that driven by developmental potential, internal conflicts produce psychoneuroses – strong anxieties and depressions that confront conventional rationales and explanations and force self-examination.
≻ This often leads to loosening unilevel structures, allowing the individual to take development “into their own hands” and begin the developmental process.
≻ Developing a hierarchy of values and personality ideal helps shape the self away from ego and toward a unique and autonomous personality that comes to be expressed in a secondary multilevel integration.

⚃ “Suffering, aloneness, self-doubt, sadness, inner conflict; these are our feelings that we have not learned to live with, that we have failed to appreciate, that we reject as destructive and completely negative, but in fact they are symptoms of an expanding consciousness.
≻ Dr. Kazimierz Dąbrowski has spent 45 years piecing together the complete picture of the growth of the human psyche from primitive integration at birth; the person with potential for development will experience growth as a loosening of the stable psychic structure accompanied by symptoms of psychoneuroses.
≻ Reality becomes multileveled, the choices between higher and lower realms of behaviour occupy our thought and mark us as human.
≻ Dąbrowski called this process positive disintegration, he declares that psychoneurosis is not an illness and he insists that development does not come through psychotherapy but that psychotherapy is automatic when the person is conscious of his development.”

⚃ “To Dąbrowski, therapy is autopsychotherapy; it is the self being aware of the self through a long inner investigation; a mapping of the inner environment.
≻ There are no techniques to eliminate symptoms because the symptoms constitute the very psychic richness from which grow an increasing awareness of body, mind, humanity and cosmos. Dąbrowski gives birth to that process if he can.”

⚃ “Without intense and painful introspection and reflection, development is unlikely.
≻ Psychoneurotic symptoms should be embraced and transformed into anxieties about human problems of an ever higher order.
≻ If psychoneuroses continue to be classified as mental illness, then perhaps it is a sickness better than health.”

⚃ “Without passing through very difficult experiences and even something like psychoneurosis and neurosis we cannot understand human beings and we cannot realize our multidimensional and multilevel development toward higher and higher levels.”

⚂ [3.2] 1.6.1 Based on Dąbrowski’s theory, there are two qualitatively different life experiences – unilevel and multilevel – which are characterized by five levels.
≻ The heteronomous level, also known as unilevel or Level I, is influenced by biological and social factors (first and second factor).
≻ On the other hand, multilevel life is autonomous, which comprises Levels III and above, reflecting varying degrees of self-conscious, self-determined, and self-controlled mental development.
≻ Level II is typically a short transitional phase marked by intense unilevel crises that challenge one’s character, resulting in either regression or progression.

⚂ [3.2] 1.6.2 Dr. Mika has suggested that, in today’s era, it would be clearer to describe the levels using the terms “unilevel integration” instead of “primary integration” and “multilevel integration” instead of “secondary integration.”
≻ I fully support this suggestion in future neo-Dąbrowskian works.

⚂ [3.2] 1.8.1 Much of the focus of this webpage is on Dąbrowski’s work in Canada.
≻ In 1965, Dąbrowski moved his family to Edmonton and took a visiting professorship at the University of Alberta.
≻ He also held a similar position at Laval University in Québec.
≻ In the years leading up to his death in 1980, he divided his time between Poland and Canada.
≻ Dąbrowski accomplished this work with the help of a number of dedicated people, including Michael Piechowski, Lynn Kealy, Norbert Duda, Marlene Rankel, Dexter Amend, Lorne Yeudall, Francis Lesniak, Leo Mos, Andrzej (Andrew) Kawczak, Tom Nelson, Joseph R. Royce, Peter Jensen, Paul McGaffey, Earle Bain, P. Joshi, J. Sochanska, and P. J. Reese.
≻ From 1976 to 1980, I had the privilege of being a student of Dąbrowski.
≻ He asked me to preserve his theory.
≻ After his passing, I was given the archive of materials he had in Edmonton.
≻ I established this website in 1995.

⚁ 3.3 50 Key Points.

⚂ As a youth, Dąbrowski was affected by his experience of the aftermath of battle in World War I.

⚂ When his best friend committed suicide during college in the 1920s, Dąbrowski decided to study mental health.

⚂ The theory’s basic ideas begin to appear in Dąbrowski’s 1929 thesis and developed over his lifetime.

⚂ The theory integrates ideas from traditional philosophy, neurology, psychology, and psychiatry, and introduces several new constructs and terms.

⚂ Dąbrowski observed that people who self-harm often show overexcitability, psychic disintegration, and psychoneuroses (1934, 1937).

⚂ Dąbrowski was caught in World War II and endured several incarcerations in the German prison system and later, he and his wife were imprisoned again in Stalin-controlled Poland where Dąbrowski was tortured.

⚂ Dąbrowski said he could find no theory of psychology that could adequately explain both the lowest and depraved behavior, as well as the most heroic and highest acts, he had witnessed.

⚂ Dąbrowski studied biographies of people who displayed exemplary personality development.

⚂ Dąbrowski’s goal was to write a “general theory of development” explaining the factors and processes involved in what he perceived to be advanced personality development.

⚂ The theory is initially challenging to understand because it has many interrelated constructs and contains a number of unique terms that Dąbrowski developed.

⚂ Rejecting the idea that higher developments are built upon lower ones, Dąbrowski believed that advanced development required the break-down of lower psychological structures through a process he called positive disintegration.
≻ Development is represented by new partial integrations at higher levels, ultimately culminating in a ‘secondary integration.’

⚂ Based upon his observations, Dąbrowski formulated a concept called developmental potential describing a constellation of genetic factors that appear to be necessary to promote advanced development.

⚂ According to Dąbrowski, only a limited number of individuals display sufficient developmental potential for advanced development to occur.

⚂ Dąbrowski emphasized three key components of developmental potential; special talents and abilities (e.g. high intelligence, athletic ability, artistic or musical talent), third factor (a strong internal drive to express oneself through making autonomous choices) and overexcitability.

⚂ Overexcitability is a characteristic of the nervous system involving higher than average sensitivity to stimuli (a lower threshold to stimuli) and a higher than average response to stimuli.

⚂ Dąbrowski described five main types of overexcitability: psychomotor, sensual, intellectual, imaginational and emotional, and emphasized that the latter three are critical to development and in particular, that emotional overexcitability drives and guides higher development.

⚂ Dąbrowski believed that life choices must be made with an awareness of one’s emotional reactions to a situation and not solely using a rational and intellectual basis.

⚂ Strong developmental potential is necessary, but not sufficient, for advanced development.

⚂ In development, there is a critical qualitative transition from perceiving reality based upon unilevel experience to a multilevel view of life.

⚂ Unilevel experience tends to be uniform with little to distinguish alternatives from one another and one’s actions tend to be rote and based upon automatic stimulus/response reactions where conflicts arise between different but equivalent choices.
≻ Choices are guided externally – by social expectations and mores.

⚂ Multilevelness involves a perception of reality based upon an awareness of the broad spectrum of life; from the lowest, most primitive aspects, to the highest, and most developed.
≻ Choices are made based upon an internalized value structure.

⚂ Multilevelness involves a hierarchical view of reality that creates conflicts between higher possibilities in comparison to lower realities and alternatives: one comes to the fork between the low road and the high road and one clearly sees these two pathways as qualitatively different.

⚂ Multilevelness becomes critical in making life choices as higher versus lower aspects of situations become clear to us.
≻ If we see this distinction and subsequently choose the lower road, feelings of guilt, disappointment, self doubt, failure, and shame often result.
≻ These feelings subsequently influence one’s future decision-making toward the higher path.

⚂ A key component of personality is the development of individualized values (the hierarchy of values) and a vision of “higher possibilities,” culminating in the idealization of the kind of person one wishes to become; a feature Dąbrowski called personality ideal.

⚂ Development is an individual challenge to overcome one’s life “as it is” through inhibition and transformation of lower features and to develop and create one’s own unique character and one’s life “as it ought to be.”

⚂ Dąbrowski differentiated three primary groups of people, first, a group of individuals who display unilevel development.
≻ These individuals are primarily influenced by socialization and comprise some 65% of the population; a group defined by Dąbrowski as primary integration.

⚂ A second group of individuals are characterized by various forms and degrees of positive disintegration, indicating that they are moving through the developmental process.

⚂ A third group of individuals represent the ideal of development, defined by Dąbrowski as secondary integration.

⚂ Positive disintegration involves psychoneuroses; strong anxieties and depressions that signal the breakdown of lower structures and that are a necessary component of development.

⚂ Dąbrowski believed psychological symptoms must be evaluated and interpreted in the context of an individual’s history and their level of developmental potential.

⚂ Traditional approaches to mental health view overexcitability and psychoneuroses as symptoms that must be eliminated and no traditional approach helps the individual with strong developmental potential to learn to cope with life: living as a “square peg in a round world.”

⚂ Dąbrowski developed a multilevel and multidimensional approach to diagnosis which emphasized collaboration with the client to determine the developmental context and meaning of their symptoms and life situation.

⚂ Based upon one’s diagnosis, a client with significant developmental potential and positive disintegration would be suitable for Dąbrowski’s approach to therapy: autopsychotherapy.

⚂ Autopsychotherapy emphasizes the need for an individual to develop insight into their own characteristics and to understand their behavior in a developmental context.

⚂ Using self-understanding and autoeducation, one can learn to self-manage one’s strong feelings and, eventually, to actively direct one’s development toward one’s personality ideal.

⚂ Autoeducation is a key component of development, emphasizing the unique educational needs of each individual.
≻ These go beyond simply learning academic material, this is what YOU need to know to live a successful life.

⚂ One of Dąbrowski’s research studies examined gifted children and found that they exhibited high levels of developmental potential and psychoneuroses, leading Dąbrowski to hypothesize that gifted children may be predisposed to experience positive disintegration.

⚂ Some 40 years of research examining overexcitability in gifted students has yielded somewhat equivocal results.

⚂ Research has demonstrated that gifted individuals are more likely than those not identified as gifted to show signs of only one of the five overexcitabilities: intellectual overexcitability.

⚂ Research done to date has not supported the idea that gifted students are universally predisposed to advanced development as described in Dąbrowski’s theory.

⚂ Dąbrowski formulated five levels describing a sequence of development spanning from primary integration, through three levels of disintegration and culminating in a secondary integration.

⚃ Primary integration is a cohesive psychological structure controlled by one’s primitive drives and the forces of socialization.
≻ According to this theory, no true autonomy or individual personality exists.
≻ Little internal conflict arises as one “gets along by going along.”

⚃ In Dąbrowski’s vision of development, the initial breakdown of primary integration involves unilevel conflicts; conflicts that begin to arise between alternatives that are essentially equivalent, and thus the name of the second level: unilevel disintegration.

⚃ As there is no vertical aspect to unilevel conflicts, there is no developmental solution available and one must either return to primary integration or move ahead to multilevelness.

⚃ The third level, spontaneous multilevel disintegration, involves the beginning of multilevelness, signified when an individual spontaneously experiences conflicts between lower versus higher aspects of their experience.

⚃ The fourth level is a continuation of multilevelness but, by now, the individual has some control over their development and they begin to direct their disintegrations – hence the name directed multilevel disintegration.

⚄ At the fourth level, one develops an idealized sense of oneself and the kind of person one wants to become, and alternately, one also develops a sense of the aspects of oneself that one must overcome, inhibit or transform.
≻ The individual comes to play a conscious and volitional role in directing the developmental process.

⚃ With higher development, internal conflicts begin to subside as the individual’s personality ideal is slowly realized through the ongoing choices one makes in life.

⚃ Level V, secondary integration, becomes a lifelong continuation of the goal of pursuing one’s personality ideal and striving for self-perfection.
≻ One’s actions are now in harmony with one’s values and any sense of disintegration has passed.

⚄ One has a sense of internal harmony however, sharp external conflicts with society may arise as multilevelness guides the individual in pursuit of trying to make the world a better place.

⚁ 3.4 Major Constructs.

⚃ Dąbrowski presented a theory of personality development rich in new concepts.
≻ Not only did Dąbrowski present new concepts but he called for a new way to look at concepts altogether.
≻ Dąbrowski realized that traditional conceptual descriptions of psychological phenomena could not adequately capture a developmental and multilevel perspective.
≻ Psychological attributes that vary widely with development and across levels require flexible and “dynamic” concepts that can adequately describe these differences.

⚄ Simply put, as I understand it, concepts and constructs are both abstractions.
≻ Concepts describe real objects or factual objects, that is to say, the abstract concept of an aircraft is based on the existence of, examination of, and observation of, a real object in the world – a particular aircraft.
≻ On the other hand, constructs are postulated attributes, usually based upon observations. For example, an aircraft has a center of gravity; the center of gravity is a construct.
≻ It does not apply to a physical object in the world. In psychology, constructs are generally taken to be postulated attributes of individuals inferred from their behavior.
≻ For example, IQ is a construct inferred from an individual’s performance on a test.
≻ IQ does not exist in the real world and is not directly observable the way an aircraft would be.
≻ The construct of IQ is a hypothesized attribute or quality of an individual that is not directly observable (it is literally made up or constructed by the psychologist).
≻ IQ is inferred from observation (performance on tests) to account for differences observed between individuals.
≻ There is an ongoing call for precision when discussing concepts and constructs in psychology.
≻ Dąbrowski used the term concepts however, the ideas he described would more properly be termed constructs today.
≻ For more information, see Slaney and Racine (2013a, 2013b).

⚄ It is helpful to have a brief general orientation to constructs before we look at the novel approach that Dąbrowski proposed.

⚄ One major application of constructs considers how human beings use concepts psychologically.
≻ Machery (2009) describes this approach:
≻≻ The properties of concepts explain how people categorize, reason inductively, draw analogies, or understand sentences. The properties of Jamie’s concept of dog explain why she categorizes dogs the way she does, why she draws analogies about dogs the way she does, and so on. Similarly, the general properties of concepts explain the properties that the higher cognitive competences possess, whatever concept is involved. The general properties of concepts explain the properties of our categorization decisions, whether we categorize something as a dog, as a table, as water, or as a birthday party” (p. 20).

⚄ This context of concepts has received considerable attention in the psychological literature (Machery, 2009, 2007; Özdemir and Clark, 2007; Szostak, 2011).
≻ Although several approaches to the theory of concepts have been proposed, there appears to be no general consensus in psychology in terms of a preferred theory (Machery, 2009).
≻ Machery (2009) offers a comprehensive treatment of the topic and pessimistically concludes that psychology should avoid using concepts altogether.
≻ This controversial conclusion is fully explored in Machery (2010) and the discussion that follows.

⚄ Concepts as constructs describing psychological variables are the cornerstone of psychological theory building and research.
≻ Concepts are largely metaphorical descriptions of the phenomenon under consideration.
≻ In this context it is critical that constructs represent an accurate and valid description of reality.
≻ Thus, construct validity is a critical aspect of using concepts in psychology.

⚄ The idea of construct validity has been fundamental in psychology since its introduction in 1955 by Cronbach and Meehl.
≻ Construct validity is commonly misunderstood as an indication of the relative validity of a test or questionnaire.
≻ In reality, construct validity is an indicator of the clarity and appropriateness of a given concept.

⚃ Cronbach and Meehl (1955), explain:
≻ A construct is some postulated attribute of people, assumed to be reflected in test performance. In test validation the attribute about which we make statements in interpreting a test is a construct. We expect a person at any time to possess or not possess a qualitative attribute (amnesia) or structure, or to possess some degree of a quantitative attribute (cheerfulness). A construct has certain associated meanings carried in statements of this general character: Persons who possess this attribute will, in situation X, act in manner Y (with a stated probability). (pp. 283-284)

⚄ To specify the interpretation, the writer must state what construct he has in mind, and what meaning he gives to that construct. For a construct which has a short history and has built up few connotations, it will be fairly easy to indicate the presumed properties of the construct, i.e., the nomologicals in which it appears. For a construct with a longer history, a summary of properties and references to previous theoretical discussions may be appropriate. It is especially critical to distinguish proposed interpretations from other meanings previously given the same construct. The validator faces no small task; he must somehow communicate a theory to his reader. (p. 297)

⚄ Discussion of construct validity continues in the psychological literature today.
≻ “The ‘construct’ has become psychology’s unit of analysis and construct validation its modus operandi” (Slaney, 2012, p. 291).
≻ Slaney (2012) elaborates that in construct validity, it is not the test that is under scrutiny, it is the trait or quality underlying the test that is of critical importance.
≻ She quotes the 1954 “Technical Recommendations” paper of the American Psychological Association: “in construct validity it is ‘the trait or quality underlying the test [emphasis added] that is of central importance, rather than either the test behavior or the scores on the criteria’” (Slaney, 2012, p. 292).

⚄ “The theory underlying both the test and the construct may be conceived as an ‘interlocking system of laws’ which is known as a ‘nomological network’” (Slaney, 2012, p. 292). “This network gives constructs whatever meaning they have at a given stage of science” (Slaney, 2012, p. 293).

⚄ There is a wide latitude of approaches when it comes to constructs.
≻ “One easily and often comes across references to constructs being ‘unobservable attributes,’ ‘latent traits,’ or other entities or processes which are hypothesized to ‘underlie,’ ‘mediate,’ ‘account for,’ and ‘explain’ observable behaviors” (Slaney, 2012, p. 293).

⚄ In its original usage, a metaphor referred to the act of giving something a name that refers to something else.
≻ For example, “he had the eyes of a hawk.” In this case, the speaker is drawing an inference that the acuity of the individual’s vision is equivalent to that of a hawk.
≻ In the same way, psychologists use concepts to refer to psychological structures.
≻ For example, we refer to “levels of personality” and we understand this to be a conceptual metaphor and not intended to describe some actual physical structure within the brain.
≻ Various concepts (for example, structures, levels, drives, centers, etc.) act as heuristic devices to help us imagine how a given phenomenon, in this case personality, operates and develops.
≻ In our concepts, we are striving to accurately describe and portray an internal mental state or process and thus achieve construct validity: we want our theory and concepts to accurately portray and capture the characteristics of the phenomena we are describing.

⚄ “Theories, and the concepts and metaphors that they may contain are essentially the researchers instruments or tools with which he or she relates to the given object(s) in reality that is (are) under study” (Zittoun, Gillespie, Cornish, and Psaltis, 2007).

⚄ Reflecting the approach to construct validity above, the concepts and metaphors we choose have to be appropriate to convey our theory and intended meaning.
≻ This posed a significant problem for Dąbrowski as he saw that the phenomena he was trying to describe were not static, rather, these phenomena often were highly dynamic and changed dramatically over time and with development.
≻ As well, the static and unilevel concepts commonly used in psychology were unable to capture the complexity and dynamic nature of phenomenon when dimensions and levels of development were considered.
≻ The same phenomenon seen at different levels of development often demands quite different descriptions, necessitating Dąbrowski to create new and richer concepts to accurately capture the “changeability of concepts.”

The terminology of contemporary psychology is extremely complicated and confusing. It is notorious that one and the same term refers to distinctly different phenomena, while phenomena of the same kind are referred to by different terms. Hence the need, even the necessity of a revision of many crucial concepts, of new distinctions and of an examination of concepts from a dynamic, developmental point of view; that is to say, from the viewpoint which will acknowledge fundamental transformations of the content of mental processes and related concepts… Such a dynamic point of view is characteristic of positive disintegration and also of some semantic studies. Contrary to the tendencies to precision and reductionism of the many meanings of a given concept to just one meaning, this new point of view represents the tendency to disintegrate and even break up many concepts into a number of clearly differentiated concepts. It is due to the need to find an adequate new conceptual expression for new insights into reality which cannot be adequately expressed by means of former concepts and distinctions. This process of disintegration of concepts is frequently followed by a later process of an opposite nature which combines and integrates formerly separated conceptual units which are strictly elaborated. Growing knowledge of reality may generate the need to reunite various threads of thought in a secondary integration of concepts at a higher level which expresses new insights. As examples of this secondary integrating process we may mention the concept of higher emotions (attitudes) which combines intellectual, emotional and volitional components, as well as, existentio-essentialist and empirico-normative compounds discussed in separate chapters of this book. (pp. vii-viii)

⚄ “The changeability of concepts and terms depends on the psychic transformation of man and expresses the developmental transformation of human individuals, the growth of their autonomy and authenticity, of their inner psychic milieu and of their growing richness of life experiences” (Dąbrowski, 1973, p. viii).

⚄ “Our attempts to give a theoretical account of specifically human forces will never succeed if we continue to disregard the dynamic, developmental and multilevel nature of human ontogeny. The distinction of higher and lower instincts, as well as, the distinctions of higher and lower levels within one instinct and its ontogenetic transformations seem to be indispensable to achieve an adequate understanding and theoretical description of mental development” (Dąbrowski, 1973, p. xi).

⚄ “The growing conceptual complexity and substantial change in the use of concepts is characteristic of every process of growing insight into reality. It is a positive phenomenon which attests to the dynamic and turbulent ‘life’ of concepts” (Dąbrowski, 1973, pp. xi-xii).

⚄ “The concept of authenticity raises the same kind of problems. If its use is to be of any value, it is necessary to distinguish authentic existence emanating from autonomous mental development, from the growth and richness of the inner psychic milieu, from positive disintegration and destruction of the lower, primitive mental structure, on the one hand, and, the so-called ‘authentic’ externalization of brutal, thoughtless, elementary drives, on the other hand” (Dąbrowski, 1973, p. xiii).

⚄ “A ‘dynamization’ of concepts seems to be particularly important in developmental and educational psychology, in the study of interpersonal relations and in psychopathology, especially in the theory of psychoneuroses. The results of this process of dynamization of concepts will more and more express the close association and interconnection of intellectual and emotional functions. The new meanings of concepts should allow a much more incisive analysis of the understanding of oneself, of other individual and human groups” (Dąbrowski, 1973, p. xiii).

⚄ “Let us restate our view in a brief summary. Many-sided and authentic development of man implies the formation of an adequate system of concepts and terms which would correspond to the new higher stages of this development. Consequently, those concepts which are not adequate at new stages of development must be disintegrated and transformed. New, and richer concepts must be worked out in order to adequately express new cognitive and affective qualities of a growing personality. Hence, the development of concepts and terms expresses the development of man, particularly his accelerated and autonomic growth. New qualities and new experiences arising in the process of mental development manifest the various symptoms of disintegration through which they become independent, grow in richness, and reveal new creative forms…. This process of transformation of concepts and terms in their intellectual and experiential aspects can be called ‘the drama of the life and development of concepts’” (Dąbrowski, 1973, pp. xiv-xv).

⚄ It is helpful to put this discussion in the context of a larger, ongoing debate over the fundamental issues related to psychological measurement.
≻ Maslow (1966) was disappointed that psychology became obsessed with methodology and significance at the expense of the study of meaningful phenomena, an obsession he called methodolatry.
≻ Cohen (1994, p. 997) said that null hypothesis significance testing “had not only failed to support the advance of psychology as a science but also has seriously impeded it.” More recently, Borsboom (2005, p. 2) declared that “after a century of theory and research on psychological test scores, for most test scores we still have no idea whether they really measure something, or are no more than relatively arbitrary summations of item responses.” This view was further emphasized by Markus and Borsboom (2011, p. 453): “notwithstanding the fact that common practices in psychology take for granted the idea that psychological attributes are measurable, and in fact are measured by commonly used tests, skepticism about the validity of this assumption has been an undercurrent during the entire history of psychology.”

⚄ Lambdin (2012) presented a review of current psychological research, referring to the state of affairs as “statistical shamanism.” In this important article, he quoted Stanislav Andreski, suggesting that many in the social sciences end up making claims because they want their opinions to become reality, not because their claims are based upon corroborated and diverse evidence.

⚅ Many social scientists make the claims they do, Andreski states, not because they have corroborated, diverse evidence supporting them as accurate descriptors of reality, but rather because they desire their opinions to become reality. This, Andreski argues, is shamanistic, not scientific (p. 67).

⚃ Andreski (1972/1974) a Polish sociologist, makes his case clear:
≻ More than that of his colleagues in the natural sciences, the position of an ‘expert’ in the study of human behavior resembles that of the sorcerer who can make the crops come up or the rain fall by uttering an incantation. And because the facts with which he deals are seldom verifiable, his customers are able to demand to be told what they like to hear, and will punish the uncooperative soothsayer who insists on saying what they would rather not know-as the princes used to punish the court physicians for failing to cure them. (p. 24)

⚄ “[In psychology] significant discoveries are rare, and must remain exceedingly approximate and tentative. Most of the practitioners, however, do not like to admit this and prefer to pretend that they speak with the authority of an exact science, which is not merely theoretical but also applied” (p. 25).

⚃ We often see examples of the application of “strict science” to psychology. For example, from the literature on positive psychology, we find the following (some mumbo jumbo is also helpful in presenting such findings):
≻ Fredrickson and Losada, (2005) define flourishing using the positivity/negativity ratio (P/N): the ratio of good thoughts/positive feedback (e.g. “that is a good idea”;) vs. negative thoughts/negative feedback (e.g. “this is not what I expected; I am disappointed”).

⚄ Mathematically, then, a positivity ratio of about 2.9 bifurcates the complex dynamics of flourishing from the limit cycle of languishing. We call this dividing line the Losada line. From a psychological standpoint, this ratio may seem absurdly precise. Yet we underscore that this bifurcation point is a mathematically derived theoretical ideal. Empirical observations made at various levels of measurement precision can test this prediction” (Fredrickson & Losada, 2005, p. 683).

⚄ The Losada line establishes the minimum level at which a “complexor” is reached and is equal to a P/N of 2.9013. “Our discovery of the critical 2.9013 positivity ratio may represent a breakthrough” (Fredrickson & Losada, 2005, p. 685).

⚄ Dąbrowski also commented on the issues of research in psychology. “The present work consists of an attempt to reveal and protect the plasticity and richness, observable in the dynamic transformations of concepts, against the danger of ossification, unilevelness and sterility arising from a one-sided stress on the requirements of verifiability, precision and statistical elaboration” (Dąbrowski, 1973, p. xiii).
≻ This presents a logical contradiction to the careful reader.
≻≻ Here, in 1973, Dąbrowski is cautious of over-precision and a unilevel approach to measurement.
≻≻ Yet, the 1977 volumes present a great deal of just such research. Why?
≻≻ In the late 1960’s, the Canada Council made available funding for empirical research projects.
≻≻ Piechowski had come into Dąbrowski’s group from a background in biology and believed that he could operationalize much of Dąbrowski’s theory.
≻≻ He worked tirelessly on an extensive research project that culminated in much of the empirical material presented in the 1977 books.
≻≻ From my firsthand understanding from Dąbrowski, he appreciated this effort but did not wholeheartedly endorse it.

⚄ This review focuses on a positive/developmental emphasis.
≻ It should be noted that many of these concepts have positive and negative formulations.
≻ For example, the outcome of disintegration can be either positive or negative depending upon several factors, primarily, one’s initial level of developmental potential.
≻ Authenticity can be positive or negative.
≻ Development implies a positive authenticity; an individual’s personality ideal will represent higher and nobler human values.
≻ On the other hand, an individual at a very low developmental level may “be true to him or herself” and authentically express very low level instincts or egocentric drives.
≻ When looking at these concepts it should be remembered that this treatment only considers the developmental or positive aspects.

⚃ Positive disintegration is the core concept of the Theory of Positive Disintegration. What does it mean?

⚃ “Dąbrowski refers to his view of personality development as the theory of positive disintegration. He defines disintegration as disharmony within the individual and in his adaptation to the external environment. Anxiety, psychoneurosis, and psychosis are symptoms of disintegration. In general, disintegration refers to involution, psychopathology, and retrogression to a lower level of psychic functioning. Integration is the opposite: evolution, psychic health, and adequate adaptation, both within the self and to the environment. Dąbrowski postulates a developmental instinct: that is, a tendency of man to evolve from lower to higher levels of personality. He regards personality as primarily developing through dissatisfaction with, and fragmentation of, the existing psychic structure – a period of disintegration – and finally a secondary integration at a higher level. Dąbrowski feels that no growth takes place without previous disintegration. He regards symptoms of anxiety, psychoneurosis, and even some symptoms of psychosis as the signs of the disintegration stage of this evolution and therefore not always pathological.” (Aronson, 1964, pp. xii-xiv).

⚃ “Crisis refers to the acute disturbance that may occur in an individual as a result of an emotional hazard. During a crisis the individual shows increased tension, unpleasant affect, and disorganized behavior. His attempts at solution may end in his returning to his former psychic equilibrium or may advance him to a healthier integration. However, if the problem has been beyond his capacity to handle, he will show nonadaptive solutions and will have restored equilibrium at a lower level of integration. Lindemann emphasizes the importance of significant persons in the individual’s life during the time of a crisis. Even minor influences of a significant person at this time may determine the outcome of the crisis in one direction or another. In the course of life, all people have experienced many such crises, the outcome of which has determined their personality, their creativity, and their mental health.
What Lindemann describes as “crisis” (increased tension, unpleasant affect, and disorganized behavior) is termed “symptoms of disintegration” by Dąbrowski, who feels that, although this process may have either a positive or a negative result, in the vast majority of cases the outcome is positive. Dąbrowski sees a negative outcome only when the environmental situation is very unfavorable or when there is a severe physiological process present” (Aronson, 1964, pp. xx-xxi).

⚃ “The effect of disintegration on the structure of the personality is influenced by such factors as heredity, social environment, and the stresses of life. … Disintegration may be classified as unilevel, multilevel, or pathological; and it may be described as partial or global, permanent or temporary, and positive or negative” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 6).

⚃ “The symptoms of anxiety, nervousness, and psychoneurosis, as well as many cases of psychosis, are often an expression of the developmental continuity. They are processes of positive disintegration and creative nonadaptation” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 13).

⚃ “During periods of developmental crisis (such as the age of opposition and especially puberty) there are many more symptoms of disintegration than at other times of life. These are also the occasions of greatest growth and development. The close correlation between personality development and the process of positive disintegration is clear.
Symptoms of positive disintegration are also found in people undergoing severe external stress. They may show signs of disquietude, increased reflection and meditation, self-discontentment, anxiety, and sometimes a weakening of the instinct of self-preservation. These are indications both of distress and of growth. Crises are periods of increased insight into oneself, creativity, and personality development” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 18).

⚃ “How can positive disintegration be differentiated from negative disintegration? The prevalence of symptoms of multilevel disintegration over unilevel ones indicates that the disintegration is positive. The presence of consciousness, self-consciousness, and self-control also reveals that the disintegration process is positive. The predominance of the global forms, the seizing of the whole individuality through the disintegration process, over the narrow, partial disintegration would prove, with other features, its positiveness. Other elements of positive disintegration are the plasticity of the capacity for mental transformation, the presence of creative tendencies, and the absence or weakness of automatic and stereotyped elements” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 19).

⚃ Dąbrowski believed that normal development is limited by the influence of socialization.
≻ He did not feel that inculcation and socialization represented authentic development and he suggested that the early psychological concepts and structures built upon socialization had to be broken apart and dis-integrated in order to allow the individual to create their own unique personality.

⚃ Dąbrowski observed that a few people in the population, probably about 5%, have difficulty controlling their impulses and instincts and conforming to socialization.
≻ These individuals display overt antisocial behavior.

⚃ The average person, probably about 60% of the population, becomes socialized and adopts the prevailing mores, roles and expectations of the given culture.
≻ Contrary to conventional wisdom in psychology and psychiatry, Dąbrowski did not feel that adjustment to one’s culture was a positive feature.
≻ Dąbrowski went as far as to say such adjustment represented the opposite of mental health.
≻ Likely influenced by philosophy (Plato and Nietzsche) Dąbrowski took the position that authentic development had to reflect a very conscious and volitional examination of one’s essential character and the construction of a unique hierarchy of values reflecting one’s unique character and personality.

⚃ This approach challenges the traditional view of symptoms as negative aspects that must be treated through palliation or resolution.
≻ Instead, Dąbrowski said that psychological symptoms, represented by psychoneuroses, were not only positive, but necessary for advanced personality development.

⚃ “In general, disintegration refers to involution, psychopathology, and retrogression to a lower level of psychic functioning. Integration is the opposite: evolution, psychic health, and adequate adaptation, both within the self and to the environment. Dąbrowski postulates a developmental instinct: that is, a tendency of man to evolve from lower to higher levels of personality” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. xiv).

⚃ “Disintegration of the primitive structures destroys the psychic unity of the individual. As he loses the cohesion which is necessary for feeling a sense of meaning and purpose in life, he is motivated to develop himself. The developmental instinct, then, following disintegration of the existing structure of personality, contributes to reconstruction at a higher level” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 3).

⚃ “The term disintegration is used to refer to a broad range of processes, from emotional disharmony to the complete fragmentation of the personality structure, all of which are usually regarded as negative” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 5).

⚃ “Disintegration is the basis for developmental thrusts upward, the creation of new evolutionary dynamics, and the movement of the personality to a higher level, all of which are manifestations of secondary integration” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 6).

⚃ Classification of disintegration. “Disintegration may be classified as unilevel, multilevel, or pathological; and it may be described as partial or global, permanent or temporary, and positive or negative” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 6).

⚃ “Unilevel disintegration occurs during developmental crises such as puberty or menopause, in periods of difficulty in handling some stressful external event, or under psychological and psychopathological conditions such as nervousness and psychoneurosis. Unilevel disintegration consists of processes on a single structural and emotional level; there is a prevalence of automatic dynamisms with only slight self-consciousness and self-control” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 6).

⚄ Prolongation of unilevel disintegration often leads to reintegration on a lower level, to suicidal tendencies, or to psychosis. Unilevel disintegration is often an initial, feebly differentiated borderline state of multilevel disintegration” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 7).

⚃ “In multilevel disintegration there is a complication of the unilevel process by the involvement of additional hierarchical levels. There is loosening and fragmentation of the internal environment, as in unilevel disintegration, but here it occurs at both higher and lower strata. These levels are in conflict with one another; their valence is determined by the disposing and directing center, which moves the individual in the direction of his personality ideal. The actions of multilevel disintegration are largely conscious, independent, and influential in determining personality structure” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 8).

⚃ Partial disintegration involves only one aspect of the psychic structure, that is, a narrow part of the personality. Global disintegration occurs in major life experiences which are shocking; it disturbs the entire psychic structure of an individual and changes the personality. Permanent disintegration is found in severe, chronic diseases, somatic as well as psychic, and in major physical disabilities such as deafness and paraplegia, whereas temporary disintegration occurs in passing periods of mental and somatic disequilibrium. Disintegration is described as positive when it enriches life, enlarges the horizon, and brings forth creativity; it is negative when it either has no developmental effects or causes involution” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 8).

⚃ “The prevalence of symptoms of multilevel disintegration over unilevel ones indicates that the disintegration is positive. The presence of consciousness, self-consciousness, and self-control also reveals that the disintegration process is positive. The predominance of the global forms, the seizing of the whole individuality through the disintegration process, over the narrow, partial disintegration would prove, with other features, its positiveness. Other elements of positive disintegration are the plasticity of the capacity for mental transformation, the presence of creative tendencies, and the absence or weakness of automatic and stereotyped elements” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 19).

⚃ “Partial secondary integrations occur throughout life as the result of positive resolutions of minor conflicts” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 20).

⚃ “As secondary integration increases, internal psychic tension decreases, as does movement upward or downward of the disposing and directing center, with the conservation, nevertheless, of ability to react flexibly to danger. The disintegration process, as it takes place positively, transforms itself into an ordered sequence accompanied by an increasing degree of consciousness” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 21).

⚃ “Crises are periods of increased insight into oneself, creativity, and personality development” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 18).

⚃ “In the normal subject [normal intelligence] disintegration occurs chiefly through the dynamism of the instinct of self-improvement, but in the genius it takes place through the instinct of creativity” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 22).

⚃ [The sequence of transformations] “occur only if the developmental forces are sufficiently strong and not impeded by unfavorable external circumstances. This is, however, rarely the case. The number of people who complete the full course of development and attain the level of secondary integration is limited. A vast majority of people either do not break down their primitive integration at all, or after a relatively short period of disintegration, usually experienced at the time of adolescence and early youth, end in a reintegration at the former level or in partial integration of some of the functions at slightly higher levels, without a transformation of the whole mental structure” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 4).

⚃ “The term positive disintegration will be applied in general to the process of transition from lower to higher, broader and richer levels of mental functions. This transition requires a restructuring of mental functions” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 18).

⚃ “Experiences of shock, stress and trauma, may accelerate development in individuals with innate potential for positive development” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 20).

⚃ “In the process of multidimensional disintegration, the individual goes beyond his biopsychological developmental cycle, his animalistic nature, his biological determination and slowly achieves psychological and moral self-determination. The human individual, under these conditions ceases to direct himself exclusively by his innate dynamisms and by environmental influences, but develops autonomous dynamisms such as “subject-object” in oneself, the third factor, or personality ideal” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 60).

⚃ “We are human inasmuch as we experience disharmony and dissatisfaction, inherent in the process of disintegration” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 122).

⚃ “Positive or developmental disintegration effects a weakening and dissolution of lower level structures and functions, gradual generation and growth of higher levels of mental functions and culminates in personality integration” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 165).

⚃ “In the course of evolution from higher animals to man, and from the normal man to the universally and highly developed man, we observe processes of disintegration of lower functions and an integration of higher functions” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 62).

⚃ “The developmental process in which occur ‘collisions’ with the environment and with oneself begins as a consequence of the interplay of three factors: developmental potential, … an influence of the social milieu, and autonomous (self-determining) factors” Dąbrowski (1972, p 77).

⚃ “One also has to keep in mind that a developmental solution to a crisis means not a reintegration but an integration at a higher level of functioning” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 245).

⚃ “Inner conflicts often lead to emotional, philosophical and existential crises” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 196).

⚃ “There are four stages of positive disintegration forming an invariant sequence: (1) unilevel disintegration, (2) spontaneous multilevel disintegration, (3) organized multilevel disintegration, (4) transition to secondary integration.” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 301).

⚃ “The chances of developmental crises and their positive or negative outcomes depend on the character of the developmental potential, on the character of social influence, and on the activity (if present) of the third factor” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 245).

⚃ “Every authentic creative process consists of ‘loosening’, ‘splitting’ or ‘smashing’ the former reality. Every mental conflict is associated with disruption and pain; every step forward in the direction of authentic existence is combined with shocks, sorrows, suffering and distress” (Dąbrowski, 1973, p. 14).

⚃ Dąbrowski differentiated neuroses from psychoneuroses.
≻ Neuroses are disorders characterized by physiological and psychosomatic processes and, as such, they represent primary or lower level disorders.
≻ Psychoneuroses reflect a different, higher type of experience.
≻ Psychoneuroses were defined as not only necessary for growth but as a type of growth.
≻ Symptoms of psychoneuroses were seen as signs of potential for advanced, and possibly accelerated, development.
≻ Psychoneuroses play a critical role in creating the dis-ease – the internal motivation, and the internal conflicts necessary to trigger self-examination and to stimulate the process of development.

⚃ “[psychoneuroses] show symptoms of disharmony and conflicts within the inner psychic milieu and with the external environment. The source of disharmony and conflicts is a favorable hereditary endowment and the ability to accelerate development through positive disintegration towards personality, i.e. towards a cohesive structure of functions at secondary integration. This conception of psychoneuroses does not consider them pathological, but rather as positive forces in mental development” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 176).

⚃ “The psychoneurotic problem is one of the lack of adjustment manifesting protest against actual reality, and the need for adjustment to hierarchy of higher values: to adjust to that which “ought to be” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 3).

⚃ “Psychoneurotics, rather than being treated as ill, should be considered as individuals most prone to a positive and even accelerated psychic development” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 4).

⚃ Psychoneurosis “represents a ‘hierarchy of higher functions,’ which means a hierarchy in which mental dynamisms predominate over nervous reactions. Psychoneurosis is a more psychical or more mental form of functional disorder, while neurosis is a more nervous or somatopsychic form” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 41).

⚃ “Nervousness, neuroses, and especially psychoneuroses, bring the nervous system to a state of greater sensitivity. They make a person more susceptible to positive change. The higher psychic structures gradually gain control over the lower ones. The lower psychic structures undergo a refinement in this process of inner psychic transformation. This transformation is the fruition of the developmental potential which makes these states possible and makes possible further development” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 41).

⚃ Neurosis: “Psychophysiological or psychosomatic disorders characterized by a dominance of somatic processes. There are no detectable organic defects, although the functions may be severely affected” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 299).

⚃ Psychoneurosis: “A more or less organized form of growth through positive disintegration. Lower psychoneuroses are predominantly psychosomatic in nature, higher psychoneuroses are highly conscious internal struggles whose tensions and frustrations are not anymore translated into somatic disorders” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 303).

⚃ “'Psychoneurotic experiences’ by disturbing the lower levels of values help gradually to enter higher levels of values, i.e. the level of higher emotions. These emotions becoming conscious and ever more strongly experienced begin to direct our behaviour and bring it to a higher level” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 3).

⚃ “In psychoneuroses the highest neuropsychic centres are active and provide a decisive source of psychotherapeutic and developmental energies” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 160).

⚃ “Nervousness and psychoneuroses are structural conditions of sensitivity within and towards one’s own inner psychic milieu wherein positive development through unilevel and multilevel disintegration finds especially favourable ground” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 159).

⚃ “The presence of neurotic or psychoneurotic positive developmental potential guarantees creative development through higher forms of psychoneurotic processes such as internal conflicts, hierarchization, development of autonomous and authentic dynamisms, towards a high level of personality and secondary integration” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 12).

⚃ “The higher the functions in psychoneurosis, the more one uncovers elements of personality development in the subject” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 197).

⚃ “Psychoneuroses especially those of a higher level – provide an opportunity to ‘take one’s life into one’s own hands.’ They are expressive of a drive for psychic autonomy, especially moral autonomy, through transformation of a more or less primitively integrated structure” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 4).

⚃ “Psychoneuroses are observed in people possessing special talents, sensitivity, and creative capacities; they are common among outstanding people” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 2).

⚃ “'Psychoneurotic experiences’ by disturbing the lower levels of values help gradually to enter higher levels of values, i.e. the level of higher emotions” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 3).

⚃ “In the higher psychoneuroses we have ‘seeing’ of new things, answers to the meaning of life, a search for the ‘new and other,’ separation into levels …” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 199).

⚃ “The general basic condition for the genesis and development of neuroses and psychoneuroses is – in our opinion – an increased psychic excitability [overexcitability]” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 46).

⚃ “Generally speaking psychoneuroses should be considered a basic constituent of the process of positive disintegration and a developmentally positive group of dynamisms and syndromes, connected with the tension arising from strong developmental conflicts” (Dąbrowski, 1973, p. 149).

⚃ Psychoneuroses: “those processes, syndromes and functions which express inner and external conflicts, and positive maladjustment of an individual in the process of accelerated development” (Dąbrowski, 1973, p. 151).

⚃ Psychoneuroses are “connected with the tension arising from strong developmental conflicts” (Dąbrowski, 1973, p. 149) and “contain elements of man’s authentic humanization” (Dąbrowski, 1973, p. 152).

⚃ “psychoneuroses are the protection against serious mental disorders – against psychoses” (Dąbrowski, 1973, p. 162).

⚃ In describing the average development and behavior of individuals, Dąbrowski observed that most psychological reactions tend to be rote, reflexive and lacking any deep sense of consciousness or awareness. This lack of consciousness often leads to a robotic character in an individual’s responses. Dąbrowski called this unilevelness.

⚃ A qualitatively different and radical shift in perception marks advanced development. This shift, referred to by Dąbrowski as multilevelness, is characterized by a conscious comparison of, and evaluation of, what is lower versus what is higher. Eventually, this vertical analysis comes to influence one’s reactions and behavior. Dąbrowski believed that if an authentic individual is able to see the higher alternative in comparison to the lower, he or she would choose the higher.

⚃ Reality and our perception of reality can be differentiated into a hierarchy of levels.

⚃ The reality that each person perceives reflects their given level of development.

⚃ Psychological functions go through both quantitative and qualitative changes in the course of development.

⚃ These changes allow people to differentiate higher, more developed levels from lower, earlier, less developed levels.

⚃ The shift from unilevelness to multilevelness represents a fundamental qualitative change in the perception of reality of an individual.

⚃ Differentiation of these lower and higher levels constitutes a multilevel view – this is fundamental to Dąbrowski’s conception of mental health and of development.

⚃ “Lower levels of functions are characterized by automatism, impulsiveness, stereotypy, egocentrism, lack or low degree of consciousness. …
≻ Higher levels of functions show distinct consciousness, inner psychic transformation, autonomousness, creativity” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 297).

⚃ “By higher level of psychic development we mean a behavior which is more complex, more conscious and having greater freedom of choice, hence greater opportunity for self-determination” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 70).

⚃ Multilevelness: “Division of functions into different levels, for instance, the spinal, subcortical, and cortical levels in the nervous system. Individual perception of many levels of external and internal reality appears at a certain stage of development, here called multilevel disintegration” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 298).

⚃ “It appears obvious that the ability to understand and to successfully apply the concept of multilevelness depends upon the development of personality of the individual” (Dąbrowski, 1973, p. x).

⚃ Unilevelness: “unilevelness;” that is to say, the absence of the dynamisms of hierarchization of oneself into “lower” and “higher,” more and less developed elements which are closer to or distant from one’s personality (Dąbrowski, 1973, p. 43).

⚃ “In the theory of positive disintegration we distinguish various levels of development of emotional and instinctive functions. The level of these functions determines the level of values. The concept of hierarchy of values is based on the distinction of levels of emotional and instinctive development of individuals as well as social groups. We hold the opinion that it is possible to obtain in valuation a degree of objectivity comparable to that of scientific theories. It is characteristic that, for instance, moral judgments made by individuals representing a very high level of universal mental development display a very high degree of agreement” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 92).

⚃ “The qualitative and quantitative differences which appear in mental functions as a result of developmental changes. Lower levels of functions are characterized by automatism, impulsiveness, stereotypy, egocentrism, lack or low degree of consciousness” (Dąbrowski, 1972, pp. 297-298).

⚃ “The developmental sequences of positive disintegration are non-ontogenetic. They are measured in terms of levels attained in the course of development which has no distinct time schedule … The levels of development are, therefore, a non-ontogenetic evolutionary scale” (Dąbrowski, 1996, p. 23).

⚃ “The developmental transformations are characterized by a transition from unilevelness to multilevelness, from ahierarchic to hierarchic structures, from a narrow to a broad understanding of reality, entailing the capacity for reflecting on one’s past history (retrospection) and for envisaging future conflicts with one-self and tasks of one’s personal growth (prospection)” (Dąbrowski, 1996, p. 26).

⚄ Definition: “An integration of all mental functions into a cohesive structure controlled by primitive drives” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 302).

⚄ “Individuals with some degree of primitive integration comprise the majority of society” (Dąbrowski, 1964,p. 4).

⚄ “Among normal primitively integrated people, different degrees of cohesion of psychic structure can be distinguished” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 66).

⚄ “Psychopathy represents a primitive structure of impulses, integrated at a low level” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 73).

⚄ “The first stage, called primitive or primary integration, is characterized by mental structures and functions of a low level; they are automatic and impulsive, determined by primitive, innate drives. At this stage, intelligence neither controls nor transforms basic drives. It is used in a purely, instrumental way, so as to supply the means towards the ends determined by primitive drives” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 21).

⚄ “PRIMITIVE INTEGRATION, or primary integration, an integration of mental functions, subordinated to primitive drives (cf.). There is no hierarchy of instincts; their prevalence depends entirely on their momentary greater intensity. Intelligence is used only as a tool, completely subservient to primitive urges, without any transformative role. Interest and adaptation are limited to the satisfaction of primitive desires. There is no inner psychic milieu, no mental transformation of stimuli, no inner conflicts” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 176).

⚄ [Comment: In primary integration reactions are based primarily on stimuli and there is little psychological intervention between the stimulus and the response.
≻ Responses are based primarily upon instinctual factors and socially ingrained responses.
≻ People learn socially appropriate behavior, for example, one learns that when sitting listening to a funeral eulogy, one does not laugh.
≻ Let me provide an illustration from a hypothetical movie. I'm sitting in an aisle seat when beside me, in the dark, an older woman stumbles and spills her popcorn. At first several people laugh and, for an instant, I catch myself laughing along. However, I quickly see the situation and inhibit my laughter and get up to help the lady who has fallen. The man in front of me continues to laugh and turns to his partner and says, look at that clumsy fool.”
≻ In primary integration there is no inner psychic milieu to process the stimulus in order to arrive at an appropriate behavioral response.
≻ There is no internal mechanism to inhibit lower responses or to replace lower responses with higher ones.
≻ By nature, lower responses tend to be instinctual, automatic, socially based and immediate.
≻ Higher responses need the intervention of an internal thought process.
≻ The stimulus literally must be filtered through one’s personality and in this way, the behavioral response will reflect the individual’s unique personality ideal.]

⚄ “A primitively integrated individual spends his life in the pursuit of satisfying his basic needs. He is controlled by the integrated structure of his instincts, and his intelligence is in their service. He responds to social influence only as a measure of self-preservation. There are no internal conflicts. Mental disorders are characterized by lack of response to social influence, i.e. other individuals are perceived and used as objects” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 111).

⚄ “Among the first symptoms of disintegration are increased sensitivity to internal stimuli, vague feelings of disquietude, ambivalences and ambitendencies, various forms of disharmony and, gradually, the appearance of nuclei of hierarchization. This process of hierarchic differentiation applies to both the external stimuli and to one’s own mental structure. At the beginning this hierarchization is very weak. There is a continuous vacillation of ‘pros’ and ‘cons,’ no clear direction ‘up’ or ‘down.’” (Dąbrowski, 1970, pp. 21-22).

⚄ “Prolonged states of unilevel disintegration (level II) end either in a reintegration at the former primitive level or in suicidal tendencies, or in a psychosis” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 135).

⚄ “protracted and recurrent conflicts between drives and emotional states of a similar developmental level and of the same intensity, e.g. states of ambivalence and ambitendency, propulsion toward and repulsion from the same object, rapidly changing states of joy and sadness, excitement and depression without the tendency towards stabilization within a hierarchy” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 165).

⚄ “It [unilevel disintegration] consists of disintegrative processes occurring as if on a single structural level. There is disintegration but no differentiation of levels of emotional or intellectual control. Unilevel disintegration begins with the loosening of the cohesive and rigid structure of primary integration. There is hesitation, doubt, ambivalence, increased sensitivity to internal stimuli, fluctuations of mood, excitations and depressions, vague feelings of disquietude, various forms of mental and psychosomatic disharmony. There is ambitendency of action, either changing from one direction to another, or being unable to decide which course to take and letting the decision fall to chance, or a whim of like or dislike. Thinking has a circular character of argument for argument’s sake. Externality is still quite strong. Nuclei of hierarchization may gradually appear weakly differentiating events in the external milieu and in the internal milieu [inner psychic milieu] but still there is continual vacillation between “pros” and “cons” with no clear direction out of the vicious circle. Internal conflicts are unilevel and often superficial. When they are severe and engage deeper emotional structures the individual often sees himself caught in a “no exit” situation. Severe mental disorders are associated with unilevel developmental structure” (Dąbrowski, 1996, p. 18).

⚄ “the time of the appearance of such developmental dynamisms as astonishment with oneself, disquietude with oneself, dissatisfaction with oneself, feelings of shame and guilt, feeling of inferiority toward oneself. The individual searches not only for novelty, but for something higher; he searches for examples and models in his external environment and in himself. He starts to feel the difference between a higher and a lower level. We can notice the formation of the critical awareness of oneself and other people, awareness of one’s ‘essence’ as it arises from one’s existence. Spontaneous multilevel disintegration is the crucial period of positive, developmental transformations” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 22).

⚄ “characterized by a relative predominance of spontaneous developmental forces” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 165).

⚄ “Internal experiential factors begin to control behavior more and more, wavering is replaced by a growing sense of ‘what ought to be” as opposed to ‘what is’ in one’s personality structure. Internal conflicts are numerous and reflect a hierarchical organization of cognitive and emotional life: ‘what is’ against ‘what ought to be’ (Dąbrowski, 1996, p. 19).

⚄ “Spontaneous multilevel disintegration is a crucial period for positive, i.e. developmental transformations. The loosening and disintegration of the inner psychic milieu occurs at higher and lower strata at the same time. This means that the whole personality structure is affected by this process” (Dąbrowski, 1996, p. 19).

⚄ “exhibits more tranquility, systematization and conscious transformation of oneself. The developmental dynamisms which distinctly appear at this stage are: “subject-object” in oneself; the third factor, self-awareness and self-control, identification and empathy, education of oneself and autopsychotherapy. The ideal of personality takes more distinct contours and becomes closer to the individuals. There is a pronounced growth of empathy” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 22).

⚄ “organized (self-directed), as it is in the period of conscious organization and direction of the processes of disintegration towards secondary integration and personality” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 165).

⚄ “While tensions and conflicts are not as strong as at the previous level, autonomy and internal hierarchy of values and aims are much stronger and much more clearly developed. The ideal of personality becomes more distinct and closer. There is a pronounced growth of empathy as one of the dominants of behavior and development” (Dąbrowski, 1996, p. 19).

⚄ “consists in a new organization and harmonization of personality. The main dynamism active at this stage are: autonomy and authentism, disposing and directing center on a high level, a subtle highly refined empathy, activation of the personality ideal. The relationship of ‘I’ and ‘Thou’ takes on a new dimension. There appears a growing need to transcend the sensory, ‘verifiable’ reality toward the empirical reality which can be attained through intuition, contemplation, and ecstasy rather than through the senses” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 22).

⚄ Definition: “the integration of all mental functions into a harmonious structure controlled by higher emotions such as the dynamism of personality ideal, autonomy and authenticity” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 304).

⚄ “marks a new organization and harmonization of personality. Disintegrative activities arise only in retrospection. Personality ideal is the dominant dynamism in close union with empathy, and the activation of the ideal. The relationship of “I” and “Thou” takes on the dimension of an absolute relationship on the level of transcendental empiricism” (Dąbrowski, 1996, p. 19).

⚃ Dąbrowski described a complex, genetically based, constellation of instincts, dynamisms and other characteristics that he called developmental potential.
≻ He believed that strong positive developmental potential could overcome lower (animal) instinctual influences and socialization and contribute to advanced development.

⚃ Dąbrowski included several complex and interrelated components in describing developmental potential, including; the three factors of development, dynamisms, psychoneuroses, positive disintegration, emergent, internal features of self (including the hierarchy of values, inner psychic milieu, personality ideal, the disposing and directing center, etc.), and instincts (including the developmental instinct, creative instinct, and the instinct for self-perfection).

⚃ Although Dąbrowski identified the third factor as one method to assess developmental potential, no test or measure of this factor has yet been developed and none of the subsequent literature on overexcitability has included the third factor as a component.

⚃ Dąbrowski also linked developmental potential with the presence of psychoneuroses, an early and necessary early step in development.

⚃ The sequence of transformations “occur only if the developmental forces are sufficiently strong and not impeded by unfavorable external circumstances. This is, however, rarely the case. The number of people who complete the full course of development and attain the level of secondary integration is limited. A vast majority of people either do not break down their primitive integration at all, or after a relatively short period of disintegration, usually experienced at the time of adolescence and early youth, end in a reintegration at the former level or in partial integration of some of the functions at slightly higher levels, without a transformation of the whole mental structure” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 4).

⚃ “The developmental instinct acts against the automatic, limited, and primitive functional patterns of the biological cycle of life” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 28).

⚃ Strong developmental potential causes an individual to rebel “against the common determining factors in his external environment” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 32).

⚃ “The individual with a rich developmental potential rebels against the common determining factors in his external environment” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 32).

⚃ “If the developmental potential is distinctly positive or negative, the influence of the environment is less important. If the developmental potential does not exhibit any distinct quality, the influence of the environment is important and it may go in either direction. If the developmental potential is weak or difficult to specify, the influence of the environment may prove decisive, positively or negatively” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 34).

⚃ “Innate developmental potentials may be more general or more specific, more positive or more negative” and may be strong, equivocal or weak (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 33).

⚃ “It is the task of therapy to convince the patient of the developmental potential that is contained in his psychoneurotic processes. Obviously, to achieve that one has to show him this clearly and precisely on the concrete creative and ‘pathological’ dynamisms that are active in his case” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. viii). Thus, the presence of psychoneurotic dynamisms can be taken as another measurable sign of developmental potential.

⚃ Strong developmental potential (either positive or negative) is expressed regardless of the environment. Mild developmental potential may not be expressed unless the environment is optimal, if the potential is “not universal and of weak tension,” the “environmental influence is to a very great degree responsible for the path which will be taken” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 12).

⚃ “The relations and interactions between the different components of the developmental potential give shape to individual development and control the appearance of psychoneuroses on different levels of development” Dąbrowski (1972, p. 78).

⚃ People with strong developmental potential “must have much more time for a deep, creative development and that is why [you] will be growing for a long time. This is a very common phenomenon among creative people. Simply, they have such a great developmental potential, ‘they have the stuff to develop’ and that is why it takes them longer to give it full expression” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 272).

⚃ Definition: “The constitutional endowment which determines the character and the extent of mental growth possible for a given individual” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 293).

⚃ Dąbrowski selected three aspects he felt could be used to assess developmental potential. “Developmental potential can be assessed on the basis of the following components: psychic overexcitability, special abilities and talents, and autonomous factors (notably the third factor)” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 293).

⚃ “No experiences, no shocks, no breakdowns will trigger growth if the embryo of what is to develop is not there” (Cienin [Dąbrowski], 1972a, p. 38).

⚃ “The whole process of transformation of primitive drives and impulsive functions into more reflective and refined functions occurs under the influence of evolutionary dynamisms which we call the developmental instinct” (Dąbrowski, 1973, p. 22).

⚃ “The developmental potential can be limited to the first and the second factors only. In that case we are dealing with individuals who throughout their life remain in the grip of social opinion and their own psychological typology (e.g. social climbers, fame seekers, those who say ‘I was born that way’ or ‘I am the product of my past’ and do not conceive of changing)” (Dąbrowski, 1996, pp. 14-15).

⚃ “The first factor is in most part the genetic endowment that an individual inherits from his parents plus all lasting effects of pregnancy, birth defects, nutrition, drugs, etc. The second factor represents the influences of the external environment, mainly family and social milieu. The third factor represents the autonomous forces of self-directed development. In this sense the term “third factor” is used to denote the totality of the autonomous forces. In a stricter sense of a dynamism, the third factor is the agent of conscious choice in development. The third factor assumes gradually an essential part in human destiny and becomes the dominant dynamism of multilevel disintegration” (Dąbrowski, 1970, pp. 72-73).

⚃ The developmental potential can be limited to the first and the second factors only. In that case we are dealing with individuals who throughout their life remain in the grip of social opinion and their own psychological typology (e.g. social climbers, fame seekers, those who say “I was born that way” or “I am the product of my past” and do not conceive of changing). External influences from groups or individuals shape their behavior but not necessarily in a stable fashion. Changing influences shift the patterns of behavior or can deprive it of any pattern altogether. Autonomous developmental factors do not appear, and if they do only briefly, they do not take hold. (Dąbrowski, 1996, pp. 14-15).

⚃ The developmental potential may have its full complement of all three sets of factors. In that case the individual consciously struggles to overcome his social indoctrination and constitutional typology (e.g. a strongly introverted person works to reduce his tendency to withdraw by seeking contacts with others in a more frequent and satisfying fashion). Such a person becomes aware of his own development and his own autonomous hierarchy of values. He becomes more and more inner-directed. (Dąbrowski, 1996, p. 15).

⚃ There is thus an important difference between the first two factors of development and the third. The first two factors allow only for external motivation, while the third is a factor of internal motivation in behavior and development. (Dąbrowski, 1996, p. 15).

⚄ When “push comes to shove,” individuals primarily influenced by factor I will respond based upon their biological/instinctual needs, not social mores or social expectations, and not by an inherently unique and autonomous set of values reflecting a unique personality/approach to life. These individuals will have their own strivings, thoughts and feelings that will reflect the egocentrism and self-serving nature of factor I – the basic and fundamental satisfaction of one’s own basic and instinctual needs over anything else.

⚄ The first factor plays a critical role in setting parameters and potentials for future development. “Our personality is shaped throughout our lives; our inborn characteristics constitute the basis determining our potential for inner growth” (Dąbrowski, 1967, p. iv).

⚄ The second factor represents the influences of the external environment, mainly family and social milieu. (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 72).

⚄ Overview:
≻ The third factor represents “the totality of all autonomous forces” expressed as a feeling one must discover, evaluate, and develop one’s deep essence or character.
≻ This evaluation leads to an image of one’s personality ideal – of one’s ideal self.
≻ The third factor moves the individual towards values and behaviours that reflect how things “ought to be” based on this unique self-evaluation and personality ideal.
≻ The third factor is central; “Along with inborn properties and the influence of environment, it is the ‘third factor’ that determines the direction, degree, and distance of man’s development” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 53).

⚄ The third factor is the dynamism of conscious choice by which an individual develops and exercises autonomy in expressing their unique personality characteristics. The third factor has a genetic basis but, as it develops, it becomes an emergent and autonomous force, transcending its genetic origins.

⚄ As third factor develops, it compels us to make choices that express our authentic self; seeking what is “more me” and rejecting aspects that are “less me.”

⚄ “As more intensive development of the personality occurs, and the disposing and directing center rises to a superior level, the third factor begins to play a greater role in development than does heredity or social environment. As we know, the third factor is an instrumental dynamism of man. Besides taking a negative or affirmative position with regard to one’s own behavior, this factor takes a fundamental part in all periods of transformation in which new values replace old ones in the process of the complication and evolution of conscious life. The actions of choice, of negation and affirmation, with regard to the internal and external environment are very closely connected to the feeling of inferiority. In emotional experience, a negative attitude is regarded as inferior and an affirmative attitude is felt to be superior. The third factor constantly participates in all experiences of comparison of the personality ideal with the structure of the disposing and directing center, and with the direction and level of conduct in everyday life. The feeling of distance of this ideal from present activities determines the activity of the third factor and its support or disapproval of present pursuits” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 48).

⚄ “Along with inborn properties and the influence of environment, it is the “third factor” that determines the direction, degree, and distance of man’s development. This dynamic evaluates and approves or disapproves of tendencies of the interior environment and of the influences of the external environment. It cooperates with the inner disposing and directing center in the formation of higher levels of individuality” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 53).

⚄ “The appearance and growth of the third agent is to some degree dependent on the inherited abilities and on environmental experiences, but as it develops it achieves an independence from these factors and through conscious differentiation and self-definition takes its own position in determining the course of development of personality” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 54).

⚄ “The principal periods during which the third agent appears distinctly are the ages of puberty and maturation” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 56).

⚄ “During the period of puberty, young people become aware of the sense of life and discover a need to develop personal goals and to find the tools for realizing them. The emergence of these problems and the philosophizing on them, with the participation of an intense emotional component, are characteristic features of a strong instinct of development and of the individual’s rise to a higher evolutionary level” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 56).

⚄ “In the common course of maturation a “premature” integration of mental structures occurs based on “the desire to gain a position, to become distinguished, to possess property, and to establish a family” and that “the more the integration of the mental structure grows, the more the influence of the third agent weakens. The third agent may even pass away altogether. The third agent persists – indeed, it only develops – in individuals who manifest an increased mental excitability and have at least mild forms of psychoneuroses…. The persisting and growing force of the third agent in adults appears simultaneously with the protraction of the period of maturation, with all of its positive and some of its negative qualities. This extension of the maturation period is clearly accompanied by a strong instinct of development, great creative capacities, a tendency to reach for perfection, and the appearance and development of self-consciousness, self-affirmation, and self-education” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 57).

⚄ “The third factor appears embryonically in unilevel disintegration, but its principal domain is multilevel disintegration. Disintegration activities are related to the activities of the third agent, which judges, approves and disapproves, makes a choice, and confirms certain exterior and interior values. It is, therefore, an integral and basic part of multilevel disintegration” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 59).

⚄ “The appearance and development of the third agent parallels the organization and establishment of the disposing and directing center on a higher level and the distinct formation and steady growth of the personality ideal. The third agent draws its dynamics and purpose from the disposing and directing center and the personality ideal; in turn, it plays an essential part in the development of both of them” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 60).

⚄ “We can only suppose that the autonomous factors derive from hereditary developmental potential and from positive environmental conditions; they are shaped by influences from both. However, the autonomous forces do not derive exclusively from hereditary and environment, but are also determined by the conscious development of the individual himself” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 34).

⚄ “All such autonomous factors, taken together, form the strongest group of causal dynamisms in the development of man. They denote the transition from that which is primitive, instinctive, automatic to that which is deliberate, creative and conscious, from that which is primitively integrated to that which manifests multilevel disintegration … from that which ‘is’ to that which ‘ought to be’ … The autonomous factors form the strongest dynamisms of transition from emotions of a low level to emotions of a high level” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 35).

⚄ “The third factor represents the autonomous forces of self-directed development. In this sense the term “third factor” is used to denote the totality of the autonomous forces. In a stricter sense of a dynamism the third factor is the agent of conscious choice in development. The third factor assumes gradually an essential part in human destiny and becomes the dominant dynamism of multilevel disintegration. It is a dynamism that coordinates the inner psychic milieu” (Dąbrowski, 1970, pp. 72-73).

⚄ [Comment: Dąbrowski uses self consciousness in a relatively traditional way.
≻ The development of internal psychological structures and self-consciousness go hand in hand, thus development is associated with increasing levels of self-consciousness.
≻ At its pinnacle, self-consciousness synergistically develops with personality shaping.
≻ One’s personality ideal shapes the direction and intensity of one’s self-consciousness.
≻ Likewise, acute self-consciousness contributes to the process of personality shaping and development.]

⚄ “The third factor is independent from and selective with regard to heredity (the first factor), and environment (the second factor). Its selective role consists in accepting and fostering or rejecting and restraining qualities, interests and desires, which one finds either in one’s hereditary endowment or in one’s social environment. Thus the third factor being a dynamism of conscious choice is a dynamism of valuation. The third factor has a fundamental role in education-of-oneself, and in autopsychotherapy. Its presence and operation is essential in the development toward autonomy and authenticity. It arises and grows as a resultant of both positive hereditary endowment (especially the ability for inner psychic transformation) and positive environmental influences” (Dąbrowski, 1970, pp. 178-179).

⚄ The third factor involves a process of “conscious choice (valuation) by which one affirms or rejects certain qualities in oneself and in one’s environment” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 306).

⚄ “At the roots of the third factor are the ability to distinguish between lower and higher mental strata” (Dąbrowski, 1973, p. 77).

⚄ “It is not easy to strictly define the origin of the third factor, because, in the last [traditional] analysis, it must stem either from the hereditary endowment or from the environment” (Dąbrowski, 1973, p. 78).

⚄ “According to the [TPD], the third factor arises in the course of an increasingly conscious, self-determined, autonomous and authentic development” (Dąbrowski, 1973, p. 78).

⚄ “The genesis of the third factor should be associated with the very development with which it is combined in the self-consciousness of the individual in the process of becoming more myself”; i.e., it is combined with the vertical differentiation of mental functions (Dąbrowski, 1973, p. 78).

⚄ “This approach is close to some of the ideas of Henri Bergson (1859-1941) who maintained that more can be found in the effects than in the causes” (Dąbrowski, 1973, p. 78).

⚄ “The third factor is a dynamism active at the stage of organized multilevel disintegration. Its activity is autonomous in relation to the first factor (hereditary) and the second (environment)” (Dąbrowski, 1973, p. 80).

⚄ “The third set of factors represents those autonomous processes which a person brings into his development, such as inner conflict, self-awareness, choice and decision in relation to personal growth, conscious inner psychic transformation, subject-object in oneself. When the autonomous factors emerge, self-determination becomes possible, but not before” (Dąbrowski, 1996, p. 14).

⚄ [The third factor] “A dynamism of conscious choice by which one sets apart both in oneself and in one’s environment those elements which are positive, and therefore considered higher, from those which are negative, and therefore considered lower. By this process a person denies and rejects inferior demands of the internal as well as of the external milieu, and accepts, affirms and selects positive elements in either milieu” (Dąbrowski, 1996, pp. 38-39).

⚃ Types of development and the factors: Heteronomous versus autonomous. “There are two qualitatively different types of mental life: the heteronomous, determined by biological or environmental factors, and the autonomous, self-conscious, self-determined, and self-controlled mental development of man consists essentially in the transition to and deepening of the second type of life” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 11).

⚃ “‘Normal’ development. By this we mean a type of development which is most common and which entails the least amount of inner conflict and of psychological transformation. Development is limited to the maturational stages of human life and to the innate psychological type of the individual” (Dąbrowski, 1996, p. 20).

⚃ “One-sided development. Individuals endowed with special talents but lacking multilevel developmental potential realize their development mainly as a function of their ability and creativity. Such creativity, however, lacks universal components. Only some emotional and intellectual potentials develop very well while the rest remains undeveloped, in fact, it appears lacking” (Dąbrowski, 1996, p. 22).

⚃ “‘Normal’ and one-sided development are controlled primarily by the first two sets of factors, i.e. constitution and the environment” (Dąbrowski, 1996, p. 22).

⚃ “Universal or accelerated development. When all essential cognitive and emotional functions develop with relatively equal intensity and with relatively equal rate then development manifests strong multilevel character. The individual develops his potential simultaneously in intellectual, instinctive, emotional, aesthetic and moral areas. Such development manifests strong and multiple forms of overexcitability. But above all it distinctly manifests the individual’s awareness and conscious engagement in his own development. Here the autonomous developmental factors carry out the most extensive process of psychic transformation” (Dąbrowski, 1996, p. 21).

⚃ “Accelerated development is controlled primarily by the third, i.e. autonomous, set of factors. The stronger the autonomous factors the more resistant is development to the environment. This points to an important feature of accelerated development; it proceeds in opposition and conflict with the first and the second factor” (Dąbrowski, 1996, p. 22).

⚄ Dąbrowski examined essentialism and existentialism and felt that neither approach was fully satisfactory, so he proposed a combination using essence as the primary aspect but also utilizing the role of free will and self-choice: the individual’s conscious involvement in their own development.
≻ Dąbrowski called this amalgamation the existentio-essentialist compound.

⚄ “the two great philosophical trends essentialism and existentialism are reconciled and synthesized in a new way. It is not important whether we call this philosophical synthesis an essentialist existentialism or an existentialist essentialism. The significant thing is the transcendence of those existentialist viewpoints which one-sidedly stressed the aspect of becoming in man with total disregard for the aspect of being and ended in obsessive concern with nothingness and despair. The new synthesis questions one of the basic tenets of existentialism, namely its claim that man has continuously to choose himself. In opposition to this Dąbrowski points out that certain choices are final and have lasting value” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 16).

⚄ “Those central, unchanging, essential qualities constitute the essence of man and, from the time of the formation and development of this ‘essence,’ the genuine, authentic existence of man begins. Then, and only then, the existentio-essentialist compound, characteristic of human beings, takes shape” (Dąbrowski, 1973, pp. 129-130).

⚄ “To be essentialist is to treat objects as if they ‘have essences or underlying natures that make them the thing that they are’ (Medin, 1989), and to treat them as if they have properties that result from these essences” (Barrett, 2001, p. 3).

⚄ Dąbrowski described two types of essences; one’s personality (individual essence) and the preservation of the central qualities of other persons (common essence).

⚄ “Essence is more important than existence for the birth of a truly human being” (Cienin [Dąbrowski], 1972a, p. 11).

⚄ “A true existentialism must be at the same time an individual existentialism, in the sense of emotional essence. … If I am an individual, if I have needs for identification, development and empathy, if I want to be unique, unrepeatable, if I want the same for others – that is to say, I want to see them as separate and unrepeatable – my essence must be emotional. … Essence is a value which I would not renounce because it determines the meaning of my life. Should I have to choose between existence without it and nonexistence, I would choose the second. It is emotional essence which gives the meaning to existence. … So the human being is not a homo sapiens but homo emotionalis, in, of course, the sense of higher emotions, feelings” (Cienin [Dąbrowski], 1972b, pp. 72-73)

⚄ “Personality can be described as a self-aware, self-chosen, self-affirmed, and self-determined unity of essential psychic qualities, of fundamental individual and universal “essences.” With the achievement of personality these essences continue to undergo quantitative changes but not qualitative changes. These basic qualities or universal essences are: autonomy, empathy, authentism, responsibility. The individual essences (qualities) are: (a) exclusive, unique, unrepeatable relationships of love and friendship; (b) consciously realized, chosen and realized primary interests and talents; (c) self-awareness of the history of one’s own development and identification with this awareness” (Dąbrowski, 1972, pp. 180-181).

⚄ “By the essence of a human individual we mean those basic features of developing man which are self-conscious, self-chosen and self-educated” (Dąbrowski, 1973, p. 92).

⚄ For Dąbrowski, essence is critical in personality: “from the standpoint of human problems, or particularly, the modern man, essence is not less important or posterior to existence, but possibly is more important in the personality of man” (Dąbrowski, 1973, p. 129).

⚄ “Authentism signifies the realization that the experience of essence, i.e. of the meaning and value of human experience, is more fundamental than the experience of existence” (Dąbrowski, 1996, p. 42).

⚄ Dąbrowski said that the challenge of individual growth is the construction and creation of a personality based on one’s idealization of one’s personality.
≻ But, this construction must take place using the original essential material present at birth and as he emphasizes, this construction cannot be so broad as to permit qualitative changes to this original material or essence.

⚄ “Personality includes that which is unrepeatable, unique, essential, exclusive in human experience and in the structure of personality. Its basic central qualities are shaped from the time of its ‘birth’ and they do not undergo qualitative changes. Other qualities of some importance, but always somewhat marginal, may be added in further development. However, they could never replace the basic, central, essential qualities” (Dąbrowski, 1973, p. 129).

⚄ Dąbrowski was influenced by the philosophers Kierkegaard, Jaspers and Nietzsche who “considered the role of making free choices, particularly regarding fundamental values and beliefs, and how such choices change the nature and identity of the chooser.
≻ Kierkegaard’s knight of faith and Nietzsche’s Übermensch are representative of people who exhibit Freedom, in that they define the nature of their own existence.
≻ Nietzsche’s idealized individual invents his or her own values and creates the very terms under which they excel” (“Existentialism,” n.d., 19th century Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, para. 1).

⚄ It’s not enough for an individual’s essence to unfold, it must be consciously evaluated and developed – the lower aspects inhibited, the higher embraced – this ability is what differentiates humans from animals.

⚄ “Existentialist philosophy is an expression of the experiences of pain, suffering, depression, elevation, empathy, and above all, disquietude and anxiety. Here man goes beyond the tranquility of thought, of reasoning by means of abstract ideas. He lives and suffers; he, feels and experiences pain, disintegration, distraction and inner conflicts” (Dąbrowski, 1973, p. 128).

⚄ “The existentialist cannot be mentally defective, cannot be mentally sick. The existentialist is the symbol mental health, and hence of capacity for accelerated development. He is none other than a highly developed psychoneurotic” (Cienin [Dąbrowski], 1972a, p. 8).

⚃ For Dąbrowski, an individual whose behavior, thoughts and emotions are based primarily upon socialization is largely undeveloped – an inauthentic individual lacking any unique personality.
≻ Personality is a creation (reminiscent of Nietzsche’s approach).
≻ Authenticity is marked by a high degree of integration and unity in expressing one’s unique and autonomously developed personality.
≻ Personality is guided by an individual’s sense of who he or she ought to be –
≻≻ Dąbrowski called this personality ideal.
≻ Authenticity is the expression of one’s personality ideal.

⚃ As would be expected, Dąbrowski used a multilevel approach to authenticity.
≻ Thus, on a low-level one can be governed by first factor and instincts and one could be called an authentic but very low-level individual.
≻ I think by definition, Dąbrowski would say that the individual governed by second factor would not reflect authentic behavior on either low or high levels.

⚃ “It is one of the basic assumptions of the theory of positive disintegration that valuation when it expresses only the point of view of a culture, is unauthentic and unobjective” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 11).

⚃ “This means that in the process of fulfilling basic needs, there should remain some dissatisfaction to make room for introducing conditions which would permit the realization of human authenticity, and under which appears and matures awareness of and sensitivity to the meaning of life, to existential, and even transcendental concerns, hierarchies of values, intuition, even contemplation” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 36).

⚃ “No genuine mental conflicts, that is to say, conflicts involving self-consciousness and authenticity, can be solved by any means other than the individual’s conscious effort and inner growth” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 119).

⚃ “The road towards an independent authentic hierarchy of values is certainly very difficult, but it must be made clear that there is no other safe method open to man, because even the best system of moral norms does not work in practice, if its assimilation is not authentic and does not involve genuine inner psychic transformation. The idea of indiscriminate social adjustment, adaptation to what is, conformity to prevailing social standards, has to be replaced by qualified adjustment and, where necessary, positive maladjustment” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 120).

⚃ “Authentic life is, therefore, the grasp of the ‘drama of human existence’ in its growth, by taking into account its joy and suffering, its harmonies and conflicts, its tragedy and death, love and separation, development and breakdown. Authentic life is impossible without the search for a higher hierarchy of values, without close cooperation of intellectual and emotional spheres, without responsibility and a hierarchy of aims. Authentic life implies an understanding of others and involvement in their lives. This involvement comes from the development of empathy, and a correct diagnosis of the level of development of other people” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 144).

⚃ “Growing autonomy is the foundation of authenticity. Authenticity is possible only on the basis of a sufficiently developed autonomy, but it includes something more, namely the conscious understanding of one’s own identity, unrepeatability, uniqueness and responsibility. Authenticity is attainable only, if the individual is open to a wide range of experiences and capable of transforming them in a positive and creative way. … Autonomy and authenticity are connected with the need for a realization of “moral self-determination” in so far as the individual determines his own values, rather than having them determined by innate biological forces or social environment” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 145).

⚃ “As a developmental force it is called here authentism, a dynamism which consists in the feeling awareness and expression of one’s own emotional, intellectual and volitional attitudes, achieved through autonomous developmental transformations of one’s own hierarchy of values and aims. It involves a high degree of insight into oneself. Authenticity is a symptom of independence from lower instinctive levels and selective independence from influences of the external environment and the inner psychic milieu. It brings about a high degree of unity of one’s thinking, emotions and activity. Authentism involves conscious activity in accordance with one’s “inner truth.” The appearance and growth of authentism results from the operation of such dynamisms as dissatisfaction with oneself, (cf.), autonomy, (cf.) the third factor, (cf.) positive maladjustment, (cf.) ‘subject-object’ in oneself (cf.) inner psychic transformation and the personality ideal” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 163).

⚃ “A true and human authentism exists, therefore, only when a breakdown of man’s structures and functions occurs, when one is upset or disrupted. This disruption is closely connected with the clear awareness of our similarities to the world of animal drives and with the added awareness of the need to became a true human being. … This disruption, this “inner crying” and humiliation are the symptoms of authentism. We move away from rigidity, away from the feeling of dignity, pride and ambition. We begin to experience sadness in spite of and because of ourselves, humiliation in relation to ourselves, the feeling of inferiority toward ourselves: we begin to manifest disquietude within ourselves and the awareness that we are dying to ourselves” (Cienin [Dąbrowski], 1972b, pp. 23-24)

⚃ “As a matter of fact, in the world of normal people there is almost no developed authentism because it would be something aggressive, too big a jump from the automatized, adjusted structure” (Cienin [Dąbrowski], 1972b, p. 84)

⚃ Personality: “A self-aware, self-chosen, self-affirmed, and self-determined unity of essential individual psychic qualities. Personality as defined here appears at the level of secondary-integration” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 301).

⚃ “Authentism is acquired through deep and grave life experiences, inner conflicts and unceasing efforts. Therefore, the methods or aids in planning development and self-education must be based on authentic values, placed in our hierarchy of values, progressing from the lowest to the highest level of authentism” (Dąbrowski, 1973, p. 93).

⚃ “Personality includes that which is unrepeatable, unique, essential, exclusive in human experience and in the structure of personality. Its basic central qualities are shaped from the time of its “birth” and they do not undergo qualitative changes. Other qualities of some importance, but always somewhat marginal, may be added in further development. However, they could never replace the basic, central, essential qualities” (Dąbrowski, 1973, p. 129).

⚃ Overview:
≻ The theory seeks to understand the forces – the dynamics that motivate behaviour.
≻ Dąbrowski defined dynamisms as biological or mental forces that control behavior and its development. Instincts, drives, and intellectual processes combined with emotions are dynamisms.
≻ Using the multilevel approach, Dąbrowski described lower and higher dynamisms.
≻≻ Dąbrowski described some 20 dynamisms that influence development and behaviour.

⚃ Traditionally, dynamisms are associated with systems of psychology that emphasize the interaction between different motives, emotions, and drives.

⚃ “A dynamic psychology considers mental experience and behavior as a function of the interaction of motivational, affective, and cognitive variables of different degrees of intensity or strength. There have been a variety of theories in the history of psychology that fall under the rubric of dynamic psychology. These theories, which have waned in influence in the past half-century, include general systems theory, behaviorist theories (e.g., Hull), Lewin’s field theory, cognitive dissonance theory (Festinger), family systems theories, Henry Murray’s need-press theory, and a variety of psychodynamic theories (e.g., Freud, Adler, Rank, Horney, Sullivan). Although differing in important respects, these theories have in common a focus on the intensity and direction of motivational forces and conflicts involved in adaptive and maladaptive goal-directed behavior. For example, approach-avoidance conflicts involve the dynamic interaction of competing needs, motives, fears, and goals” (Wolitzky, 2010).

⚃ Dąbrowski was influenced by Constantin von Monakow, a Russian-Swiss neurologist.
≻ von Monakow presented a number of very metaphysical ideas to describe Nature, and in particular, human behavior.
≻ von Monakow suggested that every cell contains “the germ of emotions” that guides life toward a purposeful cosmos (Verplaetse, 2009).

⚃ von Monakow “gave the name horme to the impulse that drove creation to flourish and towards perfection, what Schopenhauer called Wille (will power).
≻ He went back to the Greek term for conscience, i.e. syneidesis, to denominate the regulating power of each organism.
≻ By Klisis (positive feedback) or Ekklisis (negative feedback), this biological conscience (this natural judge or cosmic compass-von Monakow’s metaphors were inexhaustible) regulated the behaviour of all living organisms according to the teleological blueprint of the world.
≻ This syneidesis was latently active in the protoplasm.
≻ In higher animal species, conscience manifested itself in approving or disapproving emotions, but only in human beings did it develop into a complete moral consciousness.
≻ To von Monakow, justice was not at all a cultural matter; it also had its seat in the germplasm of each human individual” (Verplaetse, 2009, p. 140).

⚃ “Emotions were a guide to the whole of nature and human behavior in particular. Painful emotions censured certain intentions and types of behavior; pleasant emotions confirmed other intentions and types of behavior” (Verplaetse, 2009, p. 139).
≻ This biological sense of emotional regulation (orchestrated via a system of hormones) becomes conscious moral feelings of remorse and delight in humans, as mentioned above, developing into moral consciousness/conscience.
≻ I think it is informative to look at von Monakow’s ideas in relation to Dąbrowski’s view of emotions as the ultimate guide to one’s behavior; the idea that our moral compass is emotional rather than cognitive.

⚃ In Dąbrowski’s own words: “At the root of the instinctive dynamisms Von Monakow sees the mother dynamism of all instincts, namely horme (agitation, force, internal drive). ‘This is a tendency,’ writes Von Monakow, ‘for creative adaptation of oneself to conditions of life, in all its forms, in-order to ensure oneself a maximum security, not only at the present moment, but also for the long, long future.’ According to Von Monakow, an instinct (of an individual possessing a nervous system) ‘is a latent propulsive force, a derivative of horme, which realizes the synthesis of internal excitations of protoplasm (introceptivity) and external excitations (exteroceptivity) in order to safeguard the vital interests of an individual and his species by means of adaptive activities.’ As for embryonic development, Von Monakow introduces the conception of a formative instinct, which is a dynamism determining this development” (Dąbrowski, 1967, p. 50).

⚃ Dąbrowski includes other features and structures under the term dynamism that play a role in personality development.
≻ Dąbrowski included instinct in his definition of dynamism and used the terms ‘instinct’ and ‘dynamism’ somewhat interchangeably.
≻ Within instincts there are transforming dynamisms: “In the instincts themselves, therefore, there exist transforming dynamisms, for which the conflictive experiences and participation of gnostic mechanisms are fundamental factors determining the development of a man” (Dąbrowski, 1967, p. 51).

⚃ “The basic, most general dynamism of a man, embracing all other more particular mechanisms, and revealing itself at the time of fecundation and differentiating itself in a particular way in every individual during his development, is the instinct of life. In various periods of development two groups of particular instincts are manifest in a man, and take a greater or smaller part in his actions. We call these instincts – possessing an egocentric or alterocentric, autotonic or syntonic component – autotonic and syntonic instincts. The first would include the self-preservation, possessive, fighting, and other instincts; the others, the ‘companion-seeking’ instinct, sexual drive, maternal or paternal instinct, herd, cognitive, and religious instincts. The general separation of these two groups, in a sense the contradictoriness and the overlapping of structures of particular drives in both groups, already forms a fundamental basis for conflicts between instincts, for the collision of interests of particular instincts, and for new systems arising during the life of a personality” (Dąbrowski, 1967, p. 52).

⚃ “The various dynamisms presented here in their structure, action, and transformations we also call instincts. Our reason for including these forces among instincts is that, in our view, they are a common phenomenon at a certain level of man’s development, they are basic derivatives of primitive instinctive dynamism, and their strength often exceeds the strength of the primitive maternal instinct” (Dąbrowski, 1967, p. 54).

⚃ “Biological or mental force controlling behavior and its development. Instincts, drives, and intellectual processes combined with emotions are dynamisms” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 294).

⚃ The dynamisms can also be categorized as disintegrative, as adding order and integrative or as reflecting secondary integration.
≻ Examples of dynamisms contributing to disintegration include; anxiety over oneself, dissatisfaction with oneself, feelings of shame and guilt and the feeling of inferiority to oneself.
≻ Organizing dynamisms include subject-object in oneself and the dynamism of third factor.
≻ Secondary integration dynamisms include the disposing and directing centre on a high level and the personality ideal.

⚄ The ultimate dynamisms are the instinct of life and in particular, the developmental instinct because it is the most pervasive and basic developmental drive.
≻ “DEVELOPMENTAL INSTINCT. The source of all mental developmental forces of the individual” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 293).

⚄ We may call the disposing and directing center the dynamism which, taken most generally, decides on the kind and direction of a given individual’s activities. At its roots would thus be found different driving forces, from lower to higher, unconscious and conscious, morbid and nonmorbid tendencies, which arise and develop in a tenacious or disintegrated structure. In a narrower sense, which interests us here, we denote by this term a tenacious dynamism, existing both at a lower as well as at a higher level of the individual’s development and embracing either only a certain ‘psychic area’ or the whole psyche of a given individual. This center is a governing, volitional, and realizing factor, which takes up and executes decisions based on the direction determined by the fundamental instincts or on the developmental process which steers toward personality development. In the latter case the disposing and directing center strictly cooperates with other dynamisms of the developing personality.” (Dąbrowski, 1967, p. 109).

⚃ The dynamisms:
≻ Personality Ideal
≻ Instinct of life
≻ The developmental instinct
≻ Autonomy
≻ Authenticity/Authentism
≻ Empathy
≻ Compassion
≻ Feelings of Responsibility
≻ Education of Oneself
≻ Autopsychotherapy
≻ Disposing and directing center
≻ Self-Control
≻ Self-Awareness
≻ Inner Psychic Transformation
≻ Third Factor (as a dynamism)
≻ [THIRD FACTOR: as the sum of all autonomous forces]
≻ Subject-Object in Oneself
≻ Intuition
≻ Hierarchization
≻ Multilevel disintegration
≻ Positive Maladjustment
≻ Creativity
≻ Guilt
≻ Shame
≻ Astonishment with Oneself
≻ Disquietude with Oneself
≻ Inferiority toward Oneself
≻ Dissatisfaction with Oneself
≻ Identification
≻ Inner Conflict / Creative inner conflicts
≻ Interiorization
≻ Exteriorization
≻ Ambivalences
≻ Ambitendencies

⚄ Level I: Primary Integration [first and/or second factors]
≻ No dynamisms, no vertical components

⚄ Level III: Spontaneous Multilevel Disintegration
≻ Hierarchization
≻ Dissatisfaction with oneself
≻ Inferiority toward oneself
≻ Disquietude with oneself
≻ Creative instinct
≻ Astonishment with oneself
≻ Feelings of shame and guilt
≻ Positive maladjustment
≻ Identification.

⚄ Level IV: Organized (Directed) Multilevel Disintegration
≻ Subject-object
≻ Third factor (as a dynamism)
≻ Inner psychic transformation
≻ Self-awareness
≻ Self-control
≻ Autopsychotherapy
≻ Education-of-oneself
≻ Feeling of responsibility for oneself and others
≻ Creative instinct

⚄ Level V: Secondary Integration
≻ Autonomy
≻ Authentism
≻ Personality ideal

⚃ Overview: Instincts play a large role in the theory and are analyzed using multilevelness.
≻ “The distinction of higher and lower instincts, as well as, the distinctions of higher and lower levels within one instinct and its ontogenetic transformations seem to be indispensable to achieve an adequate understanding and theoretical description of mental development” (Dąbrowski, 1973, p. xi).
≻≻ Lower instincts include self-preservation, aggression, the sexual impulses, and the social instinct.
≻≻ At a higher level, are the developmental instincts including the partial death instinct, the developmental instinct (‘the mother instinct’), the creative instinct, the transcendental instinct and finally, the self-perfection instinct.
≻ Dąbrowski said that some instincts are shared by animals and humans.
≻ Some instincts are uniquely human; however, not all human instincts are universal – Some instincts are only seen in those achieving higher development.

⚃ As seen in the above section on dynamisms, Dąbrowski intermingled the constructs of dynamism and instinct.
≻ “The various dynamisms presented here in their structure, action, and transformations we also call instincts.
≻ Our reason for including these forces among instincts is that, in our view, they are a common phenomenon at a certain level of man’s development, they are basic derivatives of primitive instinctive dynamism, and their strength often exceeds the strength of the primitive maternal instinct” (Dąbrowski, 1967, p. 54).

⚃ However, he also explicitly described several critical instincts in determining one’s developmental level.
≻ Primitive instincts limit development and are seen at the lowest sub-level of level one.
≻≻ These include the sexual impulse, self-preservation, and aggression.
≻ At the higher sub-level of level one, the average person, we see the social instinct.
≻ Dąbrowski described an overarching developmental instinct he referred to as the ‘mother’ instinct.
≻ “Disintegration of the primitive structures destroys the psychic unity of the individual. As he loses the cohesion which is necessary for feeling a sense of meaning and purpose in life, he is motivated to develop himself. The developmental instinct, then, following disintegration of the existing structure of personality, contributes to reconstruction at a higher level” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 3).
≻ The developmental instinct goes through developmental stages:
≻≻ “The effect of positive disintegration on the developmental instinct is as follows: During the embryonic period the developmental instinct is biologically determined. After birth it contributes to adaptation (instinct of adaptation) to the sensing of inner forces in relation to the environment, and to the drive to establish balance between these inner needs and outer realities.
In the next phase of the developmental instinct the instinct of creativity appears. Creativity expresses non-adaptation within the internal milieu and a transgression of the usual standards of adaptation to the external environment” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 11).
≻≻ “In the further progress of the instinct of development, the personality structure is influenced; this is the phase during which the instincts of self-development and self-improvement emerge. With this phase the “third factor” begins to dominate within the internal environment. There is an extension of creative dynamics over the whole mental structure. (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 11).
≻≻ Other developmental instincts include the partial death instinct (“Self-perfection is always a partial suicide”), the creative instinct, the transcendental instinct, and the self-perfection instinct.

⚃ In development, primitive instincts are controlled; inhibited or transformed.
≻ “Throughout the course of life of those who mature to a rich and creative personality there is a transformation of the primitive instincts and impulses with which they entered life” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 2).
≻ “On the highest level accessible to investigation, that is on the level of secondary integration, the instinct of self-preservation becomes a function of personality; it protects and promotes those traits which in the course of inner development appeared as qualitatively immutable values. The instinct of self-preservation gradually merges with the dynamism of self-perfection, with the feeling of communion with all people, and even all living creatures” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 94).
≻ “Throughout the course of life of those who mature to rich and creative personalities there is a transformation of the primitive instincts and impulses with which they entered life. The instinct of self-preservation is changed. Its direct expression disintegrates, and is transformed into the behavior of a human being with moral values. The sexual instinct is transformed into and bound up in lasting and exclusive emotional ties. The instinct of aggression may still be active in the area of conflicts between moral, social and intellectual values, transforming them into higher forms. disintegrates, and it is sublimated into the behavior of a human being with moral values” (Dąbrowski, 1973, p. 22).

⚃ SOCIAL INSTINCT. The development of the social instinct proceeds from the receptive phase, the phase of the need for contact in order to gain food, care, the tenderness a child needs, through the phase of various forms of living together in a family, the maternal and paternal phase, in which parents are the givers. As Von Monakow rightly states, the social instinct is linked in its advent and development with the self-preservation and sexual instincts. A proper development of the social instinct does not impair the development of an individual or his drive toward the perfection of his personality. A reasonable devotion to a child, on the part of a mother or father, connected with respect for him and the ideal of his development, should not interfere with the realization of one’s own development. Even the greatest sacrifice and renunciation allows for the preservation of the right of one’s own development” (Dąbrowski, 1967, p. 118).

⚃ The higher instincts directly impact development: “In the further progress of the instinct of development, the personality structure is influenced; this is the phase during which the instincts of self-development and self-improvement emerge. With this phase the ‘third factor’ begins to dominate within the internal environment. There is an extension of creative dynamics over the whole mental structure. Processes of multilevel disintegration (klisis and ekklisis in relation to certain factors of the internal environment, feelings of shame, guilt, and sin, and an ‘object-subject’ relationship to oneself) appear in the development of personality. We also see an increase in concern with the past and the future and a clear development of a personality ideal” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 12).

⚃ Dąbrowski's use of the term instinct is somewhat unique: “INSTINCT, a fundamental dynamism (force) in the lives of animals and men which has a great intensity, a significant degree of compactness and cohesiveness, its own sphere of activity, and its own direction” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 170). … “This concept differs in several respects from the general use of the term instinct. The main new elements are: (1) Instincts undergo transformations in ontogenetic development. (2) Some instinctive forces occur only among some people, especially among those who have attained a high level of psychic development. (3) The qualification of the forces mentioned in point (2) as instincts is due to their origin from a more fundamental developmental instinct and to the fact that they show strength and compactness, comparable to primitive instinctive drives, and sometimes even greater. (4) Their development and transformation depend not only on the element of intelligence and knowledge conjoined with them, but also on their inter and intrainstinctive conflicts and cooperation” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 171).

⚃ Dąbrowski later clarified his use of the term: “Previously I used the term ‘developmental instinct’ (Dąbrowski, 1964, 1967, 1970). The term ‘instinct’ was used in a very loose sense while clearly stressing at the same time that it is not understood as a rigid pattern of behavior analogous to imprinting. The point was made then that human instincts, i.e. the programs for patterns of human behavior, are subject to change in development, and that in the process of transition from a lower to a higher level the primitive instincts are gradually replaced by higher instincts. The activity of primitive instincts weakens while the activity of higher instincts, such as the cognitive, creative or self-perfection, becomes stronger. At the same time each instinct undergoes its own development and change of level (intra-instinctual development). As a result lower levels of an instinct are gradually replaced by its higher levels. This marks a transition from animal to human functions, from stimulus-response automatism to deliberate action. The higher functions are the consequence of transformations within the psyche” (Dąbrowski, 1996, p. 25).

⚃ The inner psychic milieu is the internal mental environment.
≻ At lower levels of development reactions tend to be instinctual or automatic.
≻ The more biologically determined one’s behavior, the more instinctual one’s reactions.
≻ Likewise, individuals who are dominated by socialization tend to react in automatic and stereotypic ways.
≻ These reactions typically involve little conscious cognitive processing and many individuals go through life in a largely robotic modality with minimal awareness of their internal mental environment.
≻ In contrast to this, once an individual becomes aware of his or her mental life, cognitions and emotions, the opportunity to build and shape the internal psychic environment presents itself.
≻ Extending this, the individual is able to begin to exercise autonomy in how he or she responds to the world and responses come to reflect the developing sense of the individual’s personality ideal.

⚃ “The totality of mental dynamisms of a low or high degree of consciousness. The inner psychic milieu may be hierarchical, as in multilevel disintegration, or ahierarchical, as in unilevel disintegration” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 296).

⚃ “the totality of mental dynamisms in a distinct or hierarchical setup” (Dąbrowski, 1973, p. 116).

⚃ “A complex of mental dynamisms characteristic for a given individual” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 62).

⚃ Development requires “the stimulation of higher functions and the inhibition of lower functions. This involves many kinds of sensitivity and excitability, numerous inner conflicts, [and the] emergence of multilevel inner forces, which can be called dynamisms of the inner psychic milieu” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 62).

⚃ One must realize that a period even more important than that of early infancy is the period of “awakening” that brings about the development of the inner psychic milieu and its main dynamisms (Dąbrowski, 1967, p. vi).

⚃ Dąbrowski introduces the term “inner psychic milieu” (cf. glossary) as a collective name for all higher level developmental dynamisms and thus allows clearly to distinguish the two main qualitatively different stages and types of life: the heteronomous, which is biologically and socially determined, and the autonomous, which is determined by the multilevel dynamisms of the inner psychic milieu (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 5).

⚃ In order to understand the process of positive disintegration it is necessary to consider the formation and growth of the inner psychic milieu. By this term we mean the totality of development dynamisms which operate in a hierarchical or nonhierarchical order, sometimes in cooperation, sometimes in conflict with one another. In proportion to the growth and hierarchical stratification of the inner psychic milieu we can notice at lower levels the vacillation of the disposing and directing center and its growing stability and identification with basic constituents of personality at higher levels… . Inner psychic milieu is a dynamic mental structure which appears significantly only at advanced stages of mental development, basically at the time of multilevel disintegration. At the level of primitive integration, strictly speaking, there is no inner psychic milieu. It arises later to the degree as developmental dynamisms are formed, particularly those of an autonomous nature such as the third factor, inner psychic transformation, authentism, personality ideal, education of oneself and autopsychotherapy, the ability for meditation and contemplation (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 24).

⚃ A stimulus received by the nervous system evokes a reaction. The absorption of the stimulus constitutes the process of its interiorization. The reaction evoked by the stimulus constitutes the process of its exteriorization. The events that take place in the inner psychic milieu between interiorization and exteriorization constitute the process of transformation. This means that nothing is taken from the outside that would not be molded by the dynamism of inner psychic transformation. Similarly nothing leaves the inner psychic milieu without the active participation of this dynamism. The higher the level of the inner milieu, the more thorough is the process of inner psychic transformation of stimuli (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 74).

⚃ All the described dynamisms of the inner psychic milieu are decisive in the development of man. Appropriate understanding of such dynamisms, their level of development in individual cases, and their interactions, is necessary for the proper course of psychotherapy (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 81).

⚃ The sequence of transformative processes in inner growth is roughly as follows. At the stage of unilevel disintegration we observe loosening and sometimes disorganization of primitive mental activities. With the expansion of the inner psychic milieu its dynamisms undergo hierarchization (this means that one can distinguish whether a given dynamism operates at one level, and whether this level is high or low, or whether a given dynamism is vertical, i.e. one that spans the lower and the higher levels). With the development of a hierarchical structure the dynamisms are subsequently organized, they cooperate or clash with each other. When the inner psychic transformation becomes active the urge forces are slowly elevated to a higher-level. Superficial dystonic responses and an unconscious “rhythmic” character of automatic responses gradually cease to operate. Consequently, consciousness of oneself and self-control increase. Under the influence of the third factor, which at this stage is one of the main inner dynamisms, the individual evaluates, and accepts or rejects, numerous stimuli from both the inner and outer environments. Every new stimulus and every new constellation of stimuli are worked over in the inner milieu, every external situation is an object of reflection prior to the formation of an external response (Dąbrowski, 1970, pp. 81-82).

⚃ The presence of a growing and hierarchically organized inner psychic milieu is a prerequisite for the formation of the dynamisms of autonomy and authentism. The highest dynamisms stimulate developmental forces, but they inhibit more primitive urges, thus providing the conditions for the emergence of the dynamisms of autonomy and authentism (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 85).

⚃ [27.] The transition from unilevel to multilevel disintegration is accompanied by gradual formation and growth of the inner psychic milieu. In higher stages of multilevel disintegration the growth of these dynamisms reaches the point at which a distinct, individualized inner psychic milieu is noticeable. This phenomenon indicates that personality started to take shape (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 143).

⚃ [29.] A sufficiently developed inner psychic milieu causes growing understanding and experiencing of one’s own development and of the development of others, of the negative and positive facets of each actual phase of development and the conscious direction and control of the development (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 144).

⚃ [31.] The capacity for conscious and autonomous evaluation of one’s own behavior and the behavior of others increases in proportion to the development of inner psychic milieu and developmental transformations of instincts and emotions (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 145).

⚃ [32.] The more developed is the inner psychic milieu, the stronger and deeper is [one’s] syntony [to be in tune with; in harmony with] with the external environment… . A sufficiently developed inner psychic milieu creates conditions for a less self-centered attitude with regard to oneself and to the external environment. This is the result of the operation of the dynamisms of multilevel disintegration, and particularly of the dynamisms of “subject object” in oneself, the third factor, the dynamisms of identification and inner psychic transformation (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 146).

⚃ [Comment: at first, this may seem counterintuitive in reading Dąbrowski.
≻ Much of what he says advocates for the differentiation of the individual from the external environment and from one’s social influences –‘to be one’s own person.”
≻ But, with advanced development, a more sophisticated and more satisfying relationship with the external environment develops.
≻ Dąbrowski used to say that one of the challenges of advanced development is to “forgive each other our psychological type.”
≻ The individual who has more internal development is more secure within him or herself and one can walk down the street without having to feel superior to others, or to feel the need to pick apart and denigrate the thinking and philosophy of others.
≻ Through subject-object one can come to appreciate and accept how different one is from others and, as well, to come to appreciate and accept the differences in those around us.
≻ This allows the developed individual to feel more at ease in the world – based on the unconscious but positive connection made with the external world through syntony.]

⚃ The inner psychic milieu at a higher level, self consciousness, self-control, and inner psychic transformation, are, as a rule, connected with the positive course of neuroses (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 154).

⚃ The formation and growth of the inner psychic milieu concomitant to the development of a multilevel mental structure must of necessity involve inner conflicts between different levels of functions. It involves maladjustment to what is and adjustment to what ought to be (Dąbrowski, 1970, pp. 154-55).

⚃ [65.] The growth of the inner psychic milieu correlates with proportionate growth of positive and authentic relations with the external environment (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 159).

⚃ Inner psychic milieu (internal mental environment): that part of the psyche where man enters into conflict with himself, the totality of mental dynamisms of a low or high degree of consciousness operating in a more or less hierarchical organization. These dynamisms are basically in a relation of cooperation which, however, does not exclude developmental conflicts. They perform the main task of positive disintegration at the stage of multilevel disintegration by participation in the transformation of mental functions and structures in the direction of higher levels up to the level of fully developed personality. All the dynamisms of the inner psychic milieu, largely speaking, may be divided into unilevel and multilevel. Ambivalences and ambitendencies are unilevel dynamisms, all other are multilevel. (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 170).

⚃ In multilevel disintegration there is a complication of the unilevel process by the involvement of additional hierarchical levels. There is loosening and fragmentation of the internal environment, as in unilevel disintegration, but here it occurs at both higher and lower strata. These levels are in conflict with one another; their valence is determined by the disposing and directing center, which moves the individual in the direction of his personality ideal (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 8).

⚃ Disintegration causes the movement of the disposing and directing center to either higher or lower levels but with a gradual tendency for stabilization at a superior level of development. To the degree that the disposing and directing center takes its place at higher levels, the individual begins to live more closely in accordance with his own personality ideal (Dąbrowski, 1964, pp. 40-41).

⚃ For self-education there must be a conscious personality ideal and a desire to ascend to this ideal. It is accomplished through increasing organization of the disposing and directing center, which activates the third agent and its obsession for evaluation of present levels of feelings and activities (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 49).

⚃ The formation of personality depends upon the existence of positive processes of disintegration in a given individual, upon the level of the disposing and directing center, and upon the personality ideal (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 58).

⚃ The disposing and directing center of a developing personality is a more or less organized mental structure, emerging from as yet indistinct tendencies to attain a higher cultural and moral level (Dąbrowski, 1964, pp. 59-60).

⚃ The appearance and development of the third agent parallels the organization and establishment of the disposing and directing center on a higher level and the distinct formation and steady growth of the personality ideal. The third agent draws its dynamics and purpose from the disposing and directing center and the personality ideal; in turn, it plays an essential part in the development of both of them (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 60).

⚃ Disposing and directing center: “a set of dynamics determining the course of the individual” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. xxvi).

⚃ Disposing and directing center. This is a dynamism which coordinates, plans, organizes and governs the activity of the psyche in a definite domain at a given time. On the level of primitive integration it is identified with the dominating drive or group of drives. In other words it is determined biologically. In unilevel disintegration mental structures are loosened or broken down into various dynamisms. Between themselves the dynamisms are loosely connected and often mutually contradictory. Here we are dealing with a multiplicity of disposing and directing centers which represent conflicting dynamisms or complexes of strivings and emotions, so that we speak of many “wills,” For instance, it is rather common during puberty to have the conflicting feelings of inferiority and superiority present at the same time. Similar pairs of conflicting dynamisms are: egocentrism and alterocentrism, depression and excitation, syntony and asyntony (isolation from others). These conflicting groups represent antagonistic disposing and directing centers. Besides conflict and antagonism different disposing and directing centers can confront each other, or they can cooperate and join together. … In multilevel disintegration, the stage of the formation of inner psychic milieu and of a hierarchy of dynamisms, there appear various disposing and directing centers; each representing antagonistic levels of the inner structure: those which are determined by primitive drives and those which are closer to the emerging personality. … Disposing and directing centers that at first are united with drive or a group of drives begin with time to free themselves and gradually gain control over those drives. On a high level the disposing and directing center is not identified anymore with drives but becomes the controlling agent of development (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 79).

⚃ Disposing and directing center is the dynamism which determines each act of an individual as well as his long range behavior, plans and aspiration. It performs the following: programming, planning, organizing, collaborating, general and concrete deciding. At a lower level its role is fulfilled by various primitive drives (e.g. sexual, self preservation, etc.) which temporarily or permanently direct and control individual’s life and conscious activities. Only at a higher stage, particularly during multilevel disintegration, the disposing and directing center appears and develops as an independent dynamism, not identical with any one or any combination of other dynamisms (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 166).

⚃ It is important that the building of a disposing and directing center at a high level, with a personality ideal included, based on the grounds of a sincere need for moral standards, develop harmoniously with the formation of her inner psychic milieu and the deepening of multilevel disintegration (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 284).

⚃ [The disposing and directing center] A center which controls behavior over a short or long period of time. At a low level of human development this center is identical with either one or a group of primitive drives (e.g. self-preservation, sexual, aggressive, etc.). At higher levels of development this center becomes an independent dynamism working towards harmonious unification of personality (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 293-294).

⚃ It is, according to our view, a dynamism or group of dynamisms organizing and directing our behavior. It undergoes hierarchic multilevel transformations and is subordinated to the laws of mental development. Its structure and functions depend on the level of the individuals developmental phase (Dąbrowski, 1973, pp. 101-102).

⚃ On the highest level, that is to say, on the border of the fourth and fifth stages, as well as, on the stage of secondary integration, we have only one disposing and directing center which synthesizes intuitively all human tendencies, identifies itself with personality and its ideal and develops its own activity in unity with persona I through “insight,” meditation and contemplation (Dąbrowski, 1973, p. 103).

⚃ This dynamism reflects one’s level of personality development.
≻ The individual at a low level of development will be primarily externally focused and will have very little interest or understanding of his or her deep psychic life.
≻ There will be a low level of self-consciousness, decisions will be made quickly and reactively with little reflection, either before or after.
≻ One’s life becomes repetitive and automatic, one day lived after the other, with little reflection on one’s deeper life’s purpose.
≻ Conflicts will arise between the individual and external obstacles but there will be few internal psychological conflicts (no crises of conscience).
≻ Behavior is justified as an extension of what was done yesterday or based on social and peer behavior; “if my neighbor can do that, so can I.”
≻ These individuals often see others and the world as an extension of themselves and so therefore are dominated by subjectivity.
≻ With development, an awareness and interest of one’s internal psychic life takes place and through a process of growth, the individual is able to develop a sense of objectivity towards oneself and one’s thought processes and emotions.
≻ One can see one’s own inner psychic milieu as if from outside.
≻ This initially contributes to inner conflicts and disintegration because one often perceives aspects of oneself that one reacts to with dissatisfaction.
≻ At the same time, others are seen as individuals in their own right and ultimately are seen subjectively: one sees the other as if the other were oneself.
≻ This represents a deep level of compassion and empathy leading to an appreciation of the essence and uniqueness of the other individual.
≻ This facilitates the basis for love on a deep level.
≻ Subject-object works in close conjunction with other dynamisms, for example, dissatisfaction with oneself, with one’s developing third factor, the inner psychic milieu and the disposing and directing center and eventually one’s personality ideal.

⚃ The subject-object process: a normal aspect of positive disintegration in which two structures are opposed to each other in self-differentiation (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 38).

⚃ The operations of “subject-object” become clear when all introspective activities of the individual are taken into consideration. This ability to evaluate various aspects of the self can be understood by examination of its differential activities connected with the internal experiences of the individual. In multilevel disintegration this dynamic of “subject-object” plays a part not only in the internal development of tension but, even more important, in the multiple changes in time and space which result in hierarchical movement and in the elaboration of a new disposing and directing center as it gradually reaches new and higher levels of development. “Subject-object” is closely related to the processes previously discussed: disquietude, shame, discontentment with oneself, feelings of guilt, and inferiority feelings toward oneself. These processes are, to some extent, the expression of object-subject forces in the psychic internal environment. Such forces increase the intensity of all processes acting in the internal psychic environment (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 40).

⚃ [The psychoneurotic] experiences within himself the “subject-object” process – an increased self-awareness and an introspective knowledge of the many levels of his own personality. This is a process of experiencing one’s own being, so to speak, of sensing one’s own multiform nature which determines the process of cognition as well as of experiencing. The psychoneurotic’s personality is plastic and variable since he is in a dynamic state of awareness of the subtleties of both his internal and his external environment. He is, therefore, a personality capable of disintegration and has the ability for distinct and often rapid development (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 74).

⚃ So-called self-education really involves a division of the personality into two parts – the “subject-object relationship” Dąbrowski calls it – one of which is teacher and the other pupil (Dąbrowski, 1967, p. xxviii).

⚃ A “subject-object” process takes place in one’s own self. One’s internal milieu is divided into higher and lower, into better and worse, and into desirable and undesirable. There appears here the feeling of “lower value” and the feeling of guilt when one “falls down” to a lower level, knowing that he actually has the capacity to raise himself up. He knows this as his memory tells him of the pleasant moments of past achievements (Dąbrowski, 1967, pp. 69-70).

⚃ We call this taking of interest by an individual in his own psychic life, and the ability for an ever wider and deeper penetration of it, the dynamism of “subject-object in oneself,” that is, in the psychic structure of one and the same person. The advent of this dynamism means that interest in the internal environment begins to prevail over interest in the external world. This dynamism is a key that permits the individual to open his own psyche for observation by himself. Thanks to this dynamism the subject “objectifies,” as it were, its contents, grasping them almost as external phenomena, which permits a fuller, matter-of-fact, less subjective knowledge and treatment of them. The mechanisms of this dynamism, combined with the progressing development of a personality, become for the person an ever more subtle and ever more universal instrument in self-cognition, in discovering in oneself and becoming aware of the subliminal contents thus far unknown to oneself. … Progressive self-cognizance, realized by means of the “subject-object in oneself” dynamism, permits one to utilize this cognizance in a more purposeful, more effective, and accelerated shaping of personality in oneself and facilitates the work of other developmental dynamisms (Dąbrowski, 1967, pp. 102-103).

⚃ Dynamism “subject-object” in oneself: the practice of inner self-observation for the sake of mental development. It involves constant, objective and dynamic self exploration in which the observer and the observed are both present in the same inner milieu. Here the mind learns to grasp all the essential elements and movement of inner life and develops this particular watchfulness that enables one to sense the direction of events occurring in the inner milieu. The recognition of one’s inner self (subject) as that which feels, thinks and desires, brings about a sense of one’s uniqueness and personal identity. This leads to understanding through experience of one’s own essence. In consequence it leads to the understanding (and perhaps even an experience) of the essence of another. It is due to this dynamism that the individual begins to be interested in his own inner life, and as the dynamism assumes increasing importance so this interest grows, both consciously and subconsciously. Thanks to this factor evolves certain readiness and alertness of the cognitive and developmental instinct in the service of the growth of personality. The ability to discern various aspects of one’s inner life develops through observation of the action of different dynamisms, their correlations and their operation on different levels. The dynamism “subject object” in oneself plays an important role in multilevel disintegration by participating in the development and fluctuation of inner tension. It also influences spatial and temporal changes in the inner psychic milieu, which result in its more defined hierarchization and the establishment of a new disposing and directing center on a higher level (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 71).

⚃ “One of the main developmental dynamisms which consists in observing one’s own mental life in an attempt to better understand oneself and to evaluate oneself critically. It is a process of looking at oneself as if from outside (the self as object) and of perceiving the individuality of others (the other as subject, i.e. individual knower)” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 305).

⚃ The meaning and task of the dynamism “subject-object” in oneself goes clearly beyond that of introspection. This dynamism introduces a kind of dualism into our mental life in which the subject deals with the elements of his inner life as though they were objective, external things. In this way the individual gains knowledge of himself, of his motives and aims. He takes a critical look at his moral, social and cultural attitudes. Growing self-knowledge, attained through the application of the dynamism “subject-object” in oneself, assists in the elaboration of an autonomous hierarchy of values and the shaping of one’s own personality (Dąbrowski, 1973, p. 74).

⚃ The level of this dynamism correspond [sic] to the degree in which we deal with others as subjects, as unique, unrepeatable individuals. An egocentric individual, unable to distinguish the object from the subject in himself, approaches other people in the same way he approaches material things and animals. He treats them as objects, does not empathize or identify himself with other people. Thus, internal rigidity and egocentrism are associated with the inability to see others in a multilevel perspective, to show reflective sympathy, genuine concern, compassion and respect. The dynamism “subject-object” in oneself is clearly incompatible with such a rigid, primitively integrated structure (Dąbrowski, 1973, p. 75).

⚃ Conscious educational activity on a high level is impossible without continuous use of this dynamism. It is also crucial in any activity rooted in the concern over one’s own mental and moral growth. It is the condition sine qua non for an existentialist conception of the relationship between “I” and “Thou,” in the empirical sense; accessible to us in this life, as well as, in Kierkegaard’s “absolute” sense which goes beyond the dimension of this life. Kierkegaard’s existentialist conception of man involves hierarchization of values and a developmental transition to higher stages of life (Dąbrowski, 1973, p. 76).

⚃ “Most people are subjective toward themselves and objective toward all others, frightfully objective sometimes: but the task is precisely to be objective toward oneself and subjective toward all others” (Kierkegaard: Works of love).

⚃ Overview:
≻ Dąbrowski read the biographies of some 200 individuals and observed that most of these individuals exhibited a higher-than-average level of overexcitability – a lower threshold to stimuli and higher reactions.
≻ Many of these individuals also displayed a strong drive to be themselves, a feature Dabrowski called the third factor.
≻ Dąbrowski identified five types of overexcitability (psychomotor, sensual, emotional, intellectual, and imaginational) predisposing individuals to experience life more intensely.
≻ Overexcitabilities contribute to disintegration by heightening sensitivity and awareness.
≻ The prefix ‘over’ attached to ‘excitability’ serves to indicate that the reactions of excitation are over and above average in intensity, duration, and frequency” (Dąbrowski, 1996, p. 7).

⚃ The basic forms of “hyperexcitability,” “psychic overexcitability” and “overexcitability” were described in Dąbrowski’s 1937 monograph.

⚃ Dąbrowski used the terms overexcitability and nervousness synonymously: “Psychic overexcitability is a term introduced to denote a variety of types of nervousness (Dąbrowski, 1938, 1959). Dąbrowski also defined nervousness as overexcitability: “Nervousness. Enhanced psychic overexcitability in the form of excitability of movements senses, affect, imagination, and intellect. Nervousness does not in any way entail the impairment of mental functions” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 299).

⚃ Loosening of structure occurs particularly during the period of puberty and in states of nervousness, such as emotional, psychomotor, sensory, imaginative, and intellectual overexcitability” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 6).

⚃ “Each form of overexcitability points to a higher than average sensitivity of its receptors. As a result a person endowed with different forms of overexcitability reacts with surprise, puzzlement to many things, he collides with things, persons and events, which in turn brings him astonishment and disquietude. One could say that one who manifests a given form of overexcitability, and especially one who manifests several forms of overexcitability, sees reality in a different, stronger and more multisided manner. Reality for such an individual ceases to be indifferent but affects him deeply and leaves long-lasting impressions. Enhanced excitability is thus a means for more frequent interactions and a wider range of experiencing” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 7).

⚃ “Some forms of overexcitability constitute a richer developmental potential than others. Emotional (affective), imaginational and intellectual overexcitability are the richer forms. If they appear together they give rich possibilities of development and creativity” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 7).

⚃ “Because the sensitivity [excitability] is related to all essential groups of receptors of stimuli of the internal and external worlds it widens and enhances the field of consciousness” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 66).

⚃ “It is mainly mental hyperexcitability through which the search for something new, something different, more complex and more authentic can be accomplished” (Dąbrowski, 1973, p. 15).

⚃ Dąbrowski emphasized two aspects: a higher than average sensitivity of the nerves (receptors) and a higher than average responsiveness to stimuli: “The prefix over attached to ‘excitability’ serves to indicate that the reactions of excitation are over and above average in intensity, duration and frequency” (Dąbrowski, 1996, p. 7).

⚃ “It appears in five forms: emotional, imaginational, intellectual, psychomotor, and sensual” (Dąbrowski, 1996, p. 7).

⚃ “The five forms of overexcitability are the constitutional traits which make it possible to assess the strength of the developmental potential independently of the context of development” (Dąbrowski, 1996, p. 16).

⚃ “The reality of the external and of the inner world is conceived in all its multiple aspects. High overexcitability contributes to establishing multilevelness …” (Dąbrowski, 1996, p. 74).

⚃ “Enhanced excitability, especially in its higher forms, allows for a broader, richer, multilevel, and multidimensional perception of reality. The reality of the external and of the inner world is conceived in all its multiple aspects. High overexcitability contributes to establishing multilevelness, however in advanced development, both become components in a complex environment of developmental factors” (Dąbrowski, 1996, p. 74).

⚁ 3.5 Unique Terms.

⚃ There are many terms that are applied uniquely in the context of the theory of positive disintegration and if these terms are used outside this context, they are often seen as paradoxical, or they are misunderstood, or worse, they are seen as negative judgements.
≻ There are three basic categories: conventional terms used in a different and unique way. (e.g. adjustment, personality); older terms that are not currently common (e.g. psychoneuroses, dynamism); and terms that Dąbrowski coined himself that cover ideas he developed (e.g. positive disintegration, overexcitability).
≻ It can be fairly challenging to learn all of these terms but this reflects Dąbrowski – he was a complex thinker and developed a very complex theory.

⚃ Dąbrowski differentiated four types of adjustment; two types of positive adjustment and two types of negative adjustment.
≻ These are easier to understand when divided into adjustment and maladjustment.

⚃ Traditionally, adjustment is perceived as conformity to, and the embracing of, the prevailing values and morality of one’s society.
≻ However, Dąbrowski said that to be adjusted to a lower level, sick society is to also be sick.
≻ Dąbrowski refers to this as negative adjustment – to be well in step with a mixed-up, lower level society.
≻ On the other hand, positive adjustment is adjustment to the way a person or life ought to be – not the way it is.

⚃ Dąbrowski also described two types of maladjustment.
≻ The first, negative maladjustment, is what we traditionally think of as typical antisocial or criminal behavior – violation of social mores for personal gains.
≻ The second, positive maladjustment, is a rejection of prevailing social norms based on the perception that they are somehow wrong, or unfair – nonconformity out of conscience.
≻ Positive maladjustment represents the conflict between what the individual sees ought to be, versus the way society and life actually is.

⚃ In describing unilevel disintegration, Dąbrowski used two terms, the first, ambitendencies refers to equal drives between different choices on the same level.
≻ In ambitendencies, I am pulled to go left and I feel equally pulled to go right.
≻ The second term emphasizes that the equivalence of the choices that creates feelings of ambivalence.
≻ Ambivalence describes the feeling of not seeing or feeling any differences between different choices, for example, going left feels the same as going right.

⚃ Dąbrowski ’s approach to development was complex because he endorsed traditional approaches to explain the psychological development of some traits, but also described unconventional developmental mechanisms for other traits.

⚃ Traditional approaches to development are ontogenetic and emphasize ontogenesis, the unfolding of a stepwise series of stages, gradually leading from simple to more complex levels and forms.
≻ For example, Piaget described four stages of cognitive development: the sensorimotor stage, preoperational stage, concrete operations and formal operations.
≻ Normal cognitive development follows these stages in sequence.
≻ Each stage is defined in a time-specific manner and new stages are based upon, and emerge from, earlier forms.
≻ Dąbrowski endorsed these approaches to cognitive development.

⚃ However, Dąbrowski also described aspects of development that he believed were nonontogenetic, including emotional development and the third factor.
≻ These features do not emerge from earlier stages or levels.
≻ For example, Dąbrowski said one’s level of emotional functioning does not automatically arise in the normal course of ontogenetic stages but emerges as a function of other, nonontogenetic conditions.
≻ These “other” conditions simply appear in the course of development.
≻ This approach gives the theory a somewhat metaphysical element.
≻ One implication is that while everyone will display ontogenetic stages, not everyone will display nonontogenetic features (e.g., not all will have third factor or emotion as Dąbrowski uses the term).

⚃ Dąbrowski also differentiated two qualitatively different types of mental life and development: the heteronomous versus the autonomous.
≻ In heteronomous development, morals are derived from sources external to the individual.
≻ In autonomous development, on the other hand, morals are developed from within.
≻ The heteronomous is determined by biological or social/environmental factors and falls within conventional ontogenetic development.
≻ Autonomous development of mental function leads to new forms of mental life which lose their dependence on the biological cycle of life, have lasting effect and are not subject to deterioration associated with old age or other negative biological processes, e.g. somatic illness.
≻ Autonomous development, reflecting advanced development, is self-conscious, self-determined, and self-controlled.
≻ Autonomous development emerges from more complicated, “other” nonontogenetic sources.
≻ Autonomous mental development involves “new forces” of self-determination and autonomy [largely third factor] that transcend normal biological and social determinants.
≻ Dąbrowski said that autonomous development is the passing from lower level structures and functions to higher levels as the result of the process of positive disintegration.

⚃ In describing development, Dąbrowski also emphasized a balanced approach including both cognitive and emotional aspects.
≻ He observed that in many cases, development is skewed toward cognitive accomplishments.
≻ He called this one-sided development: development that is limited to one talent or ability, or to a narrow range of abilities and mental functions.

⚃ Dąbrowski compared traditional education, especially in America, to ‘animal training.’
≻ He said that individual development must involve self-education (education of oneself) and include a balance between the intellectual, special abilities and talents, and developing insight into one’s unique essence and emotions.
≻ Self-education is a critical part of autopsychotherapy.

⚃ One of the most basic aspects of the theory of positive disintegration is the idea that one must get a sense of direction in life by becoming aware of one’s feelings and emotions.
≻ Dąbrowski said that in a multilevel perception of life, emotions are the key rudder, providing direction to one’s cognitive abilities.
≻ At its most basic level, when faced with a choice in life, the valence of one’s emotions will draw one toward the correct solution and push one away from the wrong solution.
≻ One feels good in making the correct choices, given the situation and one’s essence.
≻ In psychology this is usually called approach-avoidance motivation.

⚃ To paraphrase Dąbrowski, life and humanization only begins when the hierarchization of values begins – without hierarchization, life is merely “ordinary.”
≻ Hierarchization acts as a developmental process through the discovery and activation of different, higher, emotional levels.
≻ To fully appreciate this process, it is important to recognize that Dąbrowski viewed emotions and values synonymously.
≻ Development is associated with the differentiation of higher from lower emotions and values.
≻ Dąbrowski said one’s unique hierarchy of higher and lower levels of emotions and values reflects the essence of the individual’s character.

⚃ Hierarchization is driven by psychoneurotic experiences as they disturb and draw attention to the lower levels of values.
≻ This helps an individual to gradually become aware of the short comings of lower values – external values adopted without much critical thought from social convention.
≻ The individual begins to imagine higher solutions and internal values reflecting one’s unique essence.
≻ One’s inner life eventually shifts toward the level of higher emotions.
≻ As these higher emotions become conscious, more frequent and more strongly experienced, they begin to direct one’s behavior and raise it to a higher level.
≻ By equating values with emotions, Dąbrowski also linked values to dynamisms as emotions are a key part of the dynamisms.

⚃ Dąbrowski presented somewhat unique approaches to defining mental health and illness.
≻ He said that mental health was development towards higher levels of mental functions, towards the discovery and realization of higher cognitive, moral, social, and aesthetic values and their organization into a hierarchy in accordance with one’s unique authentic personality ideal.
≻ On the other hand, mental illness was defined as the absence or deficiency of processes that lead to authentic development; either a strongly integrated, primitive/psychopathic structure, or a negative, non-developmental disintegration which may end in psychosis or suicide.
≻ In this context, the average person is not mentally healthy.

⚃ Dąbrowski often referred to individuals at level I as psychopaths, using the terms primitive and psychopathic interchangeably.
≻ This was based on the view that psychopathy represents any genetically-based blockage (e.g., lack of development potential) that prevents full authentic development.
≻ This usage was not commonly known or popular in America and created a lot of confusion.

⚃ Dąbrowski endorsed traditional psychotherapy and pharmacological treatments of mental issues in individuals who display limited developmental potential.
≻ However, for individuals who display significant development potential,
≻ Dąbrowski advocated an approach emphasizing self therapy that he called autopsychotherapy.
≻ He encouraged individuals to use introspection to help understand their developmental potential and fundamentally unique essence.
≻ Through using autobiographical writing and techniques such as the imaginary mirrors (psychological and psychosocial), the individual can learn to manage his or her crises and development without relying upon the advice or perceptions of a therapist.

⚃ In describing unilevel disintegration, Dąbrowski emphasized that the alternatives perceived by the individual will be on the same level – hence the term unilevelness.
≻ Unilevel conflicts involve choices and alternatives on the same level.
≻ This type of disintegration cannot be developmental because there is no profound sense of higher versus lower choices – what Dąbrowski called multilevelness.
≻ By definition, development involves choosing higher over lower alternatives.

⚁ 3.6 Dąbrowski’s Glossary.

⚃ Dąbrowski used many unique terms and ideas in constructing his theory.
≻ To help his readers, he published two glossaries.
≻ This file provides the definitions of the terms published in these glossaries.
≻ Some of the definitions are slightly different in each glossary, so both versions are provided for comparison.
≻ The source of each entry is indicated. The material is used here with permission.

⚄ Dąbrowski, K., with Kawczak, A., & Piechowski, M. (1970). Mental Growth Through Positive Disintegration. London: Gryf Publications. 162-180.

⚄ Dąbrowski, K. (1972). Psychoneurosis is Not An Illness. London: Gryf Publications. 289-306.

⚃ ABDOMINAL REFLEX. Contraction of the muscles of the abdominal wall in response to stroking the overlying skin. (1972)

⚃ ACCELERATED DEVELOPMENT. Type of development characterized by multiple forms of psychic overexcitability (primarily emotional, imaginational, and intellectual), strong creative instinct, and strong autonomous factors. Accelerated development tends towards organized multilevel disintegration and secondary integration. It, thereby, tends towards transcending the psychological type and the biological life cycle. See Transcending the psychological type, Transcending the biological life cycle. (1972)

⚃ ADJUSTMENT, a state of harmony resulting from bringing oneself into agreement with other individuals, or with a pattern, principle or ideal.

⚄ Social adjustment is usually thought of as the ability to live in harmony with social norms and act successfully in one’s society which practically amounts to a conformity to prevailing social standards, patterns, customs, beliefs and evaluations. So conceived social adjustment is widely considered a symptom of mental health, while social maladjustment is almost identified with mental disturbance. From the standpoint of the theory of positive disintegration this view is basically erroneous and the simple concept of adjustment is considered useless and misleading. Instead a distinction is made between positive and negative adjustment, and positive and negative maladjustment.

⚄ Negative or nondevelopmental adjustment means an acceptance of and conformity, without an independent critical evaluation, to the norms, customs, mores prevailing in one’s social environment. Negative adjustment may also take the form of acceptance of one’s actual needs and inclinations without attempts to modify and transform them creatively. This kind of adjustment is incompatible with the autonomy and authenticity of the individual. It does not yield any positive developmental results either for the individual or for the society.

⚄ Positive or developmental adjustment consists in correspondence with higher levels of development, that is to say, with a new hierarchy of values, consciously developed and subordinated to the personality ideal. While negative adjustment consists in undiscriminating adjustment to “what is” positive adjustment may be called adjustment to “what ought to be.” Such adjustment is a result of the operation of the developmental instinct and implies the necessity of partial maladjustment to the prevailing social patterns as well as inner conflicts and tensions characteristic of the processes of positive disintegration (cf.). Positive adjustment attains its full, mature form only at the stage of secondary integration (cf.) in which inner conflicts decrease and fundamental agreement between personality and its ideal has been attained.

⚄ Positive maladjustment includes both partial adjustment to what is and increasing adjustment to higher levels of development. It consists of a conflict with, and a denial and rejection of those standards, patterns, attitudes, demands and expectations of one’s environment which are incompatible with one’s growing awareness of and loyalty to a higher scale of values. Positive maladjustment is a prerequisite to the development towards authenticity (cf.).

⚄ Negative maladjustment consists of a denial and rejection of social norms, customs, and accepted patterns of behavior, but not for the sake of a higher scale of values, but rather because of one’s subordination to primitive urges and nondevelopmental, pathologically deformed structures and functions. In the extreme it takes the form of psychosis, psychopathy, and criminal activity. (1970)

⚃ AFFECTIVE PERSEVERATION. A tendency toward exploration and development of deep emotional relations and interests. It leads to few but very close relationships of love and friendship, or to a very profound dedication to one’s vocation. It occurs in individuals who are both emotional and introverted. They experience deeply and strongly, they remember their experiences vividly because of enhanced affective memory. Affective perseveration is related to the development of such attitudes as faithfulness to principles, loyalty in friendship, and constancy of interests. This quality is developmentally positive. (1972)

⚃ AMBIEQUAL TYPE. A type of personality differentiated by Rorschach which gives on the inkblot test a balance of response between internal movement and sensitivity to colors. It corresponds somewhat to the balance between introversion (emotional self-sufficiency and exclusivity, self-reference for norms and values), creativity, dependence on the external world, and sensitivity to it (need for emotional contact with environment, conformity with others, relative lack of self-reference). (1972)

⚃ AMBITENDENCIES. Contrary drives which are struggling for dominance yet never gaining it for an extended period of time. For example, greed and the accumulation of money may conflict with the desire to spend it all and have a good time, a death wish (suicidal tendency) may conflict with the drive to self-preservation. As in Ambivalences these are conflicts between drives of the same level, therefore they are unilevel, and as such are characteristic of unilevel disintegration. (1972)

⚃ AMBIVALENCES. Conflicting attitudes as of obedience and rebellion, inferiority and superiority, love and hate, etc. Ambivalences are characteristic dynamisms of unilevel disintegration. The sense of higher and lower values is absent, the conflicting feelings are of equal value, therefore, they represent one and the same level. (1972)

⚃ ANIMISM. The belief that objects in nature, or natural phenomena, are endowed with their own consciousness, or are inhabited by souls or spirits. (1972)

⚃ ARRHYTHMIA. A change in the rhythm or force of heartbeat. Arrhythmia may be caused by organic changes or by an alteration in the control of heartbeat without physical impairment (it is, therefore, a functional disorder). (1972)

⚃ ASTHENIA. Weakness, also tendency towards depression as in psychic asthenia (= psychasthenia). (1972)

⚃ ASTHENIC. A type of body build characterized by small trunk and long limbs, also tending towards feelings of inferiority, weakness, passivity. Underestimates himself, is uncertain in his behavior and gives way. (1972)

⚃ ASTONISHMENT WITH ONESELF, the feeling that some of one’s mental qualities and dynamisms are surprising and unexpected. It has a distinct intellectual component and is one of the earliest developmental dynamisms active at the time of transition from unilevel to multilevel disintegration. It is usually accompanied by the feeling of disquietude (cf.) and discontent (cf.) with oneself. (1970)

⚃ ASTONISHMENT WITH ONESELF. The feeling that some of one’s mental qualities are surprising and unexpected. It is one of the earliest developmental dynamisms, and is mainly cognitive in nature, though not exclusively. It is active at the time of transition from unilevel to multilevel disintegration, usually accompanied by disquietude and dissatisfaction with oneself. (1972)

⚃ AUTHENTICITY, AUTHENTISM. As a developmental force it is called here authentism, a dynamism which consists in the feeling, awareness and expression of one’s own emotional, intellectual and volitional attitudes, achieved through autonomous developmental transformations of one’s own hierarchy of values and aims. It involves a high degree of insight into oneself. Authenticity is a symptom of independence from lower instinctive levels and selective independence from influences of the external environment and the inner psychic milieu. It brings about a high degree of unity of one’s thinking, emotions and activity. Authentism involves conscious activity in accordance with one’s “inner truth.” The appearance and growth of authentism results from the operation of such dynamisms as dissatisfaction with oneself, (cf.), autonomy, (cf.) the third factor, (cf.) positive maladjustment, (cf.) ‘subject-object' in oneself (cf.) inner psychic transformation and the personality ideal. (1970)

⚃ AUTHENTICITY, AUTHENTISM. Authenticity denotes a high degree of unity of one’s thinking, emotions, and activity. Authentism involves conscious activity in accordance with one’s “inner truth,” i.e. one’s autonomously developed hierarchy of values; it is a developmental force. (1972)

⚃ AUTISM, or AUTISTIC THINKING. Mental activity serving to gratify the thinker without respect to actual reality. Portrayed by Thurber in “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.” (Dąbrowski, 1972)

⚃ AUTOMATIC DYNAMISMS. Mental processes stemming from constitutional typological factors lacking conscious inner transformation, e.g. the “spontaneity” of action painting or “happenings.” (Dąbrowski, 1972)

⚃ AUTONOMIC DISEQUILIBRIUM. Amphotonia, Dystonia, or Vagosympathetic Dystonia. Lack of balance between the activity of the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous systems, characterized by quick switches of dominance from one system to the other (see Autonomic Lability). Autonomic disequilibrium is characteristic of the lower neuroses. (1972)

⚃ AUTONOMIC DISORGANIZATION. The most evolved stage of Autonomic Disequilibrium (q.v.). It is expressed in the alternating strength of activity of the two autonomic systems: the sympathetic and the para-sympathetic. It is observed as a prevalence of activity of the sympathetic nervous system in one field (e.g. digestive, or circulatory) and at the same time a prevalence of activity of the parasympathetic system in another field (e.g. genito-urinary, or respiratory). (1972)

⚃ AUTONOMIC LABILITY. A tendency to sudden transfer of tension between the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous systems. These reactions have disturbing consequences, as for instance, sudden drop of blood pressure and fainting spells, or the reverse when a sudden rise in blood pressure is spontaneously compensated by bleeding from the nose or mouth. (1972)

⚃ AUTONOMIC NERVOUS SYSTEM. A system of neurons controlling the involuntary activity of the viscera: digestive organs, heart, lungs, kidneys, glands, etc. It has two parts, the sympathetic and the parasympathetic. The stimulation of the sympathetic system mobilizes the organism by quickening respiration, heart rate, raising the blood pressure, etc. The action of the parasympathetic system is for the most part functionally reciprocal. The excitation of one system results in the inhibition of the functions controlled by the other, for instance, the increase of respiration and heart rate suspends digestion. (1972)

⚃ AUTONOMIC SOMATIZATION. The transformation of acute psychological tension into nervous somatic symptoms under the control of the autonomic nervous system. For instance, an increase in the pulse rate, blushing, or growing pale, growing tense, hysterical paralysis, etc., occur as a result of a severe emotional experience. The symptoms and syndromes may grow from very weak to very strong. It is believed that in autonomic somatization the disturbance is due more to the lability of the autonomic nervous system rather than to the intensity of psychological processes. Cf. Psychosomatization. (1972)

⚃ AUTONOMY, consciously developed independence from lower level drives and from some influences of the external environment. Autonomy is possible only as a result of the operation of other dynamisms of the inner psychic milieu (cf.), mainly the third factor (cf.). (1970)

⚃ AUTONOMY. A dynamism of inner freedom. It signifies a consciously developed independence from lower drives and from the influences of the external environment. (1972)

⚃ AUTOPSYCHOTHERAPY. Psychotherapy, preventive measures, or changes in living conditions consciously applied to oneself in order to control possible mental disequilibrium. (1972)

⚃ BABINSKI REFLEX. Spreading of toes when the sole of the foot is scratched. A sign of pathology in the nervous system. (1972)

⚃ CATATONIC SCHIZOPHRENIA, or CATATONIA. Type of schizophrenia characterized by slowness of movements, or prolonged immobility, sometimes by muscular rigidity and inflexibility. (1972)

⚃ CHWOSTEK REFLEX. Local contraction of facial muscles in response to being struck by a mallet or to other stimulus. (1972)

⚃ COENESTESY, conversion of mental processes into processes of the sympathetic nervous system and vice versa, usually associated with somatic dystonia. Coenestesy is frequently observable at the stage of unilevel disintegration and may represent the introductory phase toward a control of the sympathetic system by the growing personality. In this case we call it positive coenestesy.

⚄ Coenestesy occurs often among individuals having a better than average ability for development. They usually show great plasticity and sensitivity, easily producing neurotic reactions which are, however, quickly controlled and disappear. (1970)

⚃ COENESTHESIA. The totality of internal sensations by which one perceives one’s own body. Coenesthesia is increased when emotional processes are converted into the processes controlled by the autonomic nervous system, and vice versa, and are experienced as numbness, formication, or internal oppression. Disturbances of coenesthesia take the form of vertigo, palpitation, nausea, etc. Marked coenesthesia is frequent at the stage of unilevel disintegration and may represent an initial phase toward control of the autonomic nervous system by the growing personality. (1972)

⚃ CONFABULATION. More or less unconscious creation of imaginary experiences, often in great detail, to cover up memory gaps or other lacks of own material. (1972)

⚃ CONTACT INTROVERSION. Introversion combined with conscious need for external contact. It results from the transformation of rigid introversion into a mixed introvertive-extrovertive type. It is an example of the transformation of a one-sided psychological type to a richer one less delimited by constitutional factors. Thus it represents an expression of the developmental potential. Contact introversion is connected with the dynamism and process “subject-object in oneself.” (Dąbrowski, 1972)

⚃ CONVERSION. A mental mechanism by means of which an emotional reaction is expressed in an alteration of a function of the body, e.g. paralysis of a limb as an escape from a threatening or painful situation, or as an extreme affective identification with a paralyzed beloved person. Conversion reaction is characteristic of hysteria. (1972)

⚃ CREATIVE DYNAMISMS. Different abilities and talents finding their expression in a search for “otherness,” for nonstereotype facets of reality. All developmental dynamisms are creative by their power of transforming the individual and his perception of reality. (1972)

⚃ CREATIVE INSTINCT, a dynamism which consists of the search for new and qualitatively different experiences. It appears and grows at a relatively high level of development. Arising from the negative experience of excessive saturation with actual conditions, it is associated with the dynamisms of dissatisfaction with oneself, and the environment, the third factor, the desire to transform oneself, prospection and authenticity. It is not necessarily associated with a global development of mental functions and structures. It appears in the first phase of multilevel disintegration. (1970)

⚃ CREATIVE INSTINCT. An assembly of cohesively organized forces, often of great intensity, oriented toward a search for the new and the different in the external and the internal reality. Creative instinct is associated with accelerated development. (1972)

⚃ CUTANEOUS REFLEX. Wrinkling of the skin or gooseflesh upon mechanical stimulation of the skin. (1972)

⚃ CYCLOID. Refers to a person who shows relatively marked but normal swings of mood between excitement and depression, less strong than in the cyclothymic (q.v.). (1972)

⚃ CYCLOTHYMIC. Exhibiting alternating moods of elation and depression, activity and inactivity, with mood swings out of proportion to apparent stimuli. A mild form of manic-depressive behavior. (1972)

⚃ DEFENSE THROUGH DEVELOPMENT. With the progress of development the defensive (i.e. protective) forces localize themselves at a high level toward the service of individual growth. Mental development is the best protection against mental disorder. It is the lack of mental growth, or its stalemate, that favors mental illness. (1972)

⚃ DELUSIONAL CENTER. A disposing and directing center identified with a delusion (of persecution, jealousy, etc.) which controls behavior. (1972)

⚃ DERMOGRAPHIA. Sensitivity of the skin to local mechanical irritation. When pressed or scratched the skin produces a reddish, or sometimes white, raised mark which may stay for a short while or a long time, in which case we have a prolonged and more intense dermographic response. (1972)

⚃ DEVELOPMENTAL INSTINCT, instinct of a most general and basic nature, a “mother instinct” in relation to all other instincts; the source (in nucleus) of all developmental forces of an individual. It finds its expression particularly in such dynamisms as dissatisfaction with oneself, feelings of inferiority towards oneself, the third factor, inner psychic transformation, disposing and directing center at a higher level, autonomy and authentism, personality ideal. It acts differently at different stages of development, pushing the individual towards higher and higher developmental levels. It operates with variable intensity in most human individuals; among those with the ability for accelerated development it takes the form of education-of-oneself and autopsychotherapy. Some individuals, e.g oligophrenics, imbeciles, idiots, do not have the developmental instinct. (1970)

⚃ DEVELOPMENTAL INSTINCT. The source of all mental developmental forces of the individual. It is absent in mental retardation and psychopathy. (1972)

⚃ DEVELOPMENTAL POTENTIAL. The constitutional endowment which determines the character and the extent of mental growth possible for a given individual. The developmental potential can be assessed on the basis of the following components: psychic overexcitability (q.v.), special abilities and talents, and autonomous factors (notably the Third factor). (1972)

⚃ DISINTEGRATION, mental, consists of loosening, disorganization or dissolution of mental structures and functions. The term covers a wide range of states from temporary loosening of contact with reality observable in severe fatigue, boredom, depression, stress, mental conflicts, disequilibrium, neurosis or psychoneurosis to a split of personality in schizophrenia. “Normal” symptoms of disintegration are distinctly and almost universally observable at the time of puberty and menopause, also at times of critical experiences, suffering, inner conflicts, intense joy or exaltation, etc.

⚄ Disintegration is unilevel (or horizontal), if there are protracted and recurrent conflicts between drives and emotional states of a similar developmental level and of the same intensity, e.g. states of ambivalence and ambitendency, propulsion toward and repulsion from the same object, rapidly changing states of joy and sadness, excitement and depression without the tendency towards stabilization within a hierarchy. It is characteristic of unilevel disintegration that conflicts are accompanied by a lack or by a minimal degree of consciousness and self-consciousness, self-control and ability to transform stimuli.

⚄ Disintegration is multilevel (or vertical), if there are conflicts between higher and lower levels of instinctive, emotional or intellectual functions, e.g. higher and lower forms of the sexual instinct, or the instinct of self-preservation, etc. It consists mainly in differentiation and hierarchization of various levels of functions with a tendency towards gradual stabilization of a new hierarchy. In the course of positive multilevel disintegration primitive, animalistic drives and structures are subject to a disintegration, that is weakening, loosening and even total destruction under the impact of developmental dynamisms (cf.) and gradually give way to new, higher levels and new, higher structures. There is a growth of consciousness of inner conflicts, self-consciousness and self-control. The processes of inner psychic transformation gain in intensity and authenticity (cf.). There is a gradual build-up of the inner psychic milieu (cf.) with its main dynamisms such as “subject-object” in oneself, the third factor, inner psychic transformation, autonomy and authentism, and the personality ideal.

⚄ Multilevel disintegration includes two phases. The first is spontaneous, as it is characterized by a relative predominance of spontaneous developmental forces and the second is organized (self-directed), as it is in the period of conscious organization and direction of the processes of disintegration towards secondary integration and personality. Negative or involutional disintegration is characterized by the presence and operation of dissolving dynamisms and by the lack of developmental dynamisms. It occurs almost solely at the stage of unilevel disintegration and may end in dissolution of mental structures (chronic mental illness).

⚄ Positive or developmental disintegration effects a weakening and dissolution of lower level structures and functions, gradual generation and growth of higher levels of mental functions and culminates in personality integration. Its characteristics are the presence and operation of developmental dynamisms (cf.), many of which involve psychoneurotic states (cf.) psychoneurosis) with all their protective (defensive) and creative forces.

⚄ The process of positive disintegration starts from primitive integration and develops through the following four stages: (1) unilevel disintegration, if it shows some nuclei of self-consciousness, (2) spontaneous multilevel disintegrations, (3) organized multilevel disintegration, (4) transition from multilevel disintegration to secondary integration. It culminates in global secondary integration at a new, higher level.

⚄ Global disintegration involves all main mental functions. It comes about either as a result of fundamental transformations in the full cycle of the process of positive disintegration or as a result of many partial disintegrations, or as an outcome of the collaboration of both above processes. It transforms the whole mental structure and thus paves the way for a new global integration at the level of personality (cf.).

⚄ Partial multilevel disintegration occurs within one or a few interconnected dynamisms. Its outcome is either a return to a lower primitive integration, or a transformation into a global disintegration, or, in case of multilevel partial disintegration, a partial integration at a higher level. Partial multilevel disintegration is a result of limited hereditary endowment and psychic experiences limited to a narrow sphere. These cause a loosening or disintegration of narrow, primitive structures. The partial secondary integration at a higher level, which usually follows, is a result of inner psychic transformation (cf.) within a limited area. An accumulation of a great number of partial integrations at a higher level may culminate in a global disintegration and later formation of personality. Partial disintegrations culminating in partial integrations at higher levels are the usual endpoint of mental development of people with average sensitivity and average endowment. (1970)

⚃ DISINTEGRATION. Loosening, disorganization, or dissolution of mental structures and functions. See Unilevel Disintegration, Multilevel Disintegration, Negative Disintegration, and Positive Disintegration. (1972)

⚃ DISPOSING AND DIRECTING CENTER is the dynamism which determines each act of an individual as well as his long range behavior, plans and aspiration. It performs the following: programming, planning, organizing, collaborating, general and concrete deciding. At a lower level its role is fulfilled by various primitive drives (e.g. sexual, self-preservation, etc.) which temporarily or permanently direct and control an individual’s life and conscious activities. Only at a higher stage, particularly during multilevel disintegration, the disposing and directing center appears and develops as an independent dynamism, not identical with any one or any combination of other dynamisms. At the level of primitive integration the role of the disposing and directing center is taken by primitive drives which dominate and subordinate other functions. At the stage of unilevel disintegration and during the earlier period of multilevel disintegration this role is played alternatively by different dynamisms, often of a contrary nature. At higher phases of multilevel disintegration the disposing and directing center starts operating as a dynamism not identical with any other function, although collaborating closely with the highest dynamisms of the inner psychic milieu, such as the third factor, inner psychic transformation, autonomy, authentism, and the ideal of personality. At secondary integration it is incorporated into the personality which exercises synthetic activity and superior control over all human actions. (1970)

⚃ DISPOSING AND DIRECTING CENTER. A center which controls behavior over a short or long period of time. At a low level of human development this center is identical with either one or a group of primitive drives (e.g. self-preservation, sexual, aggressive, etc.). At higher levels of development this center becomes an independent dynamism working towards harmonious unification of personality. (1972)

⚃ DISQUIETUDE WITH ONESELF, uneasiness with oneself, one of the earliest developmental dynamisms, active especially at the time of transition from unilevel to multilevel disintegration, frequently taking the form of astonishment with oneself (cf.) or dissatisfaction with oneself (cf.). It consists of astonishment combined with a strong emotional component and evaluative attitude of a medium intensity. Unlike disquietude about oneself it is not generated by the self-preservation instinct, but rather by the cognitive and developmental instincts. (1970)

⚃ DISQUIETUDE WITH ONESELF. The feeling of uneasiness with oneself; one of the earliest dynamisms marking the beginning of multilevel disintegration. (1972)

⚃ DISSATISFACTION, WITH ONESELF, is an early form of the dynamisms of valuation. It contains a strong emotional component expressed in disapproval of some of the elements of one’s own mental structure. (1970)

⚃ DISSATISFACTION WITH ONESELF or Discontent with oneself. An early form of the dynamism of valuation (the third factor). A potent motivator of conscious development. (1972)

⚃ DRIVE, concrete instinctive need of a great intensity demanding satisfaction. (1970)

⚃ DRIVE. A concrete instinctive need of great intensity demanding satisfaction. (1972)

⚃ DYNAMIC INSIGHT, or “Prise de conscience.” Strong global momentary states of self-awareness. They tend to generate dynamic understanding of one’s behavior with the consequences of changing it. (1972)

⚃ DYNAMISM, biological or mental forces of a variety of kinds, scopes, levels of development and intensity, decisive with regard to the behavior, activity, development or involution of man. Instincts, drives and intellectual processes conjoined with emotions constitute specific kinds of dynamisms. (1970)

⚃ DYNAMISM. Biological or mental force controlling behavior and its development. Instincts, drives, and intellectual processes combined with emotions are dynamisms. (1972)

⚃ ECSTASY. Extreme absorption of attention resulting in a semi-trance as a consequence of intense contemplation of a limited field; a state characteristic of mystical experiences. (1972)

⚃ EKKLISIS. A term introduced by von Monakow to describe one of the two biopsychic vectors of behavioral patterns of living beings: approach and avoidance, attraction and repulsion, syntony and dislike, flight and aggression. Ekklisis is the id for the outward movement, Klisis is the id for the approach movement. (1972)

⚃ EMOTIONAL IMMATURITY, positive, is to be distinguished from its negative form i.e. emotional or affective retardation (cf.).

⚄ It does not adapt to the biopsychic developmental phases and transcends the biological cycle of life. Positive emotional immaturity consists in the endurance and persistence of a variety of emotional and in part intellectual qualities and functions which are characteristic of childhood and youth. Qualities such as sincerity, outrightness, straight forwardness, syntony, enthusiasm, lack of mental rigidity and stereotypy, magical and animistic thinking, elements specific in creative thinking become a source of plasticity, creative development and ability to transform one’s psychological type. Frequently this kind of “immaturity” is associated with tendencies towards positive regression. (cf.). (1970)

⚃ EMOTIONAL IMMATURITY. The persistence of emotional and intellectual qualities characteristic of children and youth past a young age. Associated with tendencies to Positive Regression (q.v.) it is an essential component of creative development. (1972)

⚃ EMOTIONAL RETARDATION, or affective retardation, a negative form of emotional immaturity, is a result of arrested development of the emotional sphere and is characterized by the primitiveness and rigidity of emotions, lack of higher subtle emotions, a very low level of syntony and emotional sensitivity. It occurs in psychopathy, some forms of intellectual retardation and in some forms of mental infantilism. (1970)

⚃ EMOTIONAL RETARDATION. A negative form of Emotional Immaturity; lack of emotional development characterized by primitiveness and rigidity of affect, very low level of syntony and emotional sensitivity. Associated with psychopathy and some forms of mental retardation. (1972)

⚃ ERYTHEMA PUDICUM. The tendency to blush because of feelings of shame, timidity, or inhibition. An indicator of emotional overexcitability. It is often due to periodic heightened sensitivity to the opinions and judgments expressed by others. It is combined with somatopsychic sensitivity. (1972)

⚃ EVOLUTION. A development which proceeds from lower to higher levels of organization. Positive disintegration is the type of process through which individual human evolution occurs. See Involution. (1972)

⚃ EXISTENTIAL ANXIETY. Anxiety states on a very high level of development involving the awareness of the fact of one’s existence and the responsibility that follows from it. Fear for others prevails over fear for oneself. Existential anxiety arises on the basis of psychic overexcitability (q.v.) of alterocentric nature. It embraces empathic and intellectual components on a very wide range with the emphasis on the human dilemma of existential choice. It is also related to the awareness of the universality of human experience as expressed by St. Paul: “If anyone is weak, do I not share this weakness? If anyone is made to stumble, does not my heart blaze with indignation?” (II Cor. 11, 29). (1972)

⚃ EXISTENTIAL HYSTERIA. A psychoneurosis at a high level of development arising on a background of existential experiences and actions prompted by empathy (alterocentric preoccupations). With hysteria it has the following similarities, though expressed at a higher level: intense affects, strong dramatization, attitude of gesture, demonstrativeness, tendency toward ecstasy or contemplation. (1972)

⚃ EXISTENTIAL PSYCHONEUROSIS. Psychoneurosis on a high level of development which involves a dominance of existential preoccupations. These existential components are peculiar to each kind of psychoneurosis-depressive, anxiety, infantile, obsessive, etc. (1972)

⚃ EXTERIORIZATION, an overt manifestation of a mental process. Cf. interiorization, inner psychic transformation. (1970)

⚃ EXTRAVERT. A type of personality exhibiting strong interest in external reality, inclined to rely in his judgments and experiences on the opinions of his environment; inclined to syntony and adaptation to others, does not tolerate solitude. (1972)

⚃ FUNCTIONS, mental, general term to denote mental processes dealing with definite aspects of life. (Cf. levels of functions). (1970)

⚃ FUNCTIONS. The instruments of mental and emotional equipment, e.g. reality function, empathy, identification, responsibility, intuition. See Levels of Functions. (1972)

⚃ GUILT, feeling of, arises from the feeling of dissatisfaction with oneself (cf.) and represents its intensified form, usually associated with a strong need for expiation. The feeling of guilt always has alterocentric components and originates from the hereditary endowment. Its presence indicates increased intensity of the process of multilevel disintegration. It is usually accompanied by the feelings of shame (cf.), inferiority towards oneself (cf.) and responsibility for one’s actions (cf.). (1970)

⚃ HEBEPHRENIC SCHIZOPHRENIA, or Hebephrenia. Type of schizophrenia characterized by shallow inappropriate affects, unpredictable behavior, silly mannerisms. (1972)

⚃ HIERARCHIZATION. The process of developing or activating different emotional levels. It stems from conflicts of value which reflect the existence of feelings corresponding to higher and lower values (i.e. more preferred vs. less preferred choices). A hierarchy of values is a hierarchy of higher and lower levels of emotions. (1972)

⚃ HYPERTONIA, OR Autonomic Hypertonia. High tension of the Autonomic nervous system (q.v.). (1972)

⚃ HYPOBULIA. Lowered ability to act or to make decisions. Less severe than Abulia. (1972)

⚃ HYPOMANIC. Refers to mild manic conditions, characterized by restlessness, flight of ideas, distraction. (1972)

⚃ HYPOTONIA, or Autonomic Hypotonia. Low tension of the Autonomic nervous system (q.v.). (1972)

⚃ IDENTIFICATION, consists of understanding and experiencing of mental states, attitudes, aspirations and activity of other people or of oneself. The capacity for identification is obtainable only at a high level of universal mental development through the process of positive disintegration. Self-conscious and authentic identification is possible only on the foundation of a rich inner psychic milieu. It is preceded by and associated with such dynamisms as “subject-object” in oneself, the third factor and inner psychic transformation.

⚄ There is a close association between identification and empathy. Although identification is not mainly intellectual, it has a more distinct intellectual component than empathy.

⚄ Identification with others expresses the attitude of “klisis” (attraction) independently of the developmental level of the people towards whom this attitude is directed. Identification with oneself expresses the attitude of “klisis” in relation to one’s higher levels and “ekklisis” (repulsion) in relation to lower levels.

⚄ Identification in this conception has a clear positive, developmental and highly conscious nature. It does not involve in any way the process of obliteration or absorption of the other person into oneself or vice versa. It should be clearly distinguished from unconscious or half-conscious identifications which are conspicuous in dancing, singing, sport or fighting. Those forms of identifications are for the most part dependent on biological temperamental factors and do not represent any developmental value. (1970)

⚃ INFANTILISM, a conjunction of infantile mental qualities, especially emotional, moral, social and intellectual of different levels and in various configurations. It may fulfill a generally positive or negative function. In the first case it is associated mainly with versatile abilities, plasticity and emotional sincerity, characteristic of childhood; in the second case it is associated with general lack of ability for development and tendency towards rigidity, sometimes with mental retardation. It is frequently combined with hormonal disturbances. (1970)

⚃ INFANTILISM. A combination of infantile mental qualities. In its positive form it is associated with plasticity and emotional sincerity characteristic of children. In its negative form it is associated with general lack of developmental potential as in mental retardation. (1972)

⚃ INFERIORITY TOWARD ONESELF, feeling of, consists of the experience of and awareness of the disparity between the level at which one is and the higher level toward which one strives, between what one is and what one ought to be. It comes about as a result of experiences associated with “climbing up” to a higher level and “slipping back.” It is an outcome of the shock caused by the realization of one’s unfaithfulness to the ideal of personality, to the hierarchy of values which begins to take shape, or already has taken shape, but lacks stability. It is associated with an intensive need to establish a definite hierarchy of values and aims and to transform oneself accordingly. It usually operates in conjunction with the dynamisms “subject-object” in oneself, dissatisfaction with oneself and, at higher levels, with the personality ideal. (1970)

⚃ INFERIORITY TOWARD ONESELF. The feeling consisting in the experiencing and awareness of the disparity between the level at which one is and the higher one toward which one strives. It is the shock of realization of one’s unfaithfulness to the ideal of personality, to the hierarchy of values which begins to take shape but as yet lacks stability, followed by a desire and actions to transform oneself. (1972)

⚃ INHIBITION. Means of control of physiological or mental processes at any level of activity by reducing or stopping the flow of a given process. (1972)

⚃ INNER PSYCHIC MILIEU (internal mental environment), that part of the psyche where man enters into conflict with himself, the totality of mental dynamisms of a low or high degree of consciousness operating in a more or less hierarchical organization. These dynamisms are basically in a relation of cooperation which, however, does not exclude developmental conflicts. They perform the main task of positive disintegration at the stage of multilevel disintegration by participation in the transformation of mental functions and structures in the direction of higher levels up to the level of fully developed personality.

⚄ All the dynamisms of the inner psychic milieu, largely speaking, may be divided into unilevel and multilevel. Ambivalences and ambitendencies are unilevel dynamisms, all other are multilevel (see Chapter IV).

⚄ It may be assumed that nuclei of the inner psychic milieu exist in primitive stages of mental development, particularly at unilevel disintegration. At this stage, however, there is no distinct psychic transformation. Basic primitive drives are active at this stage, with variable intensity and localization in relation to other drives depending on the psychophysiological stage of the individual. Slight somatic and coenestetic disturbances cause various forms of mental disequilibrium and consequently of primitive psychosomatic conversion. In this way nuclei of the inner psychic milieu arise. The inner psychic milieu in a strict sense (i.e. as a hierarchical structure) arises only at later stages, when the abilities for self-observation and self-control are sufficiently developed. (1970)

⚃ INNER PSYCHIC MILIEU, or internal mental environment. The totality of mental dynamisms of a low or high degree of consciousness. The inner psychic milieu may be hierarchical, as in multilevel disintegration, or ahierarchical, as in unilevel disintegration. The inner psychic milieu as a ground for positive development must be hierarchical, and it is this type which is normally understood under the term. (1972)

⚃ INNER PSYCHIC TRANSFORMATION, a dynamism which carries out the work of developmental change in man’s mental structure. The characteristic aspects of the operation of inner psychic transformation are: (1) transformation of the innate psychological type by introduction of traits of the opposite type (e.g. introduction of traits of introversion into an extrovert mental structure); (2) transformation of somatic determination (biological sequence of the life cycle, aging, disease, etc.) into mental determination (accumulation of mental powers that result in consistent domination and control of somatic determinants).

⚄ Stimuli received by the psyche are subject to inner psychic transformation. The stimuli can be external or internal (i.e. originating in the inner psychic milieu). Because of the intervening process of transformation response is not always directly related to the original stimulus. In the extreme, though not infrequent, case, there might be no external response. Similarly, an external response may be generated without an immediate external stimulus. When the stimuli and responses arise entirely within the inner psychic milieu, we have the process of inner psychic transformation of the milieu itself. As a basic dynamism operating on all levels of the inner milieu inner psychic transformation cooperates with all dynamisms of that milieu. (1970)

⚃ INNER PSYCHIC TRANSFORMATION. The process by which the work of developmental change in man’s mental structure is carried out. It makes possible the transcending of the psychological type and of the biological life cycle (see Transcending). (1972)

⚃ INSTINCT, a fundamental dynamism (force) in the lives of animals and men which has a great intensity, a significant degree of compactness and cohesiveness, its own sphere of activity, and its own direction.

⚄ It is common to some animal species and man or peculiar to man only, undergoing a transformation in phylogenetic and ontogenetic development, appearing characteristically at certain phases and levels of development.

⚄ This concept differs in several respects from the general use of the term instinct. The main new elements are: (1) Instincts undergo transformations in ontogenetic development. (2) Some instinctive forces occur only among some people, especially among those who have attained a high level of psychic development. (3) The qualification of the forces mentioned in point (2) as instincts is due to their origin from a more fundamental developmental instinct and to the fact that they show strength and compactness, comparable to primitive instinctive drives, and sometimes even greater. (4) Their development and transformation depend not only on the element of intelligence and knowledge conjoined with them, but also on their inter and intrainstinctive conflicts and cooperation.

⚄ The typical ontogenetic development of instincts passes through the following stages and levels: (1) A simple, automatic, cohesive structure, with a completely subordinated intellectual function and identified with the will. (2) A loosening of the structure, spasticity, vacillation, conflicts between different instincts of the same general level. (3) Inter and intrainstinctive disintegration, formation of new, higher instincts (e.g. creative into self-perfection). (4) Gradual refinement of higher levels of instincts and elimination of lower ones. (5) High level instincts become an integral part of the disposing and directing center, and thus they become constitutive elements of personality. (1970)

⚃ INTEGRATION, mental, consists in an incorporation of various functions into a coordinated structure showing a dynamic equilibrium which counteracts neurotic responses.

⚄ From the standpoint of the theory of positive disintegration it is necessary to distinguish various kinds of integrations at lower and higher levels and conceive of disintegration (cf.) as a basic process of transition from a lower level integration to a higher one. Consequently disintegrative processes are considered as developmental, that is positive and basically healthy, while rigid lower level integrations indicate the opposite of mental health (cf.), (cf. negative integration, primitive integration, secondary integration). (1970)

⚃ INTEGRATION. Consists in an organization of instinctive, emotional and intellectual functions into a coordinated structure. See Primitive Integration and Secondary Integration. (1972)

⚃ INTERIORIZATION AND EXTERIORIZATION (cf.), dynamisms which are necessary for the process of inner psychic transformation (cf.). Interiorization consists in a conscious and selective introjection of external and internal stimuli in order to submit them to inner psychic transformation before any response is emitted. If the process of inner psychic transformation has taken place, exteriorization takes a form which expresses more the psychological type of the individual than the nature of the stimulus. (1970)

⚃ INTERNEUROTIC LEVELS. Psychoneurotic syndromes characteristic of different levels of development. For example, phobias, organ neuroses and hypochondria are limited to Level II (unilevel disintegration), while paranoid and catatonic schizophrenias can occur at Level II and III and thus are disorders of higher level representing greater complexity and greater possibility of growth. Psychoneurotic anxiety and depression are still higher because they do not occur below Level III (see Table II, p. 110). Correct and precise diagnosis of a syndrome helps to identify the developmental level of a patient. (1972)

⚃ INTRANEUROTIC LEVELS. Levels of functions differentiated within the same psychoneurotic syndrome. Lower levels are characterized by predominant somatic control while higher levels by predominant mental control. For example within the category of psychasthenias neurasthenia represents a higher level than hypochondria, but lower level than psychasthenia, all three involving the same group of functions (see Table III, p. 113). (1972)

⚃ INTROVERT. A type of personality having difficult contact with his environment, inclined to base his behavior on his own judgment, imagination and experience; inclined to solitude, avoids other especially at times of grave difficulties. (1972)

⚃ INVOLUTION. Negative development. Opposite of evolution (q.v.). Development which proceeds from higher to a lower level of organization. It tends toward severe disorders (psychosis, psychopathy, mental retardation), and may lead to the dissolution of mental organization. (1972)

⚃ KINAESTHESIS. The sense of movement derived from receptors in skeletal muscles, joints, etc. In the Rorschach – a movement response. (1972)

⚃ KLISIS. A term introduced by von Monakow to describe the approach tendency as one of the two main behavioral vectors. See Ekklisis. (1972)

⚃ LEVELS OF FUNCTIONS, denote quantitative and qualitative changes which occur in different mental functions in the course of development. Generally, lower levels of functions are characterized by automatism, impulsiveness, stereotypy, lack or low degree of consciousness, lack of inner psychic transformation. Higher levels show distinct consciousness, inner psychic transformation, intellectual components operating in conjunction with higher emotions, and essentially involve creative, autonomous factors (cf. the Syllabus of Transitions from Lower to Higher Functions, Chapter V). Presently available tests distinguish and measure only the levels of intellectual and psychomotor functions. The theory of positive disintegration provides the principles for similar scales to be developed for other functions (53). In particular one could develop a scale for degree of emotional development. The distinction between higher and lower levels of functions is fundamental for the conception of mental development. (1970)

⚃ LEVELS OF FUNCTIONS. The qualitative and quantitative differences which appear in mental functions as a result of developmental changes. Lower levels of functions are characterized by automatism, impulsiveness, stereotypy, egocentrism, lack or low degree of consciousness. Higher levels of functions show distinct consciousness, inner psychic transformation, autonomousness, creativity. (1972)

⚃ MAGICAL THINKING. An emotional, imaginational, and intuitive type of thinking based on the assumption (most often unconscious) that some phenomena may operate exempt from the causality of the laws of nature. Magical thinking explains different phenomena in a miraculous or fantastic way. (1972)

⚃ MEDITATION. Practice of mental concentration leading to inner calmness and sense of well-being. (1972)

⚃ MEDITATIVE EMPATHY. An expression of sympathy towards another person but with strong reflective, and even meditative, components. It is a high level of syntony of closely integrated intellectual elements. The intellectual elements do not diminish such empathy but rather enrich and develop it: “I know you and I always refine this knowledge; yet this does not diminish my feeling for you but differentiates it.” (Dąbrowski, 1972)

⚃ MENTAL DEVELOPMENT, autonomous, is the passing from lower level structures and functions to higher levels (cf. levels of functions). It is a result of the process of positive disintegration (cf.). In its beginning stages mental development is biologically determined, automatic, unconscious or with a low degree of consciousness, confined within the biological cycle of life and consequently exposed to deterioration with age. In higher stages of development the inner psychic milieu with its main dynamisms (cf.) plays an increasingly important role. From the stage of organized multilevel disintegration the highly conscious dynamisms of inner psychic transformation, the third factor, autonomy, and personality ideal determine the direction of development. Conscious and deliberate choice based on many-sided and multilevel insights and understanding replaces unconscious biological drives. Autonomous development transcends the biological cycle of life in a twofold sense: (1) It ceases to be dependent on organic changes such as those characteristic of the periods of puberty, adolescence, menopause, senility, etc. (2) Development remains progressive into old age despite somatic deterioration due to biological changes.

⚄ At higher stages particularly at secondary integration, a regression to lower levels is no longer possible. Lower level drives, once disintegrated and destroyed, cannot re-emerge, while consciously and authentically elaborated higher levels of functions, once integrated into personality, cannot be prevented from operating. The direction of development in its higher stages is derived from the growing insight into and understanding of oneself and the surrounding environment and by the growth of higher emotions, particularly empathy. It is determined by the following guidelines: (1) Openness to new kinds of experiences, increasing sensitivity and growth of both the general potential and specific abilities, the increasing role of conscious and deliberate activities over unconscious and automatic ones, constantly growing control over oneself and the environment. (2) The appearance of a new source of enjoyment resulting from consciously accepted and deliberately developed activities, inspired by a new hierarchy of values (creative work, personal satisfaction from the fulfillment of one’s program). The higher the level of development, the grater is the proportion of this type of satisfaction as compared to pleasures derived from appeasing impulsive desires (sensual pleasures, etc.) which are the only accessible kind of pleasures at lower developmental stages. (3) Growing ability for further development.

⚄ This conception of mental development differs from traditional approaches in the following aspects: (a) It brings out the positive developmental function of the processes of disintegration. (b) It assigns a crucial role to the inner psychic milieu with its main dynamisms of inner psychic transformation, the third factor, autonomy and authentism, disposing and directing center and the personality ideal, that is concepts and processes hitherto left out of consideration. (c) It replace, at a certain level, biological determinants by psychological, conscious and autonomous determinants. (d) It assumes an empirical hierarchy of levels of functions (cf.) and consequently growing objectivity of valuation in morals, aesthetics, etc. proportionate to the stage of mental development. (1970)

⚃ MENTAL HEALTH consists in the functioning of processes which effect development towards higher levels of mental function, towards recognition and realization of higher intellectual, moral, social and aesthetic values and their organization into a hierarchy in accordance with one’s own authentic ideal of personality. (1970)

⚃ MENTAL HEALTH. Development towards higher levels of mental functions, towards the discovery and realization of higher cognitive, moral, social, and aesthetic values and their organization into a hierarchy in accordance with one’s own authentic personality ideal. (1972)

⚃ MENTAL ILLNESS consists in the absence or deficiency of processes which effect development, it takes the form of (1) either a strongly integrated, primitive, psychopathic structure, or (2) a negative, non-developmental disintegration (cf.) which may end in dissolution of mental structures and functions (psychosis). (1970)

⚃ MENTAL ILLNESS. The absence or deficiency of processes which effect the development of emotional and instinctive functions. It takes the form of either (1) a strongly integrated, primitive, psychopathic structure, or (2) a negative, nondevelopmental disintegration which may end in dissolution of mental structures and functions. (1972)

⚃ MIGRATORY NEUROSIS. An organ neurosis with a tendency to periodical quick migration from affecting the function of one organ to affecting another, or from one system of organs to another. (1972)

⚃ MULTILEVEL DISINTEGRATION. Multilevel disintegration is a process of developing an authentic hierarchy of values from conflicts between higher and lower levels of instinctive, emotional and intellectual functions. The conflicts are conscious since they involve the awareness of valuing one level over another, therefore, they are conflicts of value. (1972)

⚃ MULTILEVELNESS. Division of functions into different levels, for instance, the spinal, subcortical, and cortical levels in the nervous system. Individual perception of many levels of external and internal reality appears at a certain stage of development, here called multilevel disintegration. See Levels of Functions. (1972)

⚃ NEGATIVE. Advelopmental, involutional. Refers to factors which arrest development or act against it either by making mental organization rigid, or discomposing it (involution). (1972)

⚃ NEGATIVE ADJUSTMENT. Nondevelopmental adjustment. Unqualified conformity to a hierarchy of values prevailing in a person’s social environment. The values are accepted without an independent critical evaluation. It is an acceptance of an external system of value without autonomous choice. An adjustment to “what is.” (Dąbrowski, 1972)

⚃ NEGATIVE DEVELOPMENTAL POTENTIAL. Constitutional predisposition to psychosis, psychopathy, or mental retardation, or other severe disorders preventing development or leading to the dissolution of mental life. (1972)

⚃ NEGATIVE DISINTEGRATION, or involutional disintegration. A process characterized by the operation of dynamisms dissolving the organization of mental structures and functions. Its end is chronic mental illness. It occurs almost exclusively at the stage of unilevel disintegration. (1972)

⚃ NEGATIVE INTEGRATION, a nondevelopmental pathological form of integration (cf.) which involves emotional retardation (cf.). Observable in psychopathy, paranoia, and in some forms of oligophrenia. (1970)

⚃ NEGATIVE MALADJUSTMENT. Rejection of social norms and accepted patterns of behavior because of the controlling power of primitive drives and nondevelopmental or pathologically deformed structures and functions. In the extreme case it takes the form of psychosis, psychopathy, or criminal activity. (1972)

⚃ NEGATIVE REGRESSION. Thinking, experiencing, and acting resulting from regression to lower and more primitive levels of behavior. (1972)

⚃ NERVOUSNESS. Enhanced psychic overexcitability in the form of excitability of movements, senses, affect, imagination, and intellect. Nervousness does not in any way entail the impairment of mental functions. (1972)

⚃ NEURASTHENIA. A type of psychoneurosis characterized by cycles of excitation followed by excessive fatigue, even exhaustion. Lower level of psychasthenia, frequently associated with obsessions and phobias. (1972)

⚃ NEUROPSYCHIC PROCESSES. Mental and emotional processes occurring at the neurological level intimately connected with somatic functions and primitive emotional and instinctual functions. (1972)

⚃ NEUROSES, a term closely related to the term psychoneurosis, denoting mental disturbances with a distinct dysfunction of the sympathetic nervous system or with functional disorders of internal organs (German: Organneurosen). While psychoneuroses can be said to be of a psychic or of a psychosomatic nature, neuroses, in comparison, are rather somatopsychic. (1970)

⚃ NEUROSIS. Psychophysiological or psychosomatic disorders characterized by a dominance of somatic processes. There are no detectable organic defects, although the functions may be severely affected. (1972)

⚃ NUCLEI. Incipient forms of developmental factors which may or may not develop. (1972)

⚃ OCULOCARDIAC REFLEX. Reflex obtained by lightly pressing on the eyeballs (closed eyelids) and measuring the pulse. The reflex is said to be positive if fluctuation in the pulse rate is observed. (1972)

⚃ ONE-SIDED DEVELOPMENT. Type of development limited to one talent or ability, or to a narrow range of abilities and mental functions. In such development the creative instinct and empathy appear absent. In exceptionally capable individuals their one-sided development may come under the control of a primitive disposing and directing center and in the extreme case may take the form of psychopathy or paranoia. (1972)

⚃ ORGANIZED MULTILEVEL DISINTEGRATION. Developmental level IV. A stage of development when a high level of self-awareness makes possible a greater degree of self-direction and self-determination. External conflicts disappear, and internal conflicts become less overwhelming and intense. (1972)

⚃ PARANOID SCHIZOPHRENIA. Type of schizophrenia characterized by delusions of persecution, or delusions of power, or both. (1972)

⚃ PARTIAL DISINTEGRATION. Disintegration within one or a few related dynamisms. It may lead either to reintegration at a previous level, to reintegration at a lower level (primitive integration), to partial integration at a higher level, or to global disintegration. Partial disintegrations followed by partial integrations at a higher level characterize the developmental pattern of people with average developmental potential. In contrast, global disintegration and global secondary integration (if any) are the privilege of people with rich endowment for accelerated development. (1972)

⚃ PARTIAL SECONDARY INTEGRATION consists in a cohesive organization of some of the mental functions at a higher level. It comes about as a result of partial multilevel disintegration and is due to the process of inner psychic transformation within a limited sphere of functions. (1970)

⚃ PARTIAL SECONDARY INTEGRATION. A cohesive organization of some of the emotional and instinctive functions at a higher level. It comes about as a result of partial multilevel disintegration. (1972)

⚃ PATHOLOGICAL HEREDITARY ENDOWMENT. The occurrence in the family tree of psychoses, psychopathy, mental retardation, or other forms of mental disorder. (1972)

⚃ PATHOLOGICAL RUMINATION. A type of obsession characterized by the tendency to dwell on the same problem without seeking to find a solution to break the “vicious circle.” It is typical of unilevel processes of disintegration. (1972)

⚃ PERSEVERATION. Persistent and recurrent though or image; compulsive repetition of the same phrase or word over and over again. See also Affective Perseveration. (1972)

⚃ PERSONALITY, a harmonious and stable organization of highly refined basic mental qualities and functions (cf.) (higher emotions, higher instincts, higher intellectual processes, interest, concerns, abilities) which comes about as a result of the full process of positive disintegration (cf.) and universal mental development. Although personality in its complete, fully developed and fully harmonized form appears only at the stage of secondary integration, it starts taking shape during later stages of multilevel disintegration. Personality is a self-chosen, self-confirmed and self-educating mental structure, i.e. a structure attainable only through an intensive work of developmental dynamisms, particularly such as inner psychic transformation, the third factor, autonomy and authentism (cf. each).

⚄ The characteristic features of personality are: experiential awareness of one’s personality ideal, the disposing and directing center at its highest level, a high level and great intensity of emotional life, inner psychic transformation and reflection, manifold concerns and interest, openness to the full range of experiences, a high degree of insight into oneself, self-control, ability for further development, presence and strong motivating role of the instincts of creativity and self-perfection.

⚄ Personality is a stable organization of mental functions in a twofold sense: (1) Once the primitive levels of functions have been disintegrated and destroyed and the higher levels elaborated and integrated into a cohesive, all-around structure, slipping backwards to lower levels is no longer possible. One cannot give up values which one learned to appreciate through an authentic, painful process of inner psychic transformation. (2) Although an individual who attained the level of personality continues to grow and may attain some new qualities, no change of his central qualities is possible. His individual characteristics of a high developmental level will persist.

⚄ Personality represents the highest developmental level presently accessible to clinical insight and empirical study. It combines both empirical and evaluative elements. The evaluative element is not arbitrarily postulated, but derived from what is empirically verifiable and from the general conception of mental development underlying the theory of positive disintegration (cf. personality ideal). (1970)

⚃ PERSONALITY. A self-aware, self-chosen, self-affirmed, and self-determined unity of essential individual psychic qualities. Personality as defined here appears at the level of secondary integration (q.v.). (1972)

⚃ PERSONALITY IDEAL, is an individual standard against which one evaluates one’s actual personality structure. It arises out of one’s experience and development. Personality ideal is shaped autonomously and authentically, often in conflict and struggle with the prevalent ideals of society. It is a mental structure which is first intuitively conceived in its broad outline and serves as the empirical model for shaping one’s own personality (cf.). In proportion to the higher levels of development, reached by the individual, his ideal of personality becomes more and more distinct and plays an increasingly significant role in his inner psychic milieu and particularly in the disposing and directing center. This process is called the dynamization of the ideal.

⚄ The tendency to adjust to the ideal of personality is a form of tendency to adjust to what ought to be and refusal to adjust to lower level emotions and urges. The ideal of personality should not be confused with one-sided developmental programs, e.g. the so-called ideal sportsman, businessman, etc., which do not result from an authentic process of multilevel disintegration and inner psychic transformation, but from lower level emotional and intellectual processes. (cf. personality). (1970)

⚃ PERSONALITY IDEAL. An individual standard against which one evaluates one’s actual personality structure. It arises out of one’s experience and development. At first the ideal may be an imitation, nevertheless, with the growth of individual awareness it becomes authentic and autonomous to eventually become the highest dynamism in the development of personality. (1972)

⚃ PERVERSION NEUROSIS. A neurosis resulting from a very strong attraction and repulsion and internal conflict in relation to uncommon sexual urges such as fetishism, necrophilia, homosexuality, or severe masturbation. Internal tension and self-awareness are acting strongly and simultaneously, because there is the awareness of the strength of the impulses and their aberrant nature together with a refinement which removes the possibility of hurting or shocking a sexual partner. (1972)

⚃ POLARITY. Existing between two opposites, as in emotional fluctuations between pleasant and unpleasant, between joyous and sad. (1972)

⚃ POSITIVE. Developmental or evolutional. Also used to refer to development with emerging direction of growth from lower to a higher level of functions (process of hierarchization). (1972)

⚃ POSITIVE ADJUSTMENT, or developmental adjustment. Conformity to higher levels of a hierarchy of values self-discovered and consciously followed. It is an acceptance of values after critical examination and an autonomous choice. It is an adjustment to “what ought to be.” Such hierarchy of values is controlled by (or developed from) the personality ideal. (1972)

⚃ POSITIVE CONFLICT is a conflict which incites or intensifies developmental forces, particularly by disintegrating lower level structures and functions and by deepening the process of self-consciousness and inner psychic transformation. The appearance and development of inner conflicts promotes inhibition and sublimation of external conflicts. Consequently stresses, critical life experiences, anxieties, depressions, etc., basically undesirable from the standpoint of mental health, the theory of positive disintegration regards as significant elements in potentially positive development. (1970)

⚃ POSITIVE DISINTEGRATION. A process of development involving characteristic dynamisms and some degree of awareness of development. It releases the creative powers of the individual, it enriches his psyche, and it carries his growth toward a higher level of psychological functioning.

⚄ There are four stages of positive disintegration forming an invariant sequence: (1) unilevel disintegration, (2) spontaneous multilevel disintegration, (3) organized multilevel disintegration, (4) transition to secondary integration. (1972)

⚃ POSITIVE MALADJUSTMENT. A conflict with and rejection of those standards and attitudes of one’s social environment which are incompatible with one’s growing awareness of a higher scale of values which is developing as an internal imperative. (1972)

⚃ POSITIVE REGRESSION. Regression in the service of the ego. Temporary regression to an earlier emotional period, or withdrawal from current activities in search of isolation. It is caused by a need for saturation with the carefree and warm experiences of childhood, or by a need to have psychic rest, or a time off to accommodate an experiential load. Positive regression allows an individual to prepare more fully the unfolding of his creative potential, to prevent mental disorders, to preserve and develop his autonomy. It is common in people with emotional and imaginational overexcitability. (1972)

⚃ PRESPASM. A prespasmatic state. A state of “preparation” for psychic spasm (q.v.) resulting from painful external or internal stimuli and tension. These stimuli evoke unpleasant reactions and result in fear or flight (avoidance) in acute, unconscious forms. (1972)

⚃ PRIMITIVE DRIVES are those drives which are simple, automatic, involuntary, unconscious or with a relatively low degree of consciousness, stereotyped, constitutionally determined, e.g. low levels of the sexual or maternal instincts. (1970)

⚃ PRIMITIVE DRIVES. Drives (q.v.) operating at the level of primitive integration. Their action is characterized by great intensity, inflexibility, automatism, egocentrism, biological control. They lack the conscious components of reflection, empathy, inhibition. For instance, sexual drive at the primitive level precludes personal involvement with the sexual partner, precludes considerations of discomfort or hurt sustained by the partner. (1972)

⚃ PRIMITIVE FUNCTIONS. Emotional and instinctive functions (q.v.) operating at the level of primitive integration. They are characterized by automatism, impulsiveness, stereotypy, egocentrism, lack of inhibition, lack or low degree of consciousness. (1972)

⚃ PRIMITIVE INTEGRATION, or primary integration, an integration of mental functions, subordinated to primitive drives (cf.). There is no hierarchy of instincts; their prevalence depends entirely on their momentary greater intensity. Intelligence is used only as a tool, completely subservient to primitive urges, without any transformative role. Interest and adaptation are limited to the satisfaction of primitive desires. There is no inner psychic milieu, no mental transformation of stimuli, no inner conflicts. Primary integration in infants is limited to the satisfaction of the need for food, sleep and motion. (1970)

⚃ PRIMITIVE INTEGRATION, or Primary Integration. Developmental level I. An integration of all mental functions into a cohesive structure controlled by primitive drives. (1972)

⚃ PROSPECTION. An ability to temporarily transpose one’s thoughts and feelings into the future, usually associated with rich imagination and fantasy. It may also have a strong intuitive component as a sense of timing of the development to come. Characterizes not only dreamers but also dynamic individuals given to construction of hypotheses or long-range planning. (1972)

⚃ PROTECTIVE MECHANISMS. Psychoneurotic processes and dynamisms which by their relatively mild disintegrating power protect against mental breakdown or suicide. The richer the hereditary endowment the stronger are the protective dynamisms. Cf. Defense through development. (1972)

⚃ PSYCHASTHENIA. A type of psychoneurosis characterized by lowered bio-psychic tonus, especially in regard to primitive functions and adjustment to actual reality. Psychasthenia is characterized by feelings of inadequacy, obsessions, anxieties (especially existential), depressions. (1972)

⚃ PSYCHIC OVEREXCITABILITY. Higher than average responsiveness to stimuli, manifested either by psychomotor, sensual, emotional (affective), imaginational, or intellectual excitability, or the combination thereof. (1972)

⚃ PSYCHIC SPASM. Psychic state analogous to a physiological spasm. It is the sudden arrest in an unpleasant way of ongoing mental activity as a result of new and unfamiliar experiences. It may also be evoked by the sudden appearance of an uncontrollable impulse. (1972)

⚃ PSYCHIC SPASMOPHILIA. Condition analogous to the “spasmophilic” constitution (see Spasmophilia). Psychic spasmophilia does not depend on the physical spasmophilic constitution but may, when present, function together with it. The characteristic traits are excessive sudden responses to positive and negative psychic stimuli. Psychic spasmophilia is an expression of susceptibility to frustration or to being hurt. It acts also as a psychic defense against too strong stimuli by giving a warning signal to consciousness about impending emotional danger or overwhelming joy, which may upset the balance. This mechanism serves the role of delaying or “diluting” negative and positive stimuli of an intensity higher than the system can handle. (1972)

⚃ PSYCHOMOTOR CRISIS. Acting out of psychic tension through temper tantrums, destructive behavior, running away, or hysterical conversion. Psychomotor crises are frequent in cases of psychomotor and emotional overexcitability not combined with other enriching components of the developmental potential which in this case is rather limited, and due to the absence of a multilevel inner psychic milieu does not offer the possibility of a positive release. (1972)

⚃ PSYCHONEUROSES, syndromes of the processes of positive disintegration. They show symptoms of disharmony and conflicts within the inner psychic milieu and with the external environment. The source of disharmony and conflicts is a favorable hereditary endowment and the ability to accelerate development through positive disintegration towards personality, i.e. towards a cohesive structure of functions at secondary integration. This conception of psychoneuroses does not consider them pathological, but rather as positive forces in mental development.

⚄ Psychoneurotic processes, as any other mental processes, may occur at different levels. The difference may be either interneurotic, i.e. between various kinds of psychoneuroses, or intraneurotic, i.e. within the same kind of psychoneurosis. These differences are a result of the cooperation between “pathological,” but positive psychoneurotic dynamisms and related “nonpsychoneurotic” developmental dynamisms (such as interests, concerns, abilities, some of the creative dynamisms etc.). At a high level of development both of the above kinds of mental dynamisms operate in an inseparable interaction. An interneurotic scale would include the following psychoneuroses in the order from lower to higher levels; somatic neuroses, hypochondria, neurasthenia, hysteria, depressive psychoneurosis, anxiety psychoneurosis, infantile psychoneurosis, obsessive psychoneurosis, psychasthenia. Intraneurotic levels are clearly distinguishable in hysteria, from the hysterical character through hysterical conversion to the highest levels of increased emotional and imaginative excitability, high levels of nervousness and tendency towards contemplation. (1970)

⚃ PSYCHONEUROSIS. A more or less organized form of growth through positive disintegration. Lower psychoneuroses are predominantly psychosomatic in nature, higher psychoneuroses are highly conscious internal struggles whose tensions and frustrations are not anymore translated into somatic disorders. (1972)

⚃ PSYCHOSOMATIZATION. An excessive tendency for transposition of intense psychical experiences onto somatic processes. The high tension is absorbed by somatic functions thereby altering their course. This can be manifested as paresis, paralysis, hysterical numbness, etc. In psychosomatization the genesis of a disturbance is believed to be in the psyche. Cf. Autonomic Somatization. (1972)

⚃ REALITY FUNCTION. A function which guides the behavior of the individual in his testing of internal and external reality. It adapts his behavior to the demands of those levels of reality which he perceives as the more vital. Reality function at a low level deals with the basic needs of everyday living. Reality function at a high level deals with the experiences and processes of inner creative reality. (1972)

⚃ REGRESSION, positive, consists in a temporary reversion to an earlier emotional state, that is some forms of emotional infantilism (cf. emotional immaturity). In most cases positive regression is caused by the need for emotional saturation with infantile experiences, the need for a longer period for the development of creative functions which are exposed to the danger of disintegration under the impact of the external world. Emotional regression allows the individual to mature more deeply and many-sidedly, to prepare more fully the unfolding of his creative forces, to prevent mental disturbances, to preserve and develop independence and autonomy of his own self. It constitutes a conscious or semiconscious protection of one’s own development toward personality through the search for the most proper conditions for its growth. (1970)

⚃ REINTEGRATION, an integration subsequent to a period of disintegration but which does not occur at a higher level than the former integration. Reintegration may mean a return to primitive integration or to a partial secondary integration. (1970)

⚃ RESPONSIBILITY, feeling of, is a function of mental development and depends mainly on the ability to understand and evaluate objectively, especially to understand other people’s developmental difficulties and shortcomings and one’s own role in assisting them and cooperating. The feeling of responsibility arises mainly from self-control, sudden insight, inner psychic transformation and empathy. It grows through an increase in consciousness and insight into the many sided and multilevel structure of reality and through active participation of higher emotions, especially empathy. It involves the willingness to give care, protection and help to those in need, to the family, social group, nation, the human race, etc. (1970)

⚃ SCHIZONEUROSIS. A psychopathological syndrome on the borderline of psychoneurosis and schizophrenia (psychosis). (1972)

⚃ SCHIZOPHRENIA SIMPLEX. Type of schizophrenia characterized by withdrawal, apathy, indifference. It progresses slowly but irreversibly. (1972)

⚃ SCHIZOTHYMIC. Showing tendency to an uneven, diffuse, inconsistent behavior with weak syntony and poor adjustment to the environment, often with symptoms of queerness. (1972)

⚃ SECONDARY INTEGRATION, global, results from the full process of positive disintegration. It is an integration of mental functions at a high level, with a dominant role of higher emotions, indicating a high degree of autonomy (cf.) and authenticity (cf.). Secondary integration is strictly correlated with personality (cf.). To denote an integration subsequent (in time) to a period of disintegration, but not at a higher level, the term reintegration (cf.) is reserved. (1970)

⚃ SECONDARY INTEGRATION. Developmental level V. The integration of all mental functions into a harmonious structure controlled by higher emotions such as the dynamism of personality ideal, autonomy and authenticity. Secondary integration is the outcome of the full process of positive disintegration. (1972)

⚃ SELF-PERFECTION INSTINCT consists in a tendency towards gradual attainment of higher developmental levels and involves the whole mental structure of an individual with a special emphasis on the moral sphere and empathy, has a much wider range than the creative instinct and includes its basic components, arises and develops during both stages of multilevel disintegration, operates in association with the dynamism of inner psychic transformation, the ideal of personality and leads directly to the formation of personality. (1970)

⚃ SELF-PERFECTION INSTINCT. The higher form of the creative instinct (q.v.). It appears in accelerated development when the individual’s primary concern is his self-growth. (1972)

⚃ SHAME, feeling of, one of the earliest developmental dynamisms, consists in self-conscious distress and embarrassment, results from predominance of external over internal sensitivity, usually is combined with a strong somatic component, with a slight element of anxiety, with a need to withdraw, to hide away. The feeling of shame is usually associated with the dynamism of dissatisfaction with oneself, with the feeling of guilt and with the feeling of inferiority towards other people. (1970)

⚃ SOMATOPSYCHIC. Refers to the lowest level of psychoneurotic processes, i.e. those occurring without any participation of consciousness. At the somatopsychic level mental processes are almost entirely under the control of biological processes. The next higher level is the psychosomatic where psychological tensions are transposed to somatic processes via the autonomic nervous system. (1972)

⚃ SOMNAMBULISM. Sleepwalking. Walking and carrying out complex activities while in sleep, or a hypnotic or related state. (1972)

⚃ SPASMOPHILIA. The tendency toward muscular twitching, spasms, or convulsions from even slight mechanical or electrical stimulation. Psychic Spasmophilia (q.v.) is a metaphor used here to describe easily mobilized strong and sudden involuntary emotional reactions, tensions, which are experienced not unlike internal convulsions. (1972)

⚃ SPONTANEOUS MULTILEVEL DISINTEGRATION. Developmental Level III. The stage of development which occurs with the emergence of a direction of development and a sense of “higher” and “lower.” These two phenomena are strictly interdependent. They are the result of intense emotional experiences and spontaneously developing conflicts of value (see Hierarchization). (1972)

⚃ “STUTTERING” OF SOMATIC FUNCTIONS. A tendency toward spastic psychophysical activity. It is observed as sudden blushing or growing pale, as pharyngeal spasms, or “stuttering” of urination. It is the manifestation of the transformation of very strong somatopsychic (q.v.) tension to spastic symptoms. (1972).

⚃ SUBJECT-OBJECT IN ONESELF, one of the main developmental dynamisms which consists in taking interest in and observation of one’s own mental life in an attempt to gain a better understanding of oneself and to evaluate oneself critically. In individuals capable of accelerated and universal development the interest in their inner world may temporarily prevail over the interest in the external world. This dynamism differs from introspection inasmuch as the latter is carried out for purely descriptive, nonevaluative purposes. Unlike introspection, this dynamism has a strong emotional component in spite of its basically intellectual character. It realizes sudden insights, constitutes an essential element in the process of inner psychic transformation and is the main basically intellectual dynamism of multilevel disintegration. It is a form of interiorized cognitive instinct and appears in correlation with the dynamisms of the third factor, disposing and directing center and ideal of personality. (1970)

⚃ SUBJECT-OBJECT IN ONESELF. One of the main developmental dynamisms which consists in observing one’s own mental life in an attempt to better understand oneself and to evaluate oneself critically. It is a process of looking at oneself as if from outside (the self as object) and of perceiving the individuality of others (the other as subject, i.e. individual knower). (1972)

⚃ SYMPATHICOTONIA. A state resulting from high tension in the sympathetic nervous system manifested by accelerated pulse, high blood pressure, dilated pupils, or hypoacidity of the stomach. (1972)

⚃ SYNTONY, EMPATHY, these terms are used to signify the capacity for insight into and participation in other people’s feelings and experiences. It is of importance to distinguish primitive, impulsive forms of syntony, associated with the gregarious instinct, from more conscious and deliberate forms, usually called empathy, which belong to higher emotions, contain strong intellectual components and result from inner psychic transformation and the processes of positive disintegration. An individual having a high level of empathy shows towards others benevolence, readiness and willingness to assist them in their problems, but at the same time may express a disapproval of some of their attitudes and acts. (1970)

⚃ SYNTONY. Responsiveness to the environment, chiming in with. Primitive syntony is impulsive behavior and is not much different from gregariousness. Higher levels of syntony involve insight into other people’s feelings and experiences. More conscious and deliberate forms of syntony combined with an attitude of helpfulness we call empathy. (1972)

⚃ TETANOIDAL PERSONALITY. Personality type differentiated by Jaensch and characterized by muscular twitching, spasms, tendency to convulsions, etc., as in tetany. The activity of the parasympathetic nervous system is prevalent. Psychologically a tetanoidal individual shows somewhat uncoordinated behavior; his responses are not harmonized and are not integrated. (1972)

⚃ THE THIRD FACTOR is independent from and selective with regard to heredity (the first factor), and environment (the second factor). Its selective role consists in accepting and fostering or rejecting and restraining qualities, inclinations, interests and desires, which one finds either in one’s hereditary endowment or in one’s social environment. Thus the third factor being a dynamism of conscious choice is a dynamism of valuation.

⚄ The third factor has a fundamental role in education-of-oneself, and in autopsychotherapy. Its presence and operation is essential in the development toward autonomy and authenticity. It arises and grows as a resultant of both positive hereditary endowment (especially the ability for inner psychic transformation) and positive environmental influences. (1970)

⚃ THIRD FACTOR. The autonomous factor of development. The first factor is the constitutional endowment, the second factor is the social environment. The third factor is the dynamism of conscious choice (valuation) by which one affirms or rejects certain qualities in oneself and in one’s environment. (1972)

⚃ TRANSCENDENTAL OBSESSION. Obsession with problems of transcendence, i.e. with problems of supersensory reality. It is not much different from a scientist’s obsession with an unsolved problem, or an artist’s obsession with the search for new means of expression. (1972)

⚃ TRANSCENDING THE BIOLOGICAL LIFE CYCLE. Replacement of somatic determinants of maturation, aging, or disease, by mental determinants of rich psychic development (accelerated development), continued creativity in spite of aging, continued psychic growth past maturity, etc. (1972)

⚃ TRANSCENDING THE PSYCHOLOGICAL TYPE. Introduction of traits of opposite type to one’s original type, e.g. an extravert becoming to some extent an introvert. This developmental change occurs as a consequence of the dynamism of inner psychic transformation and is characteristic of accelerated development. (1972)

⚃ TYPE, PSYCHOLOGICAL, the totality of individual, psychobiological, constitutional qualities determining the behavior of an individual with regard to himself and his environment. The theory of positive disintegration distinguishes the following psychological types:

⚄ The primitively integrated type: his mental structure is dominated and completely controlled by primitive drives which make use of intelligence in a purely instrumental way. In this type intelligence is used only as a tool towards ends determined entirely by primitive emotions; the ability for interiorization is very limited; intelligence does not cooperate in the refinement and development of emotions. The mental structure is rigidly stabilized; the development of the individual does not transcend narrow limits circumscribed by the biosocial cycle of life.

⚄ The positively integrated type: is a result of the completion of the process of positive disintegration. Its cohesiveness and harmony has its basis in a fully developed inner psychic milieu of great richness and deepness; dedicated to creative work and further development it shows faithfulness to the hierarchy of values worked out in the course of development and a high degree of conscious empathy with others.

⚄ The positively disintegrated type: shows loosening and disintegration of primitive mental structures and functions on its way towards secondary integration. It may be at various stages of positive disintegration starting from unilevel disintegration through the spontaneous and organized stages of multilevel disintegration till the transitory stage towards secondary integration. Its characteristic trait is the presence and operation of developmental dynamisms, in nuclear form at unilevel disintegration, gaining a more and more distinct and dynamic character with the progress of positive disintegration.

⚄ The chronically disintegrated type: may also be called “developmentally neutral” type. The state of disintegration is permanent, it does not pass over into either dissolution or secondary integration. It has a mixed, positive-negative overtone. It is positive inasmuch as it is characterized by sensitivity, plasticity and creative abilities, however, it shows lack of distinct developmental forces and tendencies to pass into secondary integration.

⚄ The negatively disintegrated type: is characterized by a dissolution of mental structures and functions which signifies mental illness with unfavorable course and prognosis. It is recognizable by the lack of developmental dynamisms. (1970)

⚃ UNILEVEL DISINTEGRATION. Developmental Level II. Protracted and recurrent conflicts between drives and emotional states of similar level and of similar intensity appearing as ambivalences and ambitendencies (q.v.), e.g. changing and alternating states of attraction and repulsion, love and hate, joy and sadness, excitement and depression, moodiness. The conflicts may not be consciously experienced. When they are, they are experienced as pulls of equal value, in contrast to multilevel conflicts, and, therefore, do not tend towards a solution but seek immediate palliatives like alcohol, drugs, or suicide. (1972)

⚃ VAGOTONIA. Excessive excitability of the vagus nerve. A state resulting from high tension in the vagus nerve manifested by slowing down of pulse, arrhythmia, low blood pressure, constricted pupils, peripheral vascular disorders. (1972)

⚃ WAXY FLEXIBILITY. A passive response by which a person’s arm or posture retains the position in which it has been placed. Usually thought to be characteristic of catatonic schizophrenia this response is easily obtained from normal individuals. (1972)

⚃ WILL. What has been traditionally called “will” is at lower levels of development identical with a primitive drive or a group of such drives. At the stage of unilevel disintegration it succumbs to a disintegration into a variety of independent functions and structures. It may be said that there are “many wills” at this level. In the course of multilevel disintegration “the will” becomes more and more independent from primitive drives. Its role is fulfilled by the emerging new dynamism of the disposing and directing center. At still higher stages of development the “will” is unified with and integrated in personality. (1970).

⚁ 3.7 Tillier’s Initial Presentation of the Theory.

⚃ Dąbrowski’s work has never been easy to overview because there are many interrelated constructs.

⚃ Dąbrowski used a unique “dynamic” approach: one construct has different descriptions, different functions, and different impacts at different developmental levels.
≻ This complexity is inherent in Dąbrowski’s construct of multilevelness.

⚃ Dąbrowski’s thinking was quite original and his conclusions often challenge the status quo.

⚃ The real introduction to Dąbrowski remains reading his original works and seeing his ideas emerge.

⚄ Dąbrowski wrote a broad, interrelated and nuanced theory to account for human personality development:

⚄ He integrated many diverse streams of thought, from philosophy, from psychiatry, from psychology, from neurophysiology, and from literature.

⚄ Dąbrowski’s English works represent a sample of his overall publications (~ 2X as many in Polish).

⚄ There is an intuitive element in comprehending Dąbrowski; as some have said, “it’s a theory best understood by its application in one’s life,” some who approach it academically, “just don’t seem to get it.”

⚄ Basic contradictions: How can psychological disintegration be positive? Personality is rare. Maladjustment can be healthy.

⚄ Psychology assumes that the developmental process is universal – we all psychologically develop along the same basic path.

⚄ TPD says advanced development (and true personality) is rare and follows a non-traditional path.

⚄ It is frustrating to learn TPD because it often uses traditional words (e.g., personality) to describe ideas that are defined and used in a unique way.
≻ Also because the ideas are interrelated in a complex network: It takes time to see Dąbrowski’s “big picture.”

⚄ The theory is not definitive or “black and white,” vagueness and subtlety reign.
≻ Dąbrowski explained that he was vague at times because he did not always have a full understanding.
≻ He emphasized that more research will be needed “to fill in the blanks.”

⚄ Subsumes a traditional Piagetian (cognitive) approach but under an emotion – based umbrella.

⚄ Positive Disintegration: Initial, lower level psychological integrations are governed by lower instincts and by socialization.
≻ These “primary” integrations must break down to allow the creation of new, higher level structures.

⚄ The theory combines two different philosophical traditions: elements of the essentialism of Plato with the emphasis on individual choice in existentialism (called the “existentio-essentialist compound”).

⚄ Essence is primary, but it’s not enough for one’s essence to just unfold, it must also be shaped by one’s day-to-day existential choices.

⚄ Our character can be consciously evaluated and developed – this differentiates humans from animals.

⚄ Dąbrowski was deeply concerned with the unique traits and personality of each individual.
≻ He asks us to develop and differentiate ourselves and to understand, appreciate, and accept the differences of others.

⚄ The differentiation of developmental levels is common in theories of biology, philosophy and psychology:

⚄ A variety of descriptions and explanations of psychological and personality development have been proposed.

⚄ Most approaches suggest all people have the potential to advance, but most people fail to achieve their full potential for various reasons (e.g. run out of energy; social blocks).

⚄ Dąbrowski said he could not find a psychological theory that could explain his observations of both the lowest behaviors and highest achievements of people.

⚄ His goal: to write a “general theory of development” accounting for the wide range of behaviors seen, and explaining the factors and processes that he believed are associated with advanced development.

⚄ “Dynamics of concepts:” Dąbrowski called for a new way to look at concepts.
≻ Psychological attributes often vary widely with development and over levels.
≻ Thus, they require flexible and “dynamic” concepts to fully and accurately describe them.

⚄ “Many-sided and authentic development of man implies the formation of an adequate system of concepts and terms which would correspond to the new higher stages of this development” … This process of transformation of concepts and terms in their intellectual and experiential aspects can be called ‘the drama of the life and development of concepts’” (Dąbrowski, 1973, pp. xiv-xv).

⚄ “This process of dynamization of concepts will more and more express the close association and interconnection of intellectual and emotional functions. … should allow a much more incisive analysis of the understanding of oneself, of other individuals and human groups” (Dąbrowski, 1973, p. xiii).

⚄ Psychoneuroses: Rejecting traditional views, psychoneuroses are seen as a critical part of growth.
≻ Severe depression, self-doubt & anxieties are the crises (dis-ease) that challenge one’s secure adjustment to the status quo and force self-examination.

⚄ The psychoneurotic problem is one of the lack of adjustment manifesting protest against actual reality, and the need for adjustment to hierarchy of higher values: to adjust to that which ‘ought to be’” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 3).

⚄ Psychoneurotics, rather than being treated as ill, should be considered as individuals most prone to a positive and even accelerated psychic development” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 4).

⚄ Nervousness, neuroses, and especially psychoneuroses, bring the nervous system to a state of greater sensitivity.
≻ They make a person more susceptible to positive change.
≻ The higher psychic structures gradually gain control over the lower ones” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 41).

⚄ Positive disintegration: Growth takes place when one’s status quo undergoes dis-integration.
≻ This disintegration is positive when it leads to higher development, not simply a retrogressive re-integration.

⚄ The term disintegration is used to refer to a broad range of processes, from emotional disharmony to the complete fragmentation of the personality structure, all of which are usually regarded as negative” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 5).

⚄ Disintegration is the basis for developmental thrusts upward, the creation of new evolutionary dynamics, and the movement of the personality to a higher level, all of which are manifestations of secondary integration” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 6).

⚄ Crises are periods of increased insight into oneself, creativity, and personality development” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 18).

⚄ Inner conflicts often lead to emotional, philosophical and existential crises” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 196).

⚄ Levels: Psychology can best be understood using a levels approach.
≻ Intellect (IQ), instinct and emotion can be described on different levels.
≻ Appreciating levels gives context & perspective to the wide range of behaviour humans express.

⚄ Lower levels of functions are characterized by automatism, impulsiveness, stereotypy, egocentrism, lack or low degree of consciousness. …
≻ Higher levels of functions show distinct consciousness, inner psychic transformation, autonomousness, creativity” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 297).

⚄ Unilevelness: “without a consideration of the multilevelness of life, without ideas.
≻ It [life] is a unilevel, statistical, adjusting, sensual life with intelligence in the service of primitive instincts. It is ‘ordinary’ life” (Cienin, 1972, p. 65).

⚄ Unilevel processes “‘everything goes,’ or ‘black and white are equally attractive’” (Dąbrowski, 1996, p. 150).

⚄ Multilevelness: Describes the hierarchical nature of reality.
≻ Growth is connected to perception of higher reality, creating comparisons and conflicts between higher and lower levels.

⚄ “The perception of the external world changes as a function of a new multilevel conception of reality” (Dąbrowski, 1996, p. 106).

⚄ The recognition of multilevelness of mental functions and structures in oneself allows analogous recognition with regard to other people” (Dąbrowski, 1973, p. 8).

⚄ “Only with the appearance of self-evaluation do we have a multilevel component” (Dąbrowski, 1996, p. 38).

⚄ “Individual perception of many levels of external and internal reality appears at a certain stage of development, here “called multilevel disintegration” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 298).

⚄ “The functions of multilevel disintegration are to a considerable extent volitional, conscious, and refashioning functions, in relation to lower levels” (Dąbrowski, 1967, p. 74).

⚄ Developmental potential: Exemplars of development show a unique set of characteristics called development potential (DP).
≻ Strong positive DP is a genetically based foundation for advanced psychological development.
≻ Not everyone has sufficient positive genetic potential to reach full development.

⚄ Hyperexcitability,” “psychic overexcitability” and “overexcitability” were described in Dąbrowski’s 1937 English monograph.

⚄ Developmental potential is the “The constitutional endowment which determines the character and the extent of mental growth possible for a given individual” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 293).

⚄ “Developmental potential can be assessed on the basis of the following components: psychic overexcitability, special abilities and talents, and autonomous factors (notably the third factor)” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 293).

⚄ “The prefix over attached to ‘excitability’ serves to indicate that the reactions of excitation are over and above average in intensity, duration and frequency” (Dąbrowski, 1996, p. 7).

⚄ “Psychic overexcitability is a term introduced to denote a variety of types of nervousness” (Dąbrowski, 1938, 1959).

⚄ “High overexcitability contributes to establishing multilevelness, however in advanced development, both become components in a complex environment of developmental factors” (Dąbrowski, 1996, p. 74).

⚄ It appears in five forms: emotional, imaginational, intellectual, psychomotor, and sensual” (Dąbrowski, 1996, p. 7).

⚄ Dynamisms: “biological or mental force(s) controlling behavior and its development.
≻ Instincts, drives, and intellectual processes combined with emotions are dynamisms” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 294).

⚄ “intrapsychic factors which shape development” (Dąbrowski, 1996, p. 5).

⚄ Dąbrowski’s work contains many (~20) interrelated, generally unique constructs, often forming hierarchies.

⚄ A nomological network is a broadly integrative theoretical framework that identifies the key constructs associated with a phenomenon of interest and describes the relationships among those constructs.

⚄ Values and moral behavior are critical – when one comes to see what “ought to be” versus “what is.”

⚄ Our emotions are the ultimate guide to our values, sense of self, and behavior, not our intelligence.

⚄ Values are individual but not relative – there are core objective (universal) values that authentic humans will independently discover and embrace as they build their own unique value systems and personalities.

⚄ Education must prepare the child for life using a balanced approach; personality, intellect and emotion are all important.
≻ Goal: to foster a unique, autonomous person, guided by their own emotions and values.

⚄ Emotion anchors and guides the creation of autonomous and authentic human values.

⚄ Our feelings work with imagination to develop a sense of what is higher and what ought to be, over “what is.”

⚄ If we become conscious of our higher emotions, we can use them as a guide to direct cognition to strive for what “ought to be” – toward “higher possibilities.”

⚄ Intelligence comes to serve and implement our personality ideal: an image of our unique self, based on our feelings of who we ought to strive to be.

⚄ The highest levels in traditional theories are based on cognition (e.g. Platonic model, Piagetian model).

⚄ The traditional goal is to have reason control and direct passion (Plato); this approach has predominated Western education and psychology.

⚄ In TPD, emotions are evaluated based on levels of development: the theory differentiates higher vs. lower emotions.

⚄ Dąbrowski used to say: Love at Level I compared to love at level IV is as different as love is from hate.

⚄ Dąbrowski’s observation: In “authentic” development, “higher” emotions guide individual values and define our sense of who we want to be.
≻ Intelligence becomes subservient to the guidance of our higher emotions.

⚄ The titles of Dąbrowski’s six major English books reflect the major themes of his approach:

⚄ “Personality Shaping Through Positive Disintegration” (Dąbrowski, 1967).

⚄ “Multilevelness of Emotional and Instinctive Functions” (Dąbrowski, 1996).

⚄ Traditional views of development are ontogenetic: a predictable, sequential, chronological timeline (milestones).
≻ Higher levels unfold from, and are based upon, lower ones.

⚄ For example; Prenatal → Birth → Infancy → Childhood → Adolescence → Early Adulthood → Adulthood → Late Adulthood → Death

⚄ Notable examples in psychology are represented by the theories of Lawrence Kohlberg, Erik Erikson, and Jean Piaget

⚄ Non-ontogenetic aspects do not arise from, are not based upon, nor are they predictable from, the features of lower levels.
≻ They are predicated on “other factors” or emerge anew as evolution proceeds.
≻ One implication is that ontogenetic development generally follows age-related milestones.
≻ Non-ontogenetic development does not follow milestones and may or may not occur in an individual.

⚃ Metaphysical aspects: In the self, “the inner psychic milieu” and “third factor” arise from genetic “roots” but transcend their origins to become emergent, independent developmental forces.

⚃ “Two main qualitatively different stages and types of life: the heteronomous, which is biologically and socially determined, and the autonomous, which is determined by the multilevel dynamisms of the inner psychic milieu” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 5).
≻ “The lower or heteronomous which is unconscious or only partly conscious and is determined by biological forces or the influences of the external environment” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 5).
≻ “The higher or autonomous which is self-conscious, self-controlled and depends increasingly on deliberate and authentic acts of choice, that is acts resulting from increasing and refined understanding of the environment and of oneself” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 5).

⚄ Jahoda (1958, p. 23) delineated six main features of positive mental health:

⚅ 1. Indicators of positive mental health should be sought in the attitudes of an individual toward his own self.
≻ Positive self-attitudes (self-perception).

⚅ 2. The individual’s style and degree of growth, development, or self-actualization are expressions of mental health.
≻ This set of criteria, in contrast to the first, is not concerned with self-perception but with what one does with one’s self over a period of time.

⚅ 3. Integration: A central synthesizing psychological function, incorporating some of the suggested criteria defined in 1) and 2) above.
≻ Integration is the relatedness of all processes and attributes in an individual.

⚅ 4. Autonomy singles out the individual’s degree of independence from social influences as most revealing of the state of his or her mental health;

⚅ 6. There were suggestions that environmental mastery be regarded as another criterion for mental health.

⚄ Following Jahoda (1958), Dąbrowski said that mental health should not be defined simply by the presence or absence of symptoms, rather, definitions of mental health must be concerned with views of individuals as they ought to be and by the potential of the individual to achieve ideal, desirable, developmental qualities.

⚄ Dąbrowski defined mental health as: “Development towards higher levels of mental functions, towards the discovery and realization of higher cognitive, moral, social, and aesthetic values and their organization into a hierarchy in accordance with one’s own authentic personality ideal” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 298).

⚄ The influence of Jahoda’s six main points can be felt in Dąbrowski’s thinking, especially in terms of the goal of advanced development [paraphrased]:

⚄ An autonomous, consciously derived hierarchy of values, marking the creation of an idealized vision of self – the unique personality of the individual, encapsulated by his or her personality ideal.

⚄ Dąbrowski believed that the moral guidelines one ought to follow must be of one’s own creation.
≻ To paraphrase Frederick Nietzsche, each of us must create our own values and personality and thus walk our own path in life.

⚄ Dąbrowski’s observations of people and his adoption of Jahoda led him to an unusual conclusion: that individual personality is not universally, or even commonly, achieved.
≻ The average “well socialized” person lacks a unique personality and therefore cannot be considered mentally healthy – the “state of primary integration is a state contrary to mental health” (Dąbrowski, 1964b, p. 121)

⚄ “Mental illness consists in the absence or deficiency of processes which effect development”:

⚅ “1) either a strongly integrated, primitive, psychopathic structure [Level I], or

⚅ 2) a negative, non-developmental disintegration (psychosis)” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 173).

⚄ Definition: “The qualitative and quantitative differences which appear in mental functions as a result of developmental changes. …

⚄ Lower levels are characterized by automatism, impulsiveness, stereotypy, egocentrism, lack of, or low degree of consciousness. …

⚄ Higher levels show distinct consciousness, inner psychic transformation, autonomousness, creativity” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 297).

⚅ “The reality of mental functions in man is dynamic, developmental and multilevel” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 122).

⚅ Dąbrowski stressed levels in TPD are only a heuristic device, not to be taken too literally (Stupak & Dyga, 2018).

⚄ Two fundamentally different views of reality.
≻ The lower, basic perception is horizontal – unilevel.
≻ The higher, developmental view is vertical – multilevel.

⚄ Unilevel views of reality encompass only horizontal elements.
≻ Only phenomena on the same level are perceived and considered in decision making.

⚄ Likewise, motivations of behavior and processes of development can reflect either UL or ML character.

⚄ Multilevelness is paramount because it allows us to see and compare the higher versus lower.
≻ Over time, ideally, the higher aspect will increasingly be chosen.

⚄ The “average” view of life is horizontal – unilevel:
≻ (Ken Wilber: “flatlanders,” Bertalanffy and Yablonsky: “robopaths”)
≻ “Robots” blindly follow social roles and values.
≻ “Animal model” – stimulus-response reactions.
≻ Equal alternatives create false “illusion of choice.”
≻ Conflicts between different but equivalent choices.
≻ No vertical component to allow for higher growth.

⚄ One begins to see higher possibilities in comparison to lower realities and alternatives.

⚄ A vertical, ML view creates a hierarchical model of life, of values and of behavior – allows us to see and choose the higher over the lower.

⚄ Premise: Reality and our perception of reality can be differentiated into a hierarchy of levels.

⚄ The reality that one perceives reflects one’s given level of development – wide differences are observed.

⚄ Most psychological features change quantitatively. Higher levels show qualitative changes as they develop or emerge.

⚄ This allows us to differentiate higher, more developed levels from lower, earlier, less developed levels.

⚄ Differentiation of lower and higher levels is basic to Dąbrowski’s view of mental health and development.

⚄ Definition: “Division of functions into different levels: for instance, the spinal, subcortical, and cortical levels in the nervous system. Individual perception of many levels of external and internal reality appears at a certain stage of development, here called multilevel disintegration” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 298).

⚄ The dynamic process of “hierarchization” expands our range of human experience, creating a new, critical type of conflict: vertical conflicts between higher and lower alternatives and choices.

⚄ “It appears obvious that the ability to understand and to successfully apply the concept of multilevelness depends upon the development of personality of the individual” (Dąbrowski, 1973, p. x).

⚄ Creates a new goal: a unique personality ideal based on the “discovery” of our deep essence.

⚄ Once the higher alternative is seen, acting on the lower creates guilt, unhappiness, feelings of inferiority:
≻ Vertical conflicts / dissonance become a vital, internal driving force of personality change.
≻ I think I want the lower, but on reflection, I know I must choose the higher – because I feel it is right.

⚄ In development, “hierarchization” becomes a key process of ML.
≻ Contrasts of the lower and higher create hierarchies.
≻ The true solution to human problems must involve ascent; moving one not only forward but upward.

⚄ “The transition toward ‘higher levels of values’ does not consist in the loosening of intellectual and semantical functions, but is an expression of a multilevel and multidimensional ‘developmental drama’” (Dąbrowski, 1973, p. 143).

⚄ “It seems that the multidimensional attitude in every field of life, including creative work, induces and forces man to overstep the scope of his limited field of knowledge and to explore what is not only outside it, but also above it. When one adopts the multidimensional attitude one begins as a rule to understand and experience religious life and all that goes with it” (Dąbrowski, 1967, pp. 25-26).

⚄ “The sense of humility reflects one’s multidimensional world outlook, in which a man realizes the existence of higher values and at the same time soberly appraises his own level and possibilities of development” (Dąbrowski, 1967, p. 29).

⚄ “The concept of mental health must be based on a multi-dimensional view of personality development. Higher levels of personality are gradually reached both through adaptation to exemplary values and through disadaptation to lower levels of the external and internal environments” (Dąbrowski, 1964, pp. 124-125).

⚄ “It should proceed from basic premises to knowledge wider in scope, to a point at which we pass from an unidimensional ‘I know’ to a multidimensional ‘I understand.’ Knowledge is usually unidimensional and understanding multidimensional; knowledge is based on perception and judgment, understanding involves also experience and intuition which add depth to the perception and judgment” (Dąbrowski, 1967, pp. 11-12).

⚄ Examining one dimension across various levels often leads to the observation that each dimension – each psychological feature – has a different expression on each level: A given dimension has different meanings, different expressions and different impacts on each level.

⚄ The combination of multiple levels and dimensions creates a comprehensive but complicated analysis that is difficult to operationalize or measure.

⚄ A full description of reality requires a multidimensional and multilevel perception of reality, both of the external environment and of one’s inner psychic milieu, including feeling, thoughts, imagination, instincts, empathy, and intuition.

⚄ The level of development is not uniform across all dimensions within a person.
≻ People are often on different levels on different dimensions:
≻ A person may be at a high level cognitively and on a low level emotionally (and morally); this is common and seems to be the social status quo.

⚄ Dąbrowski called this one-sided development.
≻ One-sided development: “Type of development limited to one talent or ability, or to a narrow range of abilities and mental functions” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 300).

⚄ “Grave affective retardation is usually associated with above average intelligence subordinated to primitive drives” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 30).

⚄ To overcome one-sided development, Dąbrowski advocated we strive to achieve balance by focusing more attention on the child’s weaker talents.
≻ If a child is a mathematical prodigy, weak in English, then focus on the overall development of the child and on English.

⚄ A study of child prodigies found that most parents exclude everything except the single talent, leading to various psychological issues later in life (Hulbert, 2018).

⚄ Behavior involves an ongoing (dynamic) interaction of dimensions and levels: A behavior is expressed differently on different levels (this is obvious if comparing UL to ML).

⚄ MD and ML must be used together to examine, evaluate, and understand behavior in the context of the developmental level and motivation that spawned it.

⚄ According to Dąbrowski, determining motivation behind behaviour often requires observation over time.
≻ In many cases, motivation holds greater significance than behaviour itself.

⚄ Ken Wilber used a similar approach called “the all [four] quadrant approach.”

⚄ “An adequate grasp of the essential constituents of human existence is possible only from the standpoint and through intense and accelerated mental development. This development must be multidimensional and multilevel. It is multidimensional and fully rounded, if it is not restricted to the perfection of one or some capacities and skills, but includes a transformation and refinement of all basic aspects of mental life, especially innate drive, emotions, intellect, volition, imagination, moral social, aesthetic, religious sensitivity, etc. It is multilevel if mental transformations consist not only in quantitative growth and replacement of some elements with others, but if such new insights and new qualities are acquired which make man capable of overcoming his hereditary and social determination and to progress toward a self-controlled, creative, empathetic and authentic form of life” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 15).

⚄ Combining multilevelness and multidimensionality complicates the assessment of levels and may make assessment unfeasible when many dimensions are included.

⚄ Current educational testing focuses on only one or two dimensions (almost always cognitively based).

⚄ Dąbrowski emphasized that we need a richer, broader approach to measure human development and potentials.

⚄ People are often at different levels of development on different dimensions, e.g., intellect vs. emotion.
≻ We need to consider the level for each dimension we choose to look at.

⚄ Dąbrowski believed that the majority (about 65%) of people live life at Level I – Primary Integration:

⚅ Instinct (first factor) and social forces (second factor) influence and determine most behavior.

⚅ A difficult level to break free of because integration creates a strong sense of belonging and security (“security of the herd”).

⚅ Inner harmony: most conflicts are external, inner sense of “always being right,” of selfish entitlement, “don’t worry about the other guy’s problems.”

⚄ Integration: “Consists in an organization of instinctive, emotional and intellectual functions into a coordinated structure” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 296).

⚅ An integration of all mental functions into a cohesive structure controlled by primitive drives” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 302).

⚅ “Individuals with some degree of primitive integration comprise the majority of society” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 4).

⚅ “Among normal primitively integrated people, different degrees of cohesion of psychic structure can be distinguished” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 66).

⚅ “Psychopathy represents a primitive structure of impulses, integrated at a low level” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 73).

⚅ Average person showing social conformity [“1b”] (dominant type in the population)

⚅ Psychopath but maintains social conformity for self-gain (CEO who “bends the law,” takes advantage wherever possible) Asocial [“snakes in suits”]

⚅ Psychopath exhibiting antisocial behavior: lowest sub-level of Level I [“1a”]

⚅ The more rigid one’s initial integration, the harder it is to disintegrate, change, and to grow.

⚅ Level II – Unilevel Disintegration: Horizontal conflicts create ambiguity and ambivalence. Very stressful, chaotic period, maximum dis – ease:

⚄ Level III – Spontaneous: Multilevel, vertical conflicts arise spontaneously, create disintegration.

⚄ Level IV – Organized (Directed): We now see and actively seek out vertical conflicts, we play a volitional role in “directing” crises and our own development.

⚄ Initially, ML awareness creates great internal stress because choosing the lower has become habitual.
≻ Now, “the possibility” of a different and better choice comes into view.
≻ This contrast is upsetting and, at first, is quite spontaneous. “Vertical conflicts” arise.

⚄ The transition to multilevelness is the “greatest step” in growth and also the most perilous: As one’s old, status quo unilevel frame of reference crumbles, feelings of chaos, anxiety and dread are common.
≻ Dąbrowski said that the shift from the unilevel to the multilevel / vertical perception of life is the key to development.

⚄ One’s once secure and familiar foundation is lost without seeing a “new” pathway to one’s future.

⚄ “The dark night of the soul” is a common experience, reflects an existential crisis – one’s world is in chaos.

⚄ The shift takes energy and places major demands on the person: one may initially feel self-alienated and be overwhelmed with depression and despair.

⚄ Initially one often experiences strong urges to return to the security of unilevelness.

⚄ Once one truly sees and appreciates the vertical, there is no turning back to a unilevel existence.

⚄ Dąbrowski compared this with Plato’s cave: once one breaks free and “sees the [sun]light,” one can no longer be happy returning to live in the darkness.

⚄ Secondary Integration (Level V): “the integration of all mental functions into a harmonious structure controlled by higher emotions such as the dynamism of personality ideal, autonomy and authenticity” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 304).

⚅ “The embryonic organization of secondary integration manifests itself during the entire process of disintegration and takes part in it, preparing the way for the formation of higher structures integrated at a higher level” (Dąbrowski, 1964, pp. 20-21).

⚄ Secondary integration is not the endpoint of mental development – it continues throughout life via the personality ideal and the instinct for self-perfection.

⚄ Personality ideal and third factor direct autonomous, volitional, unique personality – “a good person” – this is what is right – for you.

⚄ Inner harmony: we are satisfied that our values and behavior now reflect our “true” self as we feel it ought to be – no internal conflict.

⚄ May have more external conflicts – strong sense of social justice motivates social action and reform.

⚄ Disintegration: “Loosening, disorganization, or dissolution of mental structures and functions” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 293).

⚄ “The term disintegration is used to refer to a broad range of processes, from emotional disharmony to the complete fragmentation of the personality structure, all of which are usually regarded as negative” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 5).

⚄ “Every authentic creative process consists of ‘loosening,’ ‘splitting’ or ‘smashing’ the former reality. Every mental conflict is associated with disruption and pain; every step forward in the direction of authentic existence is combined with shocks, sorrows, suffering and distress” (Dąbrowski, 1973, p. 14).

⚄ “The chances of developmental crises and their positive or negative outcomes depend on the character of the developmental potential, on the character of social influence, and on the activity (if present) of the third factor. … One also has to keep in mind that a developmental solution to a crisis means not a reintegration but an integration at a higher level of functioning” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 245).

⚄ “Crises are periods of increased insight into oneself, creativity, and personality development” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 18).

⚄ “Crises, in our view, are brought about through thousands of different internal and external conflicts, resulting from collisions of the developing personality with negative elements of the inner and external milieus” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 245).

⚄ “Experiences of shock, stress and trauma, may accelerate development in individuals with innate potential for positive development” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 20).

⚄ “Inner conflicts often lead to emotional, philosophical and existential crises” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 196).

⚄ “We are human inasmuch as we experience disharmony and dissatisfaction, inherent in the process of disintegration” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 122).

⚄ “Prolonged states of unilevel disintegration (Level II) end either in a reintegration at the former primitive level or in suicidal tendencies, or in a psychosis” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 135).

⚄ Inner conflict is a cause of positive disintegration and subsequent development – conflict acts as a motive to redefine, refine, and discover one’s “new” values.

⚄ Inner conflict is also the result of the process of positive disintegration and the operation of the dynamisms of development.

⚄ Dąbrowski believed that dis-ease is necessary as a motivation to change the status quo.
≻ The amount of inner conflict is linked to the degree of change – maximum at Level II and in the borderline region between Level II and III:

⚄ Definition of positive: “By positive we imply here changes that lead from a lower to a higher (i.e. broader, more controlled and more conscious) level of mental functioning” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 1).

⚄ Definition of Positive Disintegration: “Positive or developmental disintegration effects a weakening and dissolution of lower level structures and functions, gradual generation and growth of higher levels of mental functions and culminates in personality integration” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 165).

⚄ “The term positive disintegration will be applied in general to the process of transition from lower to higher, broader and richer levels of mental functions. This transition requires a restructuring of mental functions” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 18).

⚄ “Loosening, disorganization or dissolution of mental structures and functions” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 164).

⚄ “Positive when it enriches life, enlarges the horizon, and brings forth creativity, it is negative when it either has no developmental effects or causes involution” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 10).

⚄ Recovery from a crisis can lead to a reintegration at the former level and equilibrium or to a more healthy integration and new equilibrium on a higher level.

⚄ If a person has strong developmental potential, even severe crises can be positive and lead to growth.

⚄ “The close correlation between personality development and the process of positive disintegration is clear” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 18).

⚄ “In education, the theory emphasizes the importance of developmental crises and of symptoms of positive disintegration. It provides a new view of conduct difficulties, school phobias, dyslexia, and nervousness in children” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 23).

⚄ Strong OE gives everyday experience an intense and unsettling quality: one is “jolted” into seeing “more.”

⚄ One becomes aware of a continuum of higher versus lower aspects of both inner and outer reality.

⚄ Developing multilevelness creates ‘vertical’ conflicts and a new, vertical, upward sense of direction.

⚄ Developmental instincts and one’s emotions naturally and intuitively draw one toward higher choices.

⚄ Our lower instinctual and socially based values and habits are brought under conscious scrutiny and disintegrate to be replaced by self-chosen values.

⚄ A “hierarchization” of life develops: guided by emotion and one’s ability to imagine higher possibilities, a vertical perception and categorization helps create an autonomous, consciously chosen hierarchy of values.

⚄ These inner values form the basis of a person’s own unique personality ideal: his or her own sense of who he or she ought to be.

⚄ At higher levels of development, individuals form unique hierarchies of values. Some of these values converge among people and reflect universal values.

⚄ In TPD, people dominated by their lower instincts seem to have little potential to develop or to change.

⚄ People dominated by socialization may possess potential to develop but social forces and peer pressure are strong and vigorously resist change.

⚄ Some people appear to have strong autonomous potential to develop (can’t be held back). Often go on to become exemplars of advanced development.

⚄ Dąbrowski studied exemplars of personality development and described common traits he saw in them that he called Developmental Potential (DP).

⚄ Growth “occur[s] only if the developmental forces are sufficiently strong and not impeded by unfavorable external circumstances. This is, however, rarely the case. The number of people who complete the full course of development and attain the level of secondary integration is limited. A vast majority of people either do not break down their primitive integration at all, or after a relatively short period of disintegration, usually experienced at the time of adolescence and early youth, end in a reintegration at the former level or in partial integration of some of the functions at slightly higher levels, without a transformation of the whole mental structure” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 4).

⚄ “A fairly high degree of primary integration is present in the average person; a very high degree of primary integration is present in the psychopath. The more cohesive the structure of primary integration, the less the possibility of development; the greater the strength of autonomic functioning, stereotypy, and habitual activity, the lower the level of mental health” (Dąbrowski, 1964 p.121).

⚄ Note: Dąbrowski’s usage of the term “psychopath” reflects the European connotation of the term: an individual with strong “constitutional factors” that act to inhibit potential development (in contrast with the sociopath; one having social factors that block development). Still, his usage reflects contemporary views of psychopathy and highlights its adevelopmental nature.

⚅ [People with strong developmental “endowment”] “must have much more time for a deep, creative development and that is why you will be growing for a long time. This is a very common phenomenon among creative people. Simply, they have such a great developmental potential, ‘they have the stuff to develop’ and that is why it takes them longer to give it full expression” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 272).

⚄ Dąbrowski was optimistic that exemplars of the highest levels are role models who represent the next steps in Human psychological evolution.

⚄ In all existing psychological models, including TPD, advanced development is rarely seen.

⚄ “The developmental process in which occur ‘collisions’ with the environment and with oneself begins as a consequence of the interplay of three factors: developmental potential, … an influence of the social milieu, and autonomous (self-determining) factors” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 77).

⚄ “By higher level of psychic development we mean a behavior which is more complex, more conscious and having greater freedom of choice, hence greater opportunity for self-determination” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 70).

⚄ “The individual with a rich developmental potential rebels against the common determining factors in his external environment” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 32).

⚄ TPD reframes and revises traditional roles of mental excitement, emotion and pathology in development.

⚄ Excess excitability, strong emotion, and “pathology” traditionally are seen negatively in mental health.

⚄ “Excess” excitability has been medicated and is often linked to various pathologies, learning disabilities and delinquency.

⚄ “Pathology” traditionally indicates a weakness or defect needing to be treated, ameliorated, palliated, and removed.

⚄ Definition: “The constitutional endowment which determines the character and the extent of mental growth possible for a given individual” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 293).

⚄ DP can be positive, promoting development; negative and inhibiting development; or equivocal.

⚄ “The relations and interactions between the different components of the developmental potential give shape to individual development and control the appearance of psychoneuroses on different levels of development” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 78).

⚄ Emerging, internal features of the self [Hierarchy of aims, Hierarchy of values, Inner Psychic Milieu, Third Factor, Personality Ideal, etc.].

⚄ The developmental instinct, the creative instinct, and the instinct for self-perfection.

⚄ DP influences how one perceives the environment and determines one’s unique developmental course.

⚄ DP, especially OE, works hand-in-hand with psychoneuroses and positive disintegration to change one’s perception of reality, predisposing development.

⚄ Development is defined by movement towards self-determination and autonomy – toward the third factor, toward self-perfection, and the personality ideal.

⚄ Adjustment to “what is” is generally adevelopmental. Initially, maladjustment results from conflicts with the social environment.
≻ A shift to “what ought to be,” leads to a new type of positive adjustment and harmony.

⚅ positive or negative / general or specific / strong or weak / expressed or not expressed.

⚄ One with “a rich DP rebels” against “his external environment” and “the laws of biology” (Dąbrowski, 1970, pp. 32-33).

⚄ “Environmental influences collide with those potentials, strengthen or weaken them, but their outcome always depends on an individual’s hereditary endowment:”

⚄ “(1) If the developmental potential is distinctly positive or negative, the influence of the environment is less important. (2) If the developmental potential does not exhibit any distinct quality, the influence of the environment is important and it may go in either direction. (3) If the developmental potential is weak or difficult to specify, the influence of the environment may prove decisive, positively or negatively” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 34).

⚄ “In the vast majority of cases, the phenomena of disintegration point to a very great developmental potential” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 39).

⚅ 1. Special talents and abilities (e.g. IQ, athletic ability, musical or artistic ability).

⚅ 3. “Third Factor” (a strong internal drive to express one’s unique self – factor of autonomous choice).

⚄ “The developmental potential can be assessed on the basis of the following components: psychic overexcitability special abilities and talents, and autonomous factors (notably the Third factor)” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 293).

⚄ Clouston (1899) used the term overexcitability in the title of his article: “Stages of over-excitability, hypersensitiveness, and mental explosiveness in children and their treatment by the bromides.”

⚄ Clouston (1899) described overexcitabilities: “They are, in fact, one of the many dangers that beset the earlier stages of that marvellous march of the brain from its inchoate state of childhood up to its all-dominant place in the fully developed organism of the man and woman. They are essentially developmental in character and relationships. The higher brain must rule function and organ and life while it is in the process of development, as well as after its powers are fully formed and its structures completed. In the earlier stages of its growth one part and function of it may run ahead of other parts and functions. (p. 482)

⚄ “The first of those morbid states to which I would direct attention is a simple hyper-excitability; an undue brain reactiveness to mental and emotional stimuli. This may come on at any age, from three years to puberty. The child becomes ceaselessly active, but ever changing in its activity. It is restless and so absolutely under the domination of the idea which has raised the excitement that the power of attending to anything else is for the time being gone. (p. 483)

⚄ Clouston (1899) described imaginational overexcitability, saying: “Another state which is certainly of the nature of disease is that where children become for a time so over-imaginative that they cannot distinguish between their objective experiences and their subjective images, and where, without stimuli from without, mental or bodily, they conjure up fancies so vivid that they mistake them for realities and talk about them accordingly.” … “the intensity and actuality of their imaginations are greater than is consistent with sound working brain” and, at times, these children become “slaves of their over-excited imagination” (p. 484).

⚄ The idea of overexcitabilities and their importance also appear in William James: “Wherever a process of life communicates an eagerness to him who lives it, there the life becomes genuinely significant. Sometimes the eagerness is more knit up with the motor activities, sometimes with the perceptions, sometimes with the imagination, sometimes with reflective thought. But, wherever it is found, there is the zest, the tingle, the excitement of reality; and there is ‘importance’ in the only real and positive sense in which importance ever anywhere can be” (James, 1899, pp. 9-10).

⚄ Dąbrowski’s definition: “Higher than average responsiveness to stimuli, manifested either by psychomotor, sensual, emotional (affective), imaginational, or intellectual excitability or the combination thereof” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 303).

⚄ A physiological property of the nervous system: “Each form of overexcitability points to a higher than average sensitivity of its receptors” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 7).

⚄ “Psychic hyperexcitability is one of the major developmental potentials, but it also forms a symptom, or a group of general psychoneurotic symptoms” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 40).

⚄ Intense overexcitability, especially emotional, may magnify life’s traumas and suicide is a major concern.

⚄ “The prefix over attached to ‘excitability’ serves to indicate that the reactions of excitation are over and above average in intensity, duration and frequency” (Dąbrowski, 1996, p. 7).

⚄ OE affects how a person sees reality: “One who manifests several forms of overexcitability, sees reality in a different, stronger and more multisided manner” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 7).

⚄ “Enhanced excitability, especially in its higher forms, allows for a broader, richer, multilevel, and multidimensional perception of reality. The reality of the external and of the inner world is conceived in all its multiple aspects” (Dąbrowski, 1996, p. 74).

⚅ “Because the sensitivity [excitability] is related to all essential groups of receptors of stimuli of the internal and external worlds it widens and enhances the field of consciousness” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 66).

⚄ “Individuals with enhanced emotional, imaginational and intellectual excitability channel it into forms most appropriate for them” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 66).

⚅ “Emotional (affective), imaginational and intellectual overexcitability are the richer forms. If they appear together they give rich possibilities of development and creativity” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 7).

⚅ “The overexcitabilities of greatest developmental significance are the emotional, imaginational and intellectual. They give rise to psychic richness, the ability for a broad and expanding insight into many levels and dimensions of reality, for prospection and introspection, for control and self-control (arising from the interplay of excitation and inhibition). Thus they are essential to the development of the inner psychic milieu” (Dąbrowski, 1996, p. 73).

⚅ “A person manifesting an enhanced psychic excitability in general, and an enhanced emotional, intellectual and imaginational excitability in particular, is endowed with a greater power of penetration into both the external and the inner world” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 65).

⚅ “ … These couplings determine a closely woven activity of different forms of enhanced excitability, especially emotional, imaginational and intellectual; they also determine how to make use of the positive aspects of sensual and psychomotor overexcitability by subordinating them to the other three higher forms of overexcitability” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 66).

⚅ [First] “Hyperexcitability also provokes inner conflicts as well as the means by which these conflicts can be overcome” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 38).

⚅ Third, conflicts and psychoneurotic processes become the dominant factors in accelerated development.

⚅ “It is mainly mental hyperexcitability through which the search for something new, something different, more complex and more authentic can be accomplished” (Dąbrowski, 1973, p. 15).

⚅ Overexcitability helps to differentiate higher from lower experiences and facilitates a multilevel view: “The reality of the external and of the inner world is conceived in all its multiple aspects. High overexcitability contributes to establishing multilevelness” (Dąbrowski, 1996, p. 74).

⚄ Individuals will usually display a characteristic response type – one of the five forms will be dominant, and one will direct one’s OE accordingly: “For instance, a person with prevailing emotional overexcitability will always consider the emotional tone and emotional implications of intellectual questions” (Dąbrowski, 1996, p. 7).

⚄ “Individuals with enhanced emotional, imaginational and intellectual excitability channel it into forms most appropriate for them” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 66).

⚄ “Nervous children, who have increased psychomotor, emotional, imaginative, and sensual or mental psychic excitability and who show strength and perseveration of reactions incommensurate to their stimuli, reveal patterns of disintegration” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 98).

⚄ “Excessive excitability is, among others, a sign that one’s adaptability to the environment is disturbed. These disintegration processes are based on various forms of increased psychic excitability, namely on psychomotor, imaginative, affectional, sensual, and mental hyperexcitability.” (Dąbrowski, 1967, p. 61).

⚄ It is beyond the scope of this introduction to fully explore this complex topic (see Tillier 2018).

⚄ In the individual neuron, there are both intrinsic levels of excitability and an ongoing modulation of excitability.
≻ These levels are controlled by both genetics – different individuals have slightly different genetics – and, as well, by epigenetics – one’s life experience will modify both the architecture and functional expression of one’s neurons and subsequently adjust neuronal excitability (Armstrong, 2014).

⚄ As neurons operate in microcircuits and as part of larger networks, neuronal control of the balance of excitability and inhibition is a critical factor.

⚄ Many systems require strict homeostatic control (e.g. blood pressure, temperature and respiration).
≻ Other systems must be plastic and respond to rapid change (e.g. to remember and learn).

⚄ Genes that control voltage-gated ion channels and calcium transport are consistently found in psychiatric GWAS (Ament et al., 2015).
≻ These genes control cellular electrical excitability and calcium homeostasis in neurons (Smoller, 2013).
≻ “Alteration in the ability of a single neuron to integrate the inputs and scale its excitability may constitute a fundamental mechanistic contributor to mental disease, alongside with the previously proposed deficits in synaptic communication and network behaviour” (Mäki-Marttunen et al. 2016, p. 1).

⚄ The proof of concept for the neurophysiological mechanisms and genetic (and epigenetic) control of neuronal excitability have been established (e.g., Gulledge & Bravo, 2016; Mäki-Marttunen et al., 2016; Meadows et al., 2016; Rannals et al., 2016; Remme & Wadman, 2012).

⚄ Experience alters the architecture and functional expression of individual neurons and dynamically modifies levels of brain/network variability, flexibility and connectivity (Zhang et al., 2016). …
≻ These changes impact neuronal excitability (e.g., Chen et al., 2016; Meadows et al., 2016; Zhang et al., 2016).

⚄ Summary: Contemporary research generally supports Dąbrowski’s approach to overexcitabilities and presents several plausible explanations to account for a hypothesized continuum of levels of excitability occurring between individuals: excitability varies in the population, with “average” excitability as the norm and “overexcitable” individuals as the exception.
≻ The control of excitability largely occurs within the individual neuron – each neuron monitors its own firing and can modify its rate of firing, so as to maintain overall network stability.
≻ Neurons show intrinsic levels of excitability and ongoing modulation of excitability based upon both genetics and epigenetics.

⚄ According to Dąbrowski, genetic features are the foundation of both the lower instincts and of the higher features of developmental potential, including the basis of several emergent aspects that eventually eclipse their genetic roots.
≻ Dąbrowski described these features as 3 “factors” that influence behavior and development.

⚄ First Factor: “hereditary, innate constitutional elements.” The expression of basic genetic instincts.

⚅ Today, we see this expressed in our “dog-eat-dog” mentality and social obsession on material success.

⚅ Reflected in egocentrism: Focus on self-satisfaction, feeling good, regardless of costs to others.

⚅ May be more general or more specific, more positive or more negative” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 33).

⚄ “General excitability, nuclei of the inner psychic milieu, general interests and aptitudes are examples of general and positive potentials. Specific forms of hyperexcitability such as emotional, imaginational or sensual hyperexcitability, as well as specific interests or aptitudes, such as musical, choreographic or mathematical aptitudes, constitute specific and positive potentials” (Dąbrowski, 1970, pp. 33-34).

⚄ Second Factor: “the influences of the external environment, mainly family and social milieu” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 72).

⚅ Most people incorporate and follow social values, rules and roles; learned through parenting and education.

⚅ Moral authority and criteria for good behavior are derived from external (social) values (heteronomy).

⚅ Most people live life under the day-to-day influence of second factor, for example: Kohlberg’s conventional level of moral reasoning.

⚅ Dąbrowski rejected unreflective conformity and saw people who function primarily under social influence as “mentally unhealthy.”

⚅ Most people become socialized and conform without thinking deeply about life – without comparing how things are versus how things could be or ought to be.

⚅ “If the developmental potential is distinctly positive or negative, the influence of the environment is less important.
≻ If the developmental potential does not exhibit any distinct quality, the influence of the environment is important and it may go in either direction.
≻ If the developmental potential is weak or difficult to specify, the influence of the environment may prove decisive, positively or negatively” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 34).

⚅ We live in a cave, facing a blank wall. Shadows are projected on the wall by unseen puppeteers (education and politics).
≻ We sit passively, mistakenly accepting these shadows as reality: second factor.
≻ If a person can break free and reach the exit leading out of the cave and up, into the sun, he or she can wake up and start to think independently: third factor.
≻ For Plato, this person can become a philosopher and discover real knowledge [Truth].

⚅ More than just “will” or “will power” – the third factor is the totality of our unique autonomous features and forces.

⚅ “The dynamism of conscious choice (valuation) by which one affirms or rejects certain qualities in oneself and in one’s environment” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 306).

⚅ As third factor develops, it compels us to make choices that express our authentic self: to choose what is “more me” and to reject what is “less me.”
≻ “A dynamism of conscious choice by which one sets apart both in oneself and in one’s environment those elements which are positive, and therefore considered higher, from those which are negative, and therefore considered lower. By this process a person denies and rejects inferior demands of the internal as well as of the external milieu, and accepts, affirms and selects positive elements in either milieu” (Dąbrowski, 1996, pp. 38-39).

⚄ “The principal periods during which the third agent appears distinctly are the ages of puberty and maturation” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 56).

⚄ Dąbrowski said the usual route of maturation leads to a “premature” integration of mental structures based on “the desire to gain a position, to become distinguished, to possess property, and to establish a family” – “the more the integration of the mental structure grows, the more the influence of the third agent weakens” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 57).

⚄ “The third agent persists – indeed, it only develops – in individuals who manifest an increased mental excitability and have at least mild forms of psychoneuroses” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 57).

⚄ In ideal, advanced development, the maturational period is “protracted” and “is clearly accompanied by a strong instinct of development, great creative capacities, a tendency to reach for perfection, and the appearance and development of self-consciousness, self-affirmation, and self-education” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 57).

⚄ “Because of the third factor the individual becomes aware of what is essential and lasting and what is inferior, temporary, and accidental both in his own structure and conduct and in his exterior environment. He endeavors to cooperate with those forces on which the third factor places a high value and to eliminate those tendencies and concrete acts which the third factor devalues” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 53).

⚅ The third factor arises from genetic roots but later “emerges” and becomes an autonomous dynamism:
≻ Third factor becomes an emergent force, eventually expressing our sense of who we ought to be and controlling the direction of our development – it transcends its genetic roots.

⚅ “It is not easy to strictly define the origin of the third factor, because, in the last [traditional] analysis, it must stem either from the hereditary endowment or from the environment” (Dąbrowski, 1973, p. 78).

⚅ “We can only suppose that the autonomous factors derive from hereditary developmental potential and from positive environmental conditions; they are shaped by influences from both. However, the autonomous forces do not derive exclusively from hereditary and environment, but are also determined by the conscious development of the individual himself” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 34).

⚅ “The third factor is independent from and selective with regard to heredity (the first factor), and environment (the second factor). Its selective role consists in accepting and fostering or rejecting and restraining qualities, interests and desires, which one finds either in one’s hereditary endowment or in one’s social environment. Thus the third factor being a dynamism of conscious choice is a dynamism of valuation. The third factor has a fundamental role in education-of-oneself, and in autopsychotherapy. Its presence and operation is essential in the development toward autonomy and authenticity. It arises and grows as a resultant of both positive hereditary endowment (especially the ability for inner psychic transformation) and positive environmental influences” (Dąbrowski, 1970, pp. 178-179).

⚄ As third factor grows and development advances, the forces of development become autonomous:

⚅ “The appearance and growth of the third agent is to some degree dependent on the inherited abilities and on environmental experiences, but as it develops it achieves an independence from these factors and through conscious differentiation and self-definition takes its own position in determining the course of development of personality” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 54).

⚅ “According to the [TPD], the third factor arises in the course of an increasingly conscious, self-determined, autonomous and authentic development” (Dąbrowski, 1973, p. 78).

⚅ “The genesis of the third factor should be associated with the very development with which it is combined in the self-consciousness of the individual in the process of becoming more myself” i.e., it is combined with the vertical differentiation of mental functions (1973, p. 78).

⚅ “The third factor is a dynamism active at the stage of organized multilevel disintegration. Its activity is autonomous in relation to the first factor (hereditary) and the second (environment)” (Dąbrowski, 1973, p. 80).

⚄ “This approach is close to some of the ideas of Henri Bergson (1859-1941) who maintained that more can be found in the effects than in the causes” (Dąbrowski, 1973, p. 78).

⚃ Intuition plays a crucial role in the theory, especially at the highest levels of development, where it ultimately guides the ideal personality.

⚄ By intuition we mean a synthesizing mental function or group of functions of a large scope, which grasps various form of multidimensional and multilevel reality on the basis of stimuli and data which are not sufficient for a global diagnosis and discursive derivation of conclusions. The intuitive ability to grasp complex aspects of reality without sufficient “rational” foundations indicates that intuition operates by means of subconscious or hyper conscious shortcuts.

It seems that this kind of intuition appears only at a relatively advanced stage of mental development and is prepared by the process of multilevel disintegration and the growth of the inner psychic milieu. The processor multilevel transformations allows insight into various dimensions of reality and wide, synthetic and many-sided apprehension.

Such experiences as inner conflicts, sufferings, a rich history of life, meditative attitudes, assist in the formation of intuitive capacities of a wide scope. They contribute to the growth of empathy in relation to lower and higher levels of human activity.

In a fully rounded human development intuition closely cooperates with intellectual and discursive functions. It is instrumental in the formation of scientific hypotheses, in diagnosis and prognosis concerning individual and social matters. Intuition synthesizes the results of empirical and discursive data and creates a new coordinated unit which may become the subject matter of further discursive examination on a higher level. The process of growth of science takes this form of successive stages of discursive accumulation of data, intuitive grasps and following discursive elaboration.

Intellectual, emotional and volitional components are involved in various degrees and in various setups in the work of intuition.

The composite nature of intuition facilitates the cooperation between intuition and discursive operations. It allows the coordination of intuition with self-consciousness and self-control, retrospection and prospection. The process of positive disintegration assists intuition with the “work” done by different dynamisms. The gradual shifting of the disposing and directing center toward higher levels at which developmental dynamisms are integrated into a harmonious structure is at the, foundation of the synthesizing function of intuition.

At the level of primary integration intuition does not appear. …

We may conclude that intuition is a complex dynamism of preliminary and final syntheses coordinating emotional, intellectual and instinctive functions. In this. way the concept of intuition ceases to be an obscure, indefinite, mysterious idea; but becomes the name a special, distinctly identified mental function operating indefinite relationship with other functions and with discursive thinking. (Dąbrowski, 1973, pp. 188-189).

⚄ Mental functions, being predominantly emotional, are initially grasped in a way that is intuitive-synthetic. At first we are merely aware of the work of these functions and of their general developmental direction. Full knowledge of the dynamisms of development can be achieved in the subsequent stage, where the intuitive-synthetic understanding is extended and combined with analysis and evaluation (discursive-analytic phase) to finally enter the empirical phase. This descriptive-empirical phase is the phase of applying and of testing the knowledge of human development through a more or less clearly defined program of development. It is a hierarchy of aims at work.

For example, if one were to grasp correctly the moral aspects of human actions, one would start in the search of the common denominator of moral values by an intuitive process. This intuitive searching process would engage emotional functions, in this case empathy. Once the moral values are intuitively grasped through the dynamism of empathy, they then become available for elaboration and reevaluation through discursive-analytic processes.

Consequently, the traditional belief in a fundamental opposition of the intuitive and the rational approach to moral values is shown to be more apparent than real. Intuition and reason act in valuation as complementary stages on the road towards the recognition of what is objectively valuable. In this context it is necessary to realize that at no stage there is a complete separation between the emotive-intuitive and the intellectual-discursive spheres of psychic activity. Certainly, there is some, however slight, intellectual activity involved in the intuitive stage, and some emotional activity in the rational stage. Mazurkiewicz (62) sees in this a demonstration of the directive role played in mental life by higher emotions conjoined with mnemonic elements. (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 113).

⚄ For a great number of artists and those who strive for self-perfection the realities of intuition, dreams, and fantasy are much higher, much more understandable than the reality of the senses. It is easier for them successfully to deal with the problems of this reality than the reality of everyday life. This reality is in the center of their concerns and inner experiences. In practical matters, however, they may perform poorly and be outclassed by the practically-minded people. (Dąbrowski, 1973, p. 3).

⚄ The ideal of personality is the model of the development of personality; an intuitive, synthetic goal of the development of a human individual; and an aim of his planned multilevel developmental efforts. The lower and middle levels of this development are being built by the intellect and experience with the participation of intuition. The higher stages of development are transformed through the synthetic intuitive “grasp” of the ideal of personality and identification with this ideal. This synthesis and intuition transform and project this ideal by their work, they lift up the empirical and discursive activities to a higher level. (Dąbrowski, 1973, 100).

⚄ Self-perfection. The program of development worked out in level IV can now be fully carried out. It is conceived as a synthesis through intuition, it is “self-evident.” The program is taken up without excitation, without inhibition, and without resistance. The reason for this comes from the attenuation and cessation of inner conflicts and tensions, and from the establishment of hierarchy of values under only one kind of tension, namely, personality ideal. The ideal becomes accessible and comprehensible. Dynamization of the ideal becomes a concrete process because the main dynamisms of personality are already unified with the personality ideal. (Dąbrowski, 1996, p. 43).

⚄ Intuition is a special ability for multidimensional and multilevel synthesis. The so-called realists do not believe in this ability and distrust it. And their knowledge of people is – as a rule – segmentary and superficial. But I do not want talk about it. People grasping intuitively this emanation know, or rather feel, and are oriented toward the human group where they can feel safe, where they can rest psychically. (Fragments, 1972, p. 18).

⚄ Some degree of intuition should be demanded from all individuals admitted to creative professions and responsible for dealing with human individuals and groups. It is of crucial importance in the profession of psychological counselors, medical doctors, educators, judges, artists, and even, in diplomacy and politics. (Dąbrowski, 1973, p. 191).

⚃ The theory distinguishes various levels of development of “emotional and instinctive functions.” The level of these functions reflects one’s values and one’s general level of development. Dąbrowski called these “levels of emotional development analogous to the levels of intellectual development” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 19).

⚃ In 1996, Dąbrowski expressed his disagreement with the fact that psychology had become primarily focused on studying cognitive development while neglecting emotional development.

⚃ For Dąbrowski, “a general theory of human development is not possible if it does not include emotional factors” (Dąbrowski, 1996, p. 6).

⚃ In constructing his theory of development, Dąbrowski included traditional cognitive development and added a new role for emotional factors, where “emotional factors are not considered merely as unruly subordinates of reason but can acquire the dominant role of shapers of development” (Dąbrowski, 1996, p. 6).

⚃ Traditional theories of development rely on ontogeny – the idea that development automatically unfolds according to some pre-programmed biological sequence of events: Each subsequent step unfolds on the foundation of, and is predicated upon, the features of the previous stage, e.g. the stages from the time of fertilization of the egg to the adult form.

⚃ Dąbrowski’s observations of emotion lead him to conclude that emotion does not conform to ontogenetic development (ontogenesis), rather, it is determined by, and emerges from, “other” conditions and factors.

⚃ A key implication is that emotional development may not match cognitive development – as cognitive growth follows ontogenesis, and may achieve advanced levels, emotional functions may or may not follow.

⚃ This lopsided situation was referred to by Dąbrowski as one-sided development and created a perilous situation: where cognition is allowed to act as an instrument to first and second factor influences without the benefit of emotional and moral guidance or constraints.

⚄ Dąbrowski said that making multilevelness a central tenet of his approach was the key to being able to describe and understand the development of different aspects of human behavior and how they interact.

⚄ To understand a given behavior, emotion or value requires a multilevel examination: Each psychological function and behaviour will be expressed differently and have different meanings at each level of development. Only when we see this can we understand human behaviours in the context of a developmental and vertical perspective.

⚄ “To each level of mental development, there is a corresponding level of value experience. Mental development of man and the development of a hierarchy of values are, in fact, two names for the same process. One cannot separate the two” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 98).

⚄ “The sense of values provides a standard of measure for behavior and gives inner support or disapproval to one’s own actions” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 44).

⚄ “Above a certain level of development there is more universal agreement in valuation, i.e. highly developed (eminent) people tend to share the same values” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 93).

⚄ As an individual develops and moves through the levels, he or she experiences new views of reality, new challenges, develops new values and forms new interpretations of both internal and external reality.

⚄ Development must involve the experience of multilevelness, and this discovery triggers the emergence and creation of one’s personality ideal – the core from which all development will then flow.

⚄ The appreciation and experience of emotions in multilevelness provides a new yardstick to help measure behavior and to guide a person in the formation of values that reflect both one’s essence and one’s emerging sense of who one ought to be.

⚄ The validity of development through the levels can be reliably observed using a multilevel approach.

⚄ Emotional overexcitability is the central component of development because it predisposes the discovery and awareness of higher-level (multilevel) emotions.

⚄ Accentuated by acute emotional awareness, multilevelness brings into focus the contrast between higher and lower phenomena both in the internal and external milieu, and this in turn triggers the vertical conflicts Dąbrowski felt were so important in development – breaking our attachment to lower levels and creating the possibility for higher-level behavior.

⚄ Emotions and values eventually merge and play a predominant role in development:

⚄ “‘Psychoneurotic experiences’ by disturbing the lower levels of values help gradually to enter higher levels of values, i.e., the level of higher emotions. These emotions becoming conscious and ever more strongly experienced begin to direct our behaviour and bring it to a higher level. In this way higher emotions play a dynamic role in our development and give meaning to our life. As new and higher values the higher emotions slowly begin to shape our ‘new harmony’ after the collapse of the primitive harmony of lower level” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 3).

⚄ The quote above shows that we grow as individuals by striving to meet new standards that we perceive based on our increasing awareness and understanding of higher emotions, and guided by our own essence.

⚄ As we follow the guidance of our higher-level emotions, our values and emotions blend together. We start to appreciate what we believe is right and feel confident in our values.

⚄ The hierarchy of values becomes a hierarchy of emotions contributing to, and becoming part of, advanced development.

⚅ Psychiatry / Psychotherapy (contrast between a developmental and a non-developmental psychiatric approach, insight and autopsychotherapy).

⚅ Education: All-around education and development of personality which culminates in at least partial transcendence of the biological cycle of life and in at least a partial change of the psychological type. The first educational precept derivable from the theory of positive disintegration is that one should foster authenticity. (Did not mention gifted education).

⚅ Sociology (development of cultures and societies mirrors individual growth?).

⚅ Politics (move from ‘is of practice’ to ‘ought of long term goals,’ The distinction of levels of mental functions seems to be the foundation of any long-range political program of development and social progress.).

⚅ Pastoral Guidance (understand deep, universal religious truths. The hierarchy of developmental levels of positive disintegration may be considered an attempt at empirical scaling of the road toward perfection).

⚄ “The generation of a genuine autonomous, moral awareness in an individual and its gradual growth towards higher levels of emotional maturity and responsibility is the paramount question in psychiatry” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 118).

⚄ Symptoms are only meaningful in the context of the individual’s overall potential for development.

⚄ Key idea: to see if a symptom reflects a unilevel or a multilevel disintegration and to adapt our therapeutic techniques accordingly.

⚄ Therapeutic goal: For the person to conduct autopsychotherapy and autonomously manage and shape his or her energy, personality, and development.

⚄ “The aim of diagnosis is to grasp all the positive factors, to introduce the patient to them and to make him a co-author of his diagnosis” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 252).

⚄ “The multidimensional, detailed and synthetic diagnosis comprises essentially half of psychotherapy … For most patients the discovery of their originality, creativity, symptoms of accelerated development and even talents, and the program of development of such functions, very often gives them a clear sense of life” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 253).

⚄ “Medical treatment and psychotherapeutic efforts will be replaced by counselling which would consist mainly in the clarification of the developmental nature of nervous tension and symptoms of disintegration” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 119).

⚄ Therapy should start with a “multidimensional diagnosis of the developmental potential of a given individual. Only in this way can one help in the development of personality – not by ‘treatment,’ but by explanation and awareness of the inevitable stages of growth” (Dąbrowski, 1967, p. vii).

⚄ “It is the task of therapy to convince the patient of the developmental potential that is contained in his psychoneurotic processes” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. viii).

⚄ Today, we can see how people who succeed in the “dog-eat-dog” society are rewarded and how sensitive people are treated: this “indicates that the society itself is primitive and confused” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 118).

⚄ Our society is not receptive to sensitive people or psychoneurotics and this creates a tragic aspect of having DP and OE.

⚄ Alienation from a sick, low level society is an example of positive maladjustment: an indication of healthy individual development.

⚄ “The growth of societies may be subject to laws of disintegration comparable to those evident in the process of positive disintegration in individuals. It may be possible to describe and distinguish primitively integrated, monolithic and stagnant societies from those which undergo process of differentiation and developmental conflicts” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 126).

⚄ “The distinction of levels of mental functions seems to be the foundation of any long-range political program of development and social progress” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 128).

⚅ Plato: emotion is disruptive and confusing, impairing learning (cognition must control and rein in emotion).

⚄ History shows “Intelligence” alone is not sufficient to ensure healthy decision making and behavior.

⚄ Dąbrowski: Education tends to “train” not educate.
≻ Creates a society of conformers and “social achievers” who follow group based mores, not individuals with minds (personalities) of their own.

⚄ Education is wrongly used to promote political and social values and goals, for example, to promote consumerism and material wealth.

⚄ “We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought” (Russell, 2000, p. 356).

⚄ Goal: the creation of unique individuals, capable of autonomous thought and self analysis based on an integration of feelings about issues and one’s thoughts about issues (not a rote recital of “the facts” or of prevailing social mores/scripts).

⚄ Teach people how to critically evaluate issues and develop autonomy – help individuals to create autonomous values and a unique personality.

⚄ Establishes a new hierarchy where emotion “directs” cognition; intelligence now serves higher values.

⚄ Dąbrowski’s basic approach is that education must strive to nourish the whole individual, balancing cognitive and emotional aspects.

⚄ One’s emotional life can have a dramatic impact on learning style, learning potential and performance.

⚄ A student’s potential must first be seen in the context of his or her overall personality; then within the classroom, family and society. Performance and behavior must also be viewed and evaluated in these contexts.

⚄ “An awareness of the effect of multilevel disintegration on the inner psychic milieu is of basic importance for educators” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 23).

⚄ Dąbrowski advocated “humanistic education, that is, true human education and not mere training as the methods of an animal trainer might be described” (On Authentic Education, p. 2).

⚅ 1). General education designed to enhance common traits that all kids share,

⚄ “Authentic education is designed to encourage the child to transgress mediocre statistical qualities and to develop his own hierarchy of values and aims which he is then taught to realize” (On Authentic Education, pp. 33-34).

⚄ Students need to be individually supported and nurtured on both emotional and cognitive dimensions.

⚄ When a Dąbrowskian diagnosis supports a positive interpretation, “symptoms” should be accepted:

⚄ Crises should be expected and framed in a developmental context when appropriate.

⚄ The rich tradition of ML and other OE individuals can be emphasized to reduce feelings of alienation.

⚄ “A general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another” (Mill, 63).

⚃ Dąbrowski saw a correlation between personality development and special abilities and talents, a component of developmental potential.
≻ Dąbrowski said that a minimum IQ of 110 was necessary but not sufficient for mental development (see Nixon 2005).
≻ He developed the hypothesis that those with exceptional abilities and talents – the gifted – would display significant developmental potential including overexcitability.
≻ He also hypothesized these individuals should display neuroses and psychoneuroses, the hallmarks of the process of positive disintegration and hence, eventually, advanced personality development.

⚃ The TPD is not based on the study of gifted individuals. As far as we can see, Dąbrowski conducted only one study with “gifted” children:

⚄ Examined 80 children: 30 “intellectually gifted” and 50 from “drama, ballet and plastic art schools” (Dąbrowski, 1967, p. 251).

⚄ Found “every child” showed “hyperexcitability,” various psychoneurotic symptoms and frequent conflicts with the environment.

⚄ “The development of personality with gifted children and young people usually passes through the process of positive disintegration” (Dąbrowski, 1967, p. 261).

⚃ In the manuscript, On Authentic Education, Dąbrowski said: “The nervous and psychoneurotic individual is present in an overwhelming percentage of highly gifted children and youths, artists, writers, etc. [The] tendency to reach beyond the statistical norm and mediocre development presents the privilege and drama of psychoneurotic people” (p. 50).

⚃ “The extremely sensitive child, in contact with conflict in everyday life (with death and injustice), and the child who deeply experiences feelings of inferiority can develop, in spite of his intellectual gifts, anxiety psychoneurosis: be afraid of darkness, loneliness and aggressiveness in others” (p. 59).

⚃ Dąbrowski’s hypotheses: as a group, students identified as gifted will tend to display stronger DP (and OE), increased levels of psychoneuroses, and will be predisposed to experience positive disintegration.

⚄ Many students should display “symptoms” that may reflect higher potentials.

⚄ May display unusual sensitivity, frequent crises, anxieties, depression, perfectionism, etc.

⚃ The application of the TPD to the field of the gifted began with Piechowski’s introduction of overexcitability as a feature of gifted children (Piechowski, 1979).
≻ This publication stimulated a flurry of subsequent work in the gifted field specifically looking at overexcitability, one component of Dąbrowski’s concept of developmental potential.

⚃ Piechowski developed the OEQ test of OE (not a test of full DP) (Lysy & Piechowski, 1983).

⚄ A revised test, the OEQ-II, was developed (Falk, Lind, Miller, Piechowski, & Silverman, 1999).

⚃ OE was popular because parents easily related and research was aided by having the OEQ and OEQ-II.

⚃ Over the past 40+ years, many research projects and papers have addressed OE, most in the context of gifted populations (see Mendaglio & Tillier, 2006).

⚃ In an influential presentation, Ackerman (1997a) reported the results of her study of 79 students using Piechowski’s overexcitability questionnaire.
≻ Total sample 79.
   ≻≻ Numbers as classified by school:
     ≻≻≻ Gifted 42 (53%) – 32 gifted with overexcitability [40% of 79] + 10 gifted without overexcitability [13% of 79]
     ≻≻≻ Not gifted 37 (47%) – 24 not gifted without overexcitability [30% of 79] 13 not gifted with overexcitability [17% of 79]
   ≻≻ Numbers as classified by Ackerman:
     ≻≻≻ 23 (58.9%) classified “incorrectly” by school:
     ≻≻≻ 13 of 37 (35%) non-gifted (School) but had overexcitability and therefore must be gifted
     ≻≻≻ 10 of 42 (24%) gifted (School) but without overexcitability.

⚃ “Classificatory analysis performed at the end of the discriminant analysis indicated that a total of 70.9% of all subjects were correctly classified using psychomotor, intellectual, and emotional OE scores; that is, into the groups the schools had placed them. However, 23 subjects were classified incorrectly: 13 of the 37 (35.1%) nongifted subjects were classified as gifted and 10 of the 42 (23.8%) gifted subjects were classified as nongifted” (Ackerman, 1997a, p. 233).

⚃ “In the current study, 13 of the 37 (35.1%) nongifted students were classified as gifted. This suggests that there are some students in the sample that have not been identified as gifted based on their I.Q. scores, peer, teacher, and parent nominations, and school grades, although, these students have personality characteristics similar to those students who were identified as gifted. Personality characteristics in this sense refer to psychomotor, intellectual, and emotional OEs, which are included in the discriminant function coefficient. Thus, it is possible that approximately 35% of the non-gifted students could be gifted based on the classificatory analysis results.
The classificatory analysis also indicated that a number of gifted subjects were misclassified. That is, their OE profiles were more similar to the nongifted profile than the gifted profile. Of the gifted students, 23.8% (10 of 42) matched the nongifted profile more closely. Therefore, while the score on the OEQ might be able to identify some students as gifted that would not have been identified based on the methods used in their school, it should serve as an additional measure, and not a replacement for current methods.
One of the most important findings in this study was that based on OEQ scores and profiles, 35% of the nongifted subjects matched the gifted profile based on statistical analyses. This provides some support to the notion that an additional method of identification is necessary and that the Overexcitability Questionnaire could be useful for this purpose. While there were also 24% of the gifted subjects with profiles similar to that of the nongifted, this point is not as important to the current study, because these individuals would already have been identified” (Ackerman, 1997a, p. 234).

⚃ Type of overexcitability:
≻ The literature: emotional, intellectual, and imaginational – “Earlier studies, (Gallagher, 1986; Lysy & Piechowski, 1983; Piechowski & Miller, 1994; Piechowski & Colangelo, 1984; Silverman & Ellsworth, 1981), found emotional, intellectual, and imaginational OEs, in varying order, to be the highest three OEs for their gifted subjects” (Ackerman, 1997a, p. 233). [see Pyryt (2008), below]
≻ Ackerman: Psychomotor, emotional and intellectual – “Therefore, even though emotional and intellectual OEs were the highest scores and were also identified as discriminating between the two groups in the current study, psychomotor OE was identified as the OE that most differentiated between the gifted and nongifted samples” (Ackerman, 1997a, p. 233).

⚄ This report influenced the gifted field and today, many consider OE and gifted to be synonymous.

⚄ To my knowledge, the important implications of this study and the three discrete groups have not been further replicated, elaborated or researched.

⚃ Pyryt (2008) reviewed the research findings on overexcitability and the gifted and concluded that gifted individuals are more likely than those not identified as gifted to show signs of intellectual OE, but based upon the research strategies and testing done to date, the gifted do not consistently demonstrate "the big three," intellectual, imaginational and emotional OE.
≻ Pyryt (2008) concluded, "it appears that gifted and average ability individuals have similar amounts of emotional overexcitability.
≻ This finding would suggest that many gifted individuals have limited developmental potential in the Dąbrowskian sense and are more likely to behave egocentrically rather than altruistically" (p. 177).

⚃ In summary, based upon the research done to date, the relationship between overexcitability and the gifted appears to remain unclear or largely unsupported.
≻ The relationship between developmental potential, as Dąbrowski described it, to the gifted remains to be tested as does the relationship between psychoneuroses and the gifted and positive disintegration and the gifted.

Ackerman, C. M. (1997a). Identifying gifted adolescents using personality characteristics: Dąbrowski’s overexcitabilities. Roeper Review, 19 (4), 229-236.

Ackerman, C. M. (1997b). A secondary analysis of research using the Overexcitability Questionnaire. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, August, 1997, Texas A & M University, College Station, Texas. [Dissertation Abstract] Dissertation Abstracts International Section A: Humanities and Social Sciences. Vol 58(7-A), Jan 1998, pp. 2526.

Colangelo, N. & Zaffrann, R. T. (Eds.) (1979). New voices in counseling the gifted. Kendall/Hunt.

Dąbrowski, K. (n.d.). On authentic education. Unpublished manuscript. 103 pages. With a separate 4 page preface entitled Authentic Education.

Piechowski, M. M. (1979). Developmental potential. In N. Colangelo and R. Zaffrann (Eds.), New Voices in Counseling the Gifted (25-57). Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall Hunt.

Pyryt, M. C. (2008). The Dąbrowskian lens: Implications for understanding gifted individuals. In S. Mendaglio (Ed.). Dąbrowski’s Theory of Positive Disintegration (pp. 175-182). Scottsdale AZ: Great Potential Press, Inc.

⚄ Dąbrowski described each overexcitability level by level. Each OE has a different nature and expression on each level of development.
≻ Thus far, testing efforts have not taken this into account and have collapsed each OE into one dimension.

⚄ Example, here are the items measuring emotional OE from the OEQII: (Falk et al, 1999, pp.7-8).

⚄ These items do not seem to reflect the complexity of the constructs of the overexcitabilities as Dąbrowski described them; therefore these tests seem questionable in yielding valid estimates of one’s level.

⚄ OE is a discontinuous construct with a non-normal distribution.
≻ The OEs are interrelated; these important research issues were ignored by past researchers.

⚄ Most research on OE today is questionable as it ignores the above features and uses analyses that assume a normal distribution, continuous variance and independence between variables.

⚅ 1). Gifted individuals are more likely than those not identified as gifted to show signs of intellectual OE, but based upon the research strategies and testing done to date, the gifted do not consistently demonstrate “the big three,” intellectual, imaginational and emotional OE.

⚅ 2). Pyryt (2008): “it appears that gifted and average ability individuals have similar amounts of emotional overexcitability. This finding would suggest that many gifted individuals have limited developmental potential in the Dąbrowskian sense and are more likely to behave egocentrically rather than altruistically” (p. 177).

⚄ Warne (2011b, p. 688) stated, “It has never been clear what exactly the OEQII measures … Further psychometric studies on the instrument should be conducted before the instrument gains widespread acceptance.”

⚄ “Those who use the OEQII or read studies containing data produced by the instrument [should] use caution in interpreting group or individual differences because such score differences are likely partially psychometric in nature and not psychological” (Warne, 2011a, p. 590).

⚄ The OEQII is sound and should “enable the counselors and the teachers to better understand their students’ intelligences” (in contravention of the limitations of the test outlined in its manual). (Al-Onizat, 2013, p. 61).

⚄ The OEQII is difficult to administer and has questionable reliability; further research is needed to develop a more appropriate instrument to measure overexcitabilities (Carman, 2011).

⚄ The meta-analysis of the last 20 years of research by Pyryt (2008) calls for caution in concluding that as a group, the gifted disproportionately display overexcitability compared to non-gifted groups.

⚄ Many of the problems and misunderstandings of TPD seen today appear to be the result of poor academic standards and questionable assumptions.

⚄ Do the gifted disproportionately show other signs of developmental potential, for example, the third factor?

⚄ Do the gifted disproportionately demonstrate psychoneurosis and positive disintegration?

⚄ How do the gifted who display OE differ from those gifted who do not display OE?

⚄ For the 35% of students identified with OE but not classified as gifted: Is their non-gifted classification accurate? If so, what are the educational, counselling, and other implications for them.

⚄ Dąbrowski: we can have DP and not be “gifted” although he suggested that above average intelligence (110+) was a necessary but not sufficient condition for advanced development (see Nixon, 2005).

⚄ Most authors say that gifted students do not display higher anxiety, depression or suicide compared to those not identified as gifted (Cross, Cassady, & Miller, 2006; Hyatt & Cross, 2009; Neihart 1999, Neihart, Robinson, Reis, & Moon, 2002).

⚄ “What do we know? Intellectually or academically gifted children who are achieving and participate in special educational program for gifted students are at least as well adjusted and are perhaps better adjusted than their nongifted peers. These children do not seem to be any more at-risk for social or emotional problems” (Neihart, 1999, p. 16).

⚄ Contemporary research does not help clarify the psychological differences (if any) of the gifted versus non-gifted and no clear consensus emerges.

⚅ [First lesson] Students with gifts and talents are in many ways the same as their average peers, and what little research has compared their suicide ideation has found no statistically significant difference. This indicates that research from the general population can inform our explorations. Exceptional abilities, however, alter the lived experience for these students and, quite possibly, the way they think about that experience and the possibility of suicide, itself. Risk factors may differ when they are experienced in the context of exceptional abilities.

⚅ A second lesson represents areas that seemingly are specific to students who are gifted. For example, the descriptions of overexcitabilities in all of the psychological autopsies are believed by many to be unique among students with gifts and talents. Using Dąbrowski’s theory may afford suicidologists hints as to the more vulnerable among gifted students.”

⚄ The examination of psychological autopsies by Cross and Cross (2018) of gifted students who committed suicide (just quoted) raises serious concerns.

⚄ Given the gravity of the issues around mental health and the gifted, especially self-harm and suicide, the existing literature is disappointing and unhelpful: no clear picture emerges on the issues.

⚄ This review will not examine the veracity of these claims, simply bring them to the readers’ attention.

⚄ Alexandra Vuyk and her thesis supervisor, Barbara Kerr advanced the position that the construct of openness from the five factor model encompasses all of the aspects of overexcitability. Therefore, overexcitability should be dropped from the literature.

⚄ Openness to experience is the personality domain or factor that appears equivalent to OEs when comparing conceptual descriptions. This factor is also called openness/intellect by several researchers to adequately describe the subfactors that most closely represent it” (Vuyk, Kerr, & Krieshok, 2016, p. 64).

⚄ This study provides initial evidence for the strong association among openness facets and OEs and serves as ground to support the shift from OEs to openness to experience” (Vuyk, Kerr, & Krieshok, 2016, p. 66).

⚄ Rost et al. (2014) … stated that given empirical results, the OE construct was not useful; it did not serve for giftedness identification, and it did not describe behaviors that could not be explained by other sources. Thus it is a redundant construct. Practice should be based on sound science, but science behind OEs is not sound” … (Vuyk, Kerr, & Krieshok, 2016, p. 68).

⚄ A conceptual change from OEs to openness to experience would reflect the shift from a static and essentialist conception of giftedness to a talent development perspective” (Vuyk, Kerr, & Krieshok, 2016, p. 68).

⚄ Based on the results, openness to experience and OEs seem to represent largely the same construct” (Vuyk, Krieshok, & Kerr, 2016, p. 198).

⚄ Openness facets and OEs appear to represent the same construct, and thus the giftedness field would benefit from discussing the construct as the personality trait of openness to experience” (Vuyk, Krieshok, & Kerr, 2016, p. 205).

⚄ A reply by Grant (2021, p. 132) stated: “A fair literature review gives equal attention to the flaws and virtues of the TPD and of the FFM”

⚄ Our current state of knowledge is that OEs are similar to, but not equivalent to, OtE facets” (Grant, 2021, p. 136).

⚄ “While we acknowlege that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, we are also aware that as female scholars, we often must make bold claims in order to be heard and cited. Our keen awareness of gender and privilege also inform our approach to OEs” (Vuyk & Kerr, 2021, p. 140).

⚄ OEs were developed by European and European American White men; its research primarily on White or Asian high-socioeconomic (SES) students. The practice of gifted education based on OEs is largely performed by White, middle-class women. Women, people of color, and poor people cannot afford to celebrate their OEs” (Vuyk & Kerr, 2021, p. 140).

⚄ Vuyk and Kerr show a striking misunderstanding of TPD when they describe OEs as problems needing treatment – while OEs may present challenges they are seen as the basis of personality growth in TPD. “Calling OEs ‘innate and enduring characteristics’ (Lind, 2011) to be celebrated may seem to discourage intervention, and encourage a bright-sided, laissez-faire attitude that prevents children from getting the treatment they need” (Vuyk & Kerr, 2021, p. 140).

⚄ Mendaglio (2021, p. 10) stated: “I have concluded that, in essence, OE is treated as if it were atheoretical, that it has meaning in and of itself. However, like virtually all of the Dabrowskian constructs, OE is qualitatively different from mainstream psychological constructs, and must be understood and investigated with respect to the theory in which it originated.”

⚄ Shelagh Gallagher (2021, p. 28) noted: “Different branches of psychology sometimes offer different answers to seminal questions related to giftedness and talent. The current research into OE and OtE (openness to experience) is a perfect example, as the implications of having a similar set of attributes are interpreted differently through the lenses of either personality or clinical and developmental psychology.”

⚄ What role does the third factor play? Is it related to focus? Motivation? Eventual measures of success?

⚄ The theory is fluid, open to further research and theory building. How can we best balance future theory building and refinement with operationalization (validation, testing, assessment, etc.)?

⚄ Emerging findings in neuroscience should be reviewed for support of Dąbrowski’s constructs.

⚄ The theory has many subtleties and ambiguities and is open to different interpretations and understandings.

⚄ More sophisticated, more sensitive, valid, and reliable measurements of OE, DP, and the other constructs of TPD need to be developed.

⚄ The hypotheses that gifted students will show positive disintegration and psychoneurosis still need to be explored and tested.

⚄ Applications to psychotherapy have not yet been developed and the powerful concepts of autopsychotherapy and self-education lay fallow.

⚄ Issues concerning the construct of OE and Aron’s approach to hypersensitivity (HSP) and Vuyk’s claims regarding openness to experience will need to be explored, compared and contrasted.

⚄ Ideally, future refinements to TPD will be guided by sound observation, logic, and substantial, and relevant research findings.

⚄ “Human and social reality appears to be submitted to the law of positive disintegration. If progress is to be achieved, if new and valuable forms of life are to be developed, lower levels of mental functions have to be shaken and destroyed, and a sequence of processes of positive disintegration and secondary integrations are necessary. Consequently, human development has to involve suffering, conflicts, inner struggle” (Dąbrowski, 1970, 16).

⚄ He shall be found the truly wise.
’tis Zeus alone who shows the perfect way
Of knowledge: He hath ruled,
Men shall learn wisdom, by affliction schooled.

Aeschylus (525 #456 B.C.). Agamemnon.
{ess ka less} {agg ga num non}
Eliot, C. W. (Ed.). (1909). Nine Greek dramas. The Harvard Classics. Volume 8. New York, NY: Collier. (11).

⚄ Here, then, is a great mystery. For you who also love the little prince, and for me, nothing in the universe can be the same if somewhere, we do not know where, a sheep that we never saw has – yes or no? – eaten a rose … Look up at the sky. Ask yourselves: is it yes or no? Has the sheep eaten the flower? And you will see how everything changes … And no grown-up will ever understand that this is a matter of so much importance!

⚁ 3.8 Tillier’s Advanced Presentation of the Theory.

⚃ This second presentation will look at the philosophical roots of the theory in discussions of Plato, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Unamuno.
≻ Multilevelness finds its foundations in Plato.
≻ Kierkegaard and Nietzsche echo Dąbrowski’s approach to the self and the development of an individual.
≻ Unamuno helps us put suffering in context.
≻ Dąbrowski and creativity is explored.
≻ Dąbrowski’s Theory will be placed in context as it relates to positive psychology, posttraumatic growth, creativity, and Maslow.

⚃ Dąbrowski was influenced by two major philosophical traditions: essentialism and existentialism:

⚄ One expresses freedom through the choices that one makes to become an authentic individual (existentialism).

⚄ Dąbrowski (1973) combined both approaches in what he called the “existentio-essentialist compound.”

⚄ Ultimately, he concluded essentialism was more important than existentialism:

⚅ Essence is more important than existence for the birth of a truly human being.” (Existential thoughts and aphorisms, page 11)

⚅ There is no true human existence without genuine essence.” (Existential thoughts and aphorisms, page 11).

⚄ Dąbrowski rejected Plato’s approach to human essence as it was limited to the development of intellect.

⚅ One must do more than simply allow one’s character (essence) to unfold – one must actively discover it.

⚅ By choosing higher over lower alternatives, one creates an emergent personality. This is the core of human authenticity.

⚅ Phenomenology: each person has a unique perception of, and experience of, life and of the world. We need to become aware of, familiar with, and articulate about, our life experiences.

⚅ Hermeneutics: people must discuss and dialogue with each other (the dialectic of Socrates) to arrive at a shared interpretation of the subject being discussed.

⚅ In phenomenological hermeneutics, we share our individual experiences of life with others via dialogue. Eventually, we achieve an overall, shared consensus and mutual understanding of Reality.

⚃ Presented by Bill Tillier at The Labyrinth: Safe Journey and Homecoming:
The Fourth Biennial Advanced Symposium on Dąbrowski’s Theory.
July 7-9, 2000, Mount Tremblant, Quebec. Revised 2023.

⚃ When I asked Dąbrowski what I should start reading in order to get background on his theory, he told me, “Plato.”

⚄ There are universal essences, for example, that represent absolute truths, these are true everywhere and at every time.

⚄ There are individual essences “within us” that determine who we will be as individuals.

⚄ Each of us must uncover or discover our essence, representing our individual, unique character.

⚃ Things, and people, have essences, for Plato, represented by their metaphysical [not of this world] FORMS.

⚃ In contrast, Aristotle said essence is contained within everyday matter. The essence of a frog resides within a tadpole, and while its FORM may change (tadpole to frog), its “frog essence” remains constant. Things, and people, have enduring essences, “what a thing is,” for Aristotle, contained within their physical matter.

⚄ Existentialism emerges from: Dostoyevsky, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger and Sartre etc.

⚄ There is no timeless or absolute truth or reality and therefore life is largely meaningless. Whatever truth or meaning we experience, we create as we participate in the experience of life.

⚄ We must create our own truths from our experiences. The self is not predetermined, over time, we build our autonomous self from our actions.

⚄ Sartre: We have the responsibility and freedom to choose our actions; to make choices is authenticity.

⚄ Socrates said that everyone holds moral truth and knowledge within; however, most are unaware of it.

⚄ By asking someone questions in a dialogue, the person answering can be drawn toward discovering this truth via independent, reflective, and critical thinking.

⚄ Complacent acceptance of traditional or external views is the status quo but is unsatisfactory.

⚄ We must be conscious of something and be able to explain it for it to have any meaning; “the unexamined life is not worth living.”

⚃ People naturally seek virtue and happiness; people are not inherently evil, only ignorant of the Good.

⚃ What are absolute beauty and justice, apart from beautiful objects and good deeds? What are beauty and justice in all places and at all times?

⚄ Plato was born to an aristocratic family in Athens and lived from 428-354BC.

⚃ Plato was interested in politics: “Mankind will not get rid of its evils until either the class of those who philosophize in truth and rectitude reach political power or those most powerful in cities, under some divine dispensation, really get to philosophizing” (Letter 7).

⚃ When Socrates was purged, Plato became disillusioned with politics and came to see that “mankind’s fate was hopeless unless there was a deep change in men’s education, and especially in the education of those intending to become statesmen.”

⚃ Plato founded the Academy, a prototype of the Modern University. Based on mathematics and with a wide focus, the Academy lasted 900 years.

⚃ Plato was concerned about social and individual justice: to get out of life what is deserved, not less, not more.

⚃ Plato’s Cave: Plato’s cave is described in a dialogue presented in chapter VII of his major work, The Republic.

⚄ The cave is the best known of Plato’s dialogues and is open to many different interpretations.

⚄ Plato’s cave appears after a complex and subtle discussion of “The Divided Line,” a complex mathematical (geometric) description of the levels of reality and their corresponding degrees of knowledge.

⚄ It is an allegory given to simplify Plato’s mathematical explanation of the levels of reality:

⚅ Although an accomplished mathematician, Plato’s geometric description of the divided line does not quite “work” mathematically: it is assumed he intentionally designed it this way – but no one knows why.

⚃ Basic division: visible/invisible, then subdivided into a series of higher and lower levels based on how we see reality, and what these things actually are.

⚄ As an analogy describing the divided line, the cave is blunt; it is not an exact rendering of the levels.

⚄ The cave has a direct and clear political message: our leaders systematically deceive us and are often not fit to govern – they need to either “see the light” or be replaced.

⚄ Basic premise: Because of how we live, “true” Reality is not obvious to most of us. However, we mistake what we see and hear as Reality and Truth.

⚄ A group of “prisoners” sit in rows (as in a modern movie theater).
≻ Chained to their seats, they cannot turn around to see the whole cave in context.

⚅ [Glaucon] You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners.

⚄ The prisoners watch life unfold through an orchestrated shadow show projected on the wall in front of them.

⚄ A short wall, often called the roadway, is situated behind the prisoners.
≻ Puppets act out a play on the top of the roadway, casting shadows onto to the wall in front of the prisoners.

⚄ At the back of the cave (behind the roadway) is a fire; a source of artificial light.

⚄ The puppets and those pulling their strings are beyond the prisoner’s view.

⚄ There is an pathway leading up and out of the cave. Plato describes it as “a steep and rugged ascent.”

⚄ The exit represents “the ascent of the soul into the intellectual world.”

⚄ At some point, a prisoner is “set free” and is “forced” to see the situation inside the cave, causing him to “suffer sharp pains.”

⚄ “The purpose of education is to drag the prisoner as far out of the cave as possible; not to instill knowledge into his soul, but to turn his whole soul towards the sun, which is the Form of the Good” (Burton, 2010).

⚄ Initially, one does not want to give up the security of familiar reality; the person has to be dragged past the fire (by someone already enlightened) and helped up, out of the cave.
≻ The path up to the surface is a difficult and painful struggle, and few have the strength needed to make it out, especially without help.

⚄ When one initially steps into the sunshine, one is blinded, but as one’s eyes slowly accommodate to the light, one’s fundamental view of the world – of reality – is transformed.
≻ One comes to see a deeper, genuine, authentic reality: a reality marked by reason.

⚄ Those who escape and see the “beatific vision vision of the Good” want to stay in the sunlight and continue ascending to maximize their individual growth.

⚄ However, the enlightened one must be compelled to return to the cave to try to free other prisoners as it is “improper” for them alone to be happy and leave the rest behind.

⚄ Returning to the cave, one must make a painful readjustment back into the darkness.
≻ However, to the other prisoners, the person now seems mad.
≻ They stumble around while their eyes adjust to the darkness and describe a strange new Reality.
≻ The others reject the enlightened one, often to the point of killing them.

⚄ In spite of the consequences, one must try to enlighten others.
≻ We create the ideal state only when everyone is free of their illusions – then, we can all start again to move up another level.

⚄ Each of us is a prisoner, perceiving the “reality” we are fed, through our own imperfect eyes.

⚄ Most of us accept this distorted illusion of reality without any question or deeper reflection.

⚄ Because the path leading to the sunlight is very difficult and dangerous, few people are able to become aware of “real” Reality.

⚄ It is difficult to get others to question their secure sense of the world and conformity.

⚄ When he discovered “the truth,” he tried to help others to discover it as well.

⚄ In a political “realignment,” Socrates was accused of “provocative and corruptive” teachings, and given the choice of exile or death – he chose death (by suicide).

⚅ The Pythagorean theorem does not describe one triangle or another, it describes all possible right-angle triangles that could hypothetically be drawn.

⚅ Plato: the theorem describes an absolute truth, a knowledge, about an unseen, ideal triangle of no particular size, that exists “out there.”

⚅ Triangles that people draw are mere images, impressions, opinions, representations, etc.
≻ They are relative to each person: each rendering only approximates the ideal FORM.

⚄ To discover the ideal FORM (and to find Truth and Justice), we must approach/judge these objects with the mind – with reason, this is where real knowledge is found; it is not found through the senses or through the emotions.

⚅ Each FORM fits within a hierarchy of other FORMS and we need to appreciate each in its larger context.

⚅ Understanding one FORM makes it easier to grasp others: eventually, the whole hierarchy is perceived.

⚄ FORMS represent a deep, absolute beauty and truth that we are normally not aware of, or in touch with.

⚄ If a soul is “awake” it sees both “ordinary reality” (the shadows in the cave) and the “real” FORMS behind it.

⚄ The closer we can come to FORMS, the closer we come to the overall, natural FORM (order and harmony) of the Cosmos.

⚄ The enlightened have a responsibility to return to the cave to guide and govern those still unenlightened.

⚄ Plato believed that Good has power (energy) just as the sun has the power to warm our skin.

⚄ Good sheds “light” on the other, lessor FORMS we “see” and allows us to make sense of them.

⚄ The Good is the author of being and essence; the Good is beyond being, and the cause of all existence (Burton, 2010).

⚄ Through dialogue, we ought to help each other to discover and sort out (“to order”) the FORMS and ideals (and the moral truth) of the Cosmos.

⚄ Dialogue points people in the right direction; the rest is up to the person.
≻ It takes strong character to break free and not everyone can: not everyone is strong enough.

⚄ “[Plato] is giving us the truth as he sees it; but it is a truth that each of us must rediscover for ourselves before we can properly be said to possess it” (Annas, 1981, p. 3).

⚅ FORMS are available to anyone with a sufficiently developed degree of reasoning.
≻ Michelangelo discovered the FORM through a process of deep reasoning, not through his senses and perceptions.

⚅ He relied on his mental image (“mind’s eye”) of the FORM – he did not use a human model to pose.

⚅ Michelangelo tries to represent, to reflect, this ideal FORM through his sculpture of David.

⚅⚀ David succeeds as a great work of art to the extent that Michelangelo is in touch with this ideal FORM (perfection) and can represent this in the stone.

⚅⚀ David is a closer likeness to the ideal FORM than we are familiar with seeing in our day-to-day lives; thus it has great impact on us when we see it.

⚅⚀ If Michelangelo had used a human model (even a “perfect” one) and relied on his perceptions, he would have been misled, creating an imperfect work.

⚅ Summary: because David resonates so with viewers, Michelangelo has succeeded in closely capturing and representing the ideal FORM of MAN using just his mind’s eye and his reason (intelligence).

⚅ The only immortal soul: this soul (and its associated knowledge) is reincarnated.

⚅ Located in the chest, individuals are driven by glory and fame, but can also feel shame and guilt.

⚅ “Irrational” desires for food, sex (as in animals), power, money, fame, etc.

⚅ One horse is white: the spirited soul. It is upright and easily follows orders as it knows of virtue and honor. Pulls up toward world of FORMS and ideals.

⚅ The other, the dark horse, is desires. It is lumbering and hard to control, even with a whip; at any moment, it may rear up and disobey. Pulls down toward the primal – physical world

⚅ The charioteer represents the rational soul. Their task is to control and direct the horses.

⚅ This also reflects the traditional image in psychology of a homunculus: in this context, a “little rational man” inside our heads controls and directs our behavior.

⚅ Human souls have a natural tendency (represented by wings on the chariot) to try to move up to the realm of FORMS, but are dragged down by their desires.

⚅ A few people can control their unruly horse enough that their chariot can ascend high enough for them to lift their heads above the rim of heaven and catch a brief glimpse of the universals.

⚅ However, most are not strong enough to ascend so high, and are left to feed their minds on mere opinion.

⚅ In time, all imperfect souls must fall back to earth, and only those that have glimpsed the universals can take on a human form; human beings are able to recall universals, so must once have seen them.

⚅ Imperfect souls who have gazed longest upon the universals are incarnated as philosophers, artists, and true lovers.
≻ As they are still able to remember the universals, they are completely absorbed in ideas about them and forget all about earthly interests.

⚅ Those unable to ascend (common people) think the ascenders are mad: the truth is they are divinely inspired and in love with goodness and beauty (Burton, 2010).

⚅ Conforming, everyday people (“prisoners”) are essentially fooled by their perceptions of reality. The soul is asleep.

⚅ Ascenders to the intelligible level now see a different, higher reality (the enlightened philosopher). The soul is awake.

⚄ Those in the cave face practical, moral questions: Steal the bread or not? Ascenders face higher, theoretical, and contemplative concerns: What does life mean?

⚄ Plato: Not all have the potential to ascend and lead; those without potential must have reason imposed.

⚄ Ascenders (rulers and philosophers) are given high status but also various responsibilities.

⚅ If reason is able to succeed, then rationality, justice, order, and harmony will prevail. The success of reason makes people human and allows them to be happy.

⚅ Reason may succeed by our discovery of FORMS (higher reality), or it may be imposed on us by others; either route is valid as long as reason ultimately prevails.

⚅ If reason and rationality fail, the lower animal in us will rise to rule; this must be avoided at any cost.

⚅ Plato: slavery is justifiable if needed to impose reason to control lower desires in those with little potential to be enlightened and who can’t control themselves.

⚄ The benefits of achieving justice ought to be obvious to the individual; people go wrong primarily out of ignorance: people are asleep.
≻ Or, they know better, but their appetites (desiring soul) are too strong for them to control.

⚄ While a lack of self-knowledge is part of the problem, insight alone does not wake up a “prisoner.”
≻ One needs to discover the “external” FORMS, an impersonal “outer” knowledge.

⚄ For Plato the intellectual study of abstract ideas (mathematics) is the only real method of discovery – it is not a process of self-growth.
≻ The motto of Plato’s University was “Let no one ignorant of geometry enter.”

⚄ Individual autonomy is severely limited or irrelevant.
≻ The ideal person is guided by reason and fuelled by spirit: their social quest is to enlighten others.

⚄ The struggles and conflicts linked to ascendance center around our difficulty in letting go of conformity and security, our reliance on our perception, and in the challenge of understanding and attaining truth; not on inner psychic issues or internal conflicts per se .

⚄ There is no intrinsic, personal sense of reward or fulfillment in ascendance: it is “reality-actualization” not self-actualization.

⚄ The “normal” reality we commonly experience and perceive though our senses is an illusion – merely a poor copy of Reality.

⚄ Our “usual” perceptions create distortions and thus they cannot be trusted.

⚄ Through reason, some people are able to “wake up” to Reality and to “see” what is real and important in life.

⚄ People who ascend have a responsibility to share their “new” insight – this is part of the social ideal:

⚅ Through a careful dialectic conversational process, we must try to lead others to discover and appreciate life more accurately for themselves.

⚅ But, by saying it is alright for enlightened governors to impose reason on the people, ironically Plato ended up advocating a very totalitarian state.

⚄ Wrongdoers are not evil, rather simply ignorant; or they are overcome by strong desires.

⚄ Plato typifies the traditional approaches that Dąbrowski objects to: they are lopsided toward cognition and ignore or disdain emotion.

⚄ Plato disdains imagination as a meaningless copy – a distorted illusion of objects; therefore a “low” feature.

⚄ Dąbrowski: the imagination of higher possibilities is a key element in higher development.

⚄ Plato and Dąbrowski differ on the role of intrapsychic conflicts, but both see development as more than simply the actualization of the self.

⚃ Presented by Bill Tillier at
Positive Disintegration: The Theory of the future.
100th Dąbrowski anniversary program on the man, the theory, the application and the future.
The Fifth International Conference on the Theory of Positive Disintegration, November 7-10, 2002, Ft. Lauderdale, FL.
(revised 2023).

⚄ Synopsis: One must realize the necessity of choice in actively making one’s life: this creates anxiety and conflict, features inherent in human experience that cannot be eliminated.

⚅ Sartre: “What is meant here by saying that existence precedes essence? It means that, first of all, man exists, turns up, appears on the scene, and, only afterward, defines himself” (2007, p. 22).

⚄ Existentialism is presented by many authors and in approaches (red are major Dąbrowskian influences):

⚅ Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Hegel, Dostoevsky, Husserl, Unamuno, Kafka, Jaspers, Heidegger, Sartre and Camus.

⚅ Man is alone on earth, but with God in Heaven to act as our ultimate judge: (Kierkegaard, Jaspers, and Dąbrowski).

⚅ Man is alone on earth – there is no God, and we alone must judge ourselves: (Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre and Camus).

⚄ There is no timeless or absolute truth or reality, and therefore life is largely meaningless.
≻ We create what truth or meaning (values) we have, as we participate in the experience of life: “Life is what you make it.”

⚄ Seeking refuge in social norms or religion is generally seen to stymie self-development and autonomy.

⚄ We each have the responsibility and freedom to choose our actions; our actions define who we are.

⚄ Each choice is eternal: a mistake lasts forever in regret, but everyday we have new choices to make and therefore, new chances to redeem ourselves.

⚄ Our choices are individual; however, because we are all human, our choices reflect on all mankind.

⚄ The choices we make (or don’t make) determine and define us and our lives:

⚄ Sartre: “Man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself” (2007, p. 22).

⚄ Realizing our freedom and these negative aspects creates strong anxiety and sometimes hopelessness.

⚄ One’s personal beliefs (and/or) faith are important positive aspects in decision-making.

⚄ Authenticity is making decisions and accepting responsibility for their consequences (Sartre).

⚃ The remainder of this presentation will therefore focus on Kierkegaard’s life and works.

⚄ Latin and German were the languages of the day, Søren defended his thesis in Latin on the Concept of Irony.

⚄ Wrote important critiques of Hegel and of the German romantics.
≻ An early figure in the development of modernism.
≻ Considered a Christian writer for his works on the modern relevance of biblical figures.
≻ Saw himself as a romantic poet. His works became obscure soon after his death.

⚄ Called the “father of existentialism,” his ideas came to have a major impact on many writers.

⚄ Kierkegaard’s writings center around relations to his mother, his father, and his fiancée, Regina Olsen.

⚄ Basic themes: criticized the dogma of Christianity, advanced a new view of the self, and focused on the importance of making individual decisions.

⚄ Søren’s father, Michael, rose from poverty to become a prominent citizen but felt lifelong guilt because, as a youth, he had cursed God.

⚄ Michael was married, but his wife became ill and died.
≻ During this illness, the family had a nurse with whom Michael had an affair.

⚄ They later married, having seven children.
≻ Søren was the youngest.
≻ Michael felt his children were all cursed to die before 34 (the age of Christ at the crucifixion).
≻ This was prophetic as only Søren and another brother lived past 34.

⚄ Michael saw Søren’s potential so his upbringing of Søren was very harsh, especially in terms of religion.
≻ Søren said “Humanly speaking, it was a crazy upbringing.”
≻ These words are very similar to what Maslow said of his childhood.

⚄ Søren felt that his chances of having a normal life had been sacrificed by his father’s religious preoccupations.

⚄ After his father died, Søren was at loose ends.
≻ He was 21 when he met 14 year old Regina Olsen.
≻ He turned their story into his famous book, Diary of a Seducer.

⚄ Søren befriended Regina’s family and alienated her from her boyfriend. When she turned 17, he proposed.

⚄ Without warning, he broke off the engagement, later saying that “God had vetoed the marriage.”

⚄ Søren was obsessed with the Biblical story of Abraham and Isaac. Wrote Fear and Trembling in response.

⚄ Said that he had acted badly with Regina so that she would blame him and not God for their breakup.
≻ Said that if he “had faith” he would have married her. He was love-sick the rest of his life.

⚄ Søren befriended a newspaper publisher.
≻ Later, they had a falling out and the publisher used the paper to make a laughing stock of Søren.

⚄ He felt that the Church had become complacent and began to harshly criticize it.
≻ Towards the end of his life, he often printed heretical pamphlets and handed them out on the street.

⚄ How to become an individual – he requested his tombstone simply read “That Individual.”

⚄ At the time in Denmark, these tasks were “more difficult for the well-educated, since prevailing educational and cultural institutions tended to produce stereotyped members of ‘the crowd’ rather than to allow individuals to discover their own unique identities.”

⚄ Kierkegaard felt that society and the church played a strong role in leading people away from individual awareness and existence (he called this “leveling”).

⚄ Social processes suppress individuality: the uniqueness of a person is made non-existent by assigning equal value to all aspects of human life.
≻ All of the nuances and subtle complexity of human identity are lost, and nothing meaningful in one’s existence can be affirmed.

⚄ Kierkegaard rejected scientific logic and knowledge as the means of human redemption (Hegel’s position).

⚄ He emphasized the gap between the individual and God to show us that human beings are totally dependent on God’s grace for their salvation.

⚄ The crowd robs the person of individual responsibility. As Kierkegaard (1962) explained:

⚄ A crowd – not this crowd or that, the crowd now living or the crowd long deceased, a crowd of humble people or of superior people, of rich or of poor, etc. – a crowd in its very concept is the untruth, by reason of the fact that it renders the individual completely impenitent and irresponsible, or at least weakens his sense of responsibility by reducing it to a fraction. (p. 112)

⚄ Kierkegaard used Socratic irony, complicated parables and paradoxes to tell stories designed to help the individual uncover their own answers:

⚄ His dissertation, On the Concept of Irony with constant reference to Socrates, showed how Socrates used irony to facilitate the development of subjectivity in his students.

⚄ Following Socrates, he said people think they know too much, and this is an obstacle to their redemption.
≻ He said tear apart this “phony” knowledge and show people they actually know little. (Socrates: “I am wiser, as although I know nothing, I know that I do not know.”)

⚄ When one realizes that one does not know, this creates freedom; however, with this freedom comes the responsibility (and anxiety) of decision making.

⚄ Kierkegaard rejected the knowledge and answers provided by external “authorities” (like Society or the Church): The individual must seek their own answers.

⚄ Placed the responsibility for discovery on the reader (Kierkegaard did not see himself as an authority).
≻ Calling his approach “indirect discourse” his writing forced the reader to answer core existential, ethical and religious questions.

⚄ Kierkegaard’s writing has a circular quality to it: he talks a lot about constructs but ultimately, he rejects constructs and brings us back to Human experience:

⚄ Kierkegaard described two modalities that could lead to the feeling of despair.
≻ The first modality is relinquishing one’s true self through identification with socialization. …

⚄ Kierkegaard saw the person who feels “the despair of not willing to be oneself,” who is spiritless – who is merely “a talking-machine:”

⚅ [S]piritlessness describes a special relationship that an individual has with the world and with the self. In this understanding of the world, the individual experiences the world as already constituted. This also means the individual associates with immediate possibilities and remains unaware of the potential and the possibilities embedded in existence. The individual identifies with existing standards to obtain self-knowledge and primarily evaluates theirself through achievement and functionality. Thus, the object of self-knowledge is how the individual lives up to the functional standards offered by various institutions, such as the state, the nation, the workplace, and so on” (Nielsen, 2017, pp. 7-8).

⚄ As mentioned above, Kierkegaard said society blocks the development of individuality; society provides objects the individual can identify with (e.g. a job) that create security and distraction, thereby protecting the individual from having to face their real self, and thus avoiding the experience of true personal despair.

⚄ One despairs because self-discovery is difficult – there is no pre-existing deeper self to discover or bring forth.

⚄ Our choices create a self: “A man possesses his own self as determined by himself, as someone selected by himself” (Kierkegaard cited in Dąbrowski, 1967, p. 36).

⚄ Kierkegaard said the only true freedom is the heavy responsibility of being able to, and having to, choose oneself – to construct oneself, one’s beliefs and one’s values through the successive decisions that one makes in day-to-day life.

⚄ The day-to-day process of “acting and making decisions” is “guided by [the] individual’s moods, sudden impulses, and loose thoughts” (Nielsen, 2017, p. 10).

⚄ Stokes (2015, p. 15) provided a synopsis: “the Kierkegaardian self is always a created self, a self that finds God as the ultimate ‘criterion’ for its own self-actualization and Christ as its prototype for emulation.”

⚄ In Kierkegaard’s second modality, one feels despair that arises from being willing to try to be oneself.

⚅ Paradoxically refers to dread as a theoretical construct; yet, it is perhaps the ultimate experience.

⚄ Humans define themselves and try to understand the world by converting their experiences into constructs; however, ultimately, constructs are useless and we must return to our own human experience to understand life.

⚄ Kierkegaard generally endorsed Plato’s logic and FORMS, but, he said existence is always concrete, never abstract thus Existence cannot be seen as a Platonic FORM:

⚅ Existence cannot be conceptualized and analyzed like a mathematical construct.

⚅ Existence is a “surd” (A voiceless consonant: speechless; words can not explain it; it is lacking in sense; irrational).

⚅ (“Ab-surd” comes from the Latin surdis [surd] and contains a dual meaning: it means irrational, insensible (still in use in mathematics; a ‘surd’ is an irrational number). The other meaning, used in phonetics means “deaf, silent, uttered with the breath and not the voice, a surd consonant”).

⚄ Basic Paradox: Existence is at our very core, but it is just a meaningless and absurd “leftover” in life – life has no meaning outside of one’ lived existence.

⚄ Existence cannot be thought about or studied as a construct or as an abstraction.

⚄ Doing and thinking strike a paradoxical balance in each person’s existence:

⚅ However, thinking also plays a crucial role in one’s decision-making and in living.

⚅ We can not know life by merely thinking, but we cannot live (or act) without thinking.

⚅ Our choice of action is based on the initial and ongoing choices we make reflecting our basic subjective beliefs.

⚄ We think, believe, choose, and act.
≻ Our actions then influence our future beliefs, choices, and acts.

⚄ In choosing, one constructs oneself and one’s future world, but there is great uncertainty associated with these choices:

⚅ “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards” (Diaries, IV, A 164).

⚄ Sensitive souls will never be sure that their chosen values are the right ones; therefore, they will always be full of “anguish and dread” over the many choices they have had to make in life.

⚄ Choosing is a two-edged sword: on one side is the dread and anxiety associated with choosing; on the other side is the exhilaration of the freedom in being able to “choose oneself.”

⚄ Objective truth rests on abstractions and external criteria: can be thought about, tested, and analyzed (Plato’s FORMS, science, mathematics, etc.).

⚄ Focus: what is the (common) truth (e.g., speed of light).
≻ Objective truths are often known with certainty but often don’t mean much to one’s existence.

⚄ Subjective truth concerns individual values and existence.
≻ Not abstract, not focused on what is true; focus on how we come to know the truth and how we act on it.
≻ These are individual truths – my existence: my truth is mine alone; each person has their own truth.

⚄ Subjective truth cannot be communicated to other people directly; it is made up of deep private individual insights and choices about one’s life.

⚄ Subjective truth is the most important type because if one changes one’s beliefs, one becomes a different person who will make different choices and do different things.
≻ The individual is their subjective truth, their values.

⚄ We are finite beings and our critical truths are subjective; however, as God is infinite, we can never really know God using subjective approaches.

⚄ When one realizes the real nature of existence, one comes to see life in relation to one’s mortality.

⚄ The recognition of our eventual death helps us to order our priorities and to discover life.
≻ It is a tragedy to discover death too late: the man who woke up one day and discovered he was dead.
≻ One must discover death in time to allow one to fully live life.

⚄ As subjective thought raises the idea of nothingness (the absurdity of existence), it is negative thought.

⚄ Consciousness “confronts the actual with what could be,” and thus, it raises uncertainty and contains or creates a sense of terror.
≻ Once we become conscious of a door, we begin to think about what could be behind it; this creates anxieties, doubts, and fears.

⚄ Consciousness raises doubt, a type of madness saved only by belief (I believe it is safe behind the door).

⚄ Belief and active choosing are positive aspects, reflecting one’s subjective insights and truths that act to cancel out the negative aspects of thought.

⚅ 2). To realize that the normal states of consciousness are complex and miraculous and similar to religious states.
≻ These normal, everyday states are made up of both beliefs and doubts, but not certainties: the certainty and security of Santa Claus (the “group world view”) evaporates.

⚄ Accepting Responsibility: To recognize everyday states with their doubts, and to choose to confront these insecurities with our internal beliefs and faith, is to make the authentic choice.

⚄ These authentic choices solidify our beliefs and, for Kierkegaard, eventually, lead to the discovery of God.

⚄ Ultimately, a person demonstrates belief by repeatedly renewing the “passionate subjective relationship to an object which can never be known but only believed in.
≻ This belief is offensive to reason since it only exists in the face of the absurd.” https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kierkegaard/

⚄ Being able to choose creates individual freedom, but it also creates dread (the fear of this freedom).

⚄ Standing on the edge of the cliff, we fear falling over, but we also dread the realization that we could decide to jump over.
≻ We dread what we may do.
≻ We dread the only thing holding us back is our own volition: when the option to jump comes into consciousness, the onus is on us to decide not to jump.

⚄ “Anxiety is a desire for what one fears, … but what [one] fears [one] desires.” (Marino, 1998, 321).

⚄ Dread arises when one becomes conscious of the future: one realizes that one has to choose and that one’s life is determined by the choices one makes.

⚄ Sartre: “I await myself in the future … Anguish is the fear of not finding myself … there.” (1956/1992, 36).

⚄ The realization that one may choose creates a tremendous sense of responsibility, and to accept this responsibility is to be authentic.

⚄ We are left alone and without excuse.
≻ That is what I mean when I say that man is condemned to be free: condemned, because he did not create himself, yet nonetheless free, because once cast into the world, he is responsible for everything he does” (Sartre, 2007, 29).

⚄ “The individual is subject to an enormous burden of responsibility, for upon their existential choices hangs their eternal salvation or damnation.
≻ Anxiety or dread (angst) is the presentiment of this terrible responsibility when the individual stands at the threshold of momentous existential choice….

⚄ It is essential that faith be constantly renewed by means of repeated avowals of faith….

⚄ This repetition of faith is the way the self relates itself to itself and to the power which constitutes it, that is, the repetition of faith is the self.”

⚄ True selfhood is choosing (willing) the self that one truly is.
≻ Not being able to achieve this is despair:

⚄ “The self is a series of possibilities; every decision made redefines the individual….
≻ The knowledge that ‘I’ define the ‘self’ results in ‘the dizziness of freedom’ and ‘fear and trembling.’
≻ It is a great responsibility to create a person, yet that is exactly what each human does – creates a self.
≻ This self is independent from all other knowledge and ‘truths’ defined by other individuals.” https://www.tameri.com/csw/exist/kierk.html/

⚄ 1). An initial self defined by a relationship to finite reality, to humanity, or to other specific persons.

⚄ Most people are subjective toward themselves and objective toward all others, sometimes horribly objective – ah, the task is precisely to be objective in relation to oneself and subjective in relation to all others” (Kierkegaard, 2014, p. 28).

⚄ Normality hides the true realization of being – after being pushed to the edge of a cliff, one comes to see “ordinary life” from a new and more clear perspective.

⚄ Kierkegaard described a hierarchy of 3 stages or “spheres” of selfhood that one may choose, each characterized by its own unique view of the world.

⚅ The default type: if a person does not “choose” one of the other 2 higher types, they end up here.

⚅⚀ Freud’s Pleasure Principle.
≻ Freud: based on instinct, we seek pleasure and to avoid pain.
≻ This is the basis of Freud’s construct of the id.

⚅ Aestheticism is a form of hedonism, the self is governed by external contingencies and sensuousness:

⚅ Kierkegaard said people at this level are not fully human as they are governed by the same forces that govern animals.

⚅ Kierkegaard wonders why it takes 9 months for them to gestate – they have so little substance.

⚅ Society sets externally defined parameters – social mores and values – that the person at this level adopts.

⚅ The self is fractured into a series of socially defined roles layered on top of each other.

⚅ In the end, Aestheticism is simply a perverse form of socially defined role to be played out.

⚅ The Aesthetic has no true self and can only develop one by consciously choosing.

⚅⚀ The point where one wills to be one’s true self and realizes that this choice will “kill” one’s old self.

⚅⚀ For the first time, the individual judges their self, rejects their old, hedonistic self, and consciously begins to build a new self.

⚅⚀ One must choose to utilize will to hold one’s self up to an ethical code (or choose not to do so).

⚅⚀ Making this choice marks the transition into Kierkegaard’s second sphere, the ethical sphere.

⚄ Once the ethical choice has been made, the individual has to make good on two imperatives:

⚄ One takes a “leap” to the new ethical self, rejecting the old aesthetic self and the now incompatible old roles that went with it.

⚄ The initial choice is decisive for one’s personality because, now, all future choices will follow from this self-judgment and its philosophical basis:

⚅ Future choices will now be moral – a morality within the context of the given system of thought selected:

⚅ Kierkegaard was not concerned with what moral code was chosen, only that an individual choice was made.

⚅ It is not up to people to judge each other’s moral choices, this is God’s ultimate role.

⚅ All future decisions will be based on the personality the individual has selected and not on situational, social roles.

⚅ Abraham was promised a son by God.
≻ Finally, when Abraham was 99, and his wife was 90, a son, Isaac was born.
≻ Later, God told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac.
≻ Abraham agreed and, as he was about to thrust the knife, God stopped him and restored his happy life.

⚄ Kierkegaard was horrified by Abraham’s absolute resolve to obey God, and it inspired “fear and trembling” in him (the title of one of his books).

⚄ He had to discover where Abraham found the strength to raise the knife.
≻ It seemed to him this was the key to understanding the human condition.

⚄ Abraham’s act is a complex paradox: an act of resignation in that he chooses to obey God and give up Isaac and, at the same time, an act of faith in that he believes in God’s wisdom and that the ending will somehow turn out to be happy (and that he will someday, somehow, get Isaac back):

⚅ He had already resigned to give Isaac up, and at the same time, he believed he would still keep Isaac.
≻ No one can understand Abraham’s state of mind or motives – to others, he must have seemed insane.

⚅ Observers will see Abraham as insane and will not understand his inner dynamics or motivations.

⚅ This is characteristic of individual faith: one cannot make one’s faith intelligible to anyone else.

⚅ Only God can make sense of an individual’s faith and judge if it is Saintly or demonical (or crazy) in character.

⚅ All of the choices one makes (and hence the personality one constructs during one’s life) are factored into this final, ultimate judgment by God.

⚅ Kierkegaard said the Christian ideal (not the lax Church doctrine) is exacting because the totality of a person’s existence and the choices they have made in life are the basis upon which they will be judged by God.

⚄ Kierkegaard initially found Abraham beyond comprehension but comes to respect and advocate for Abraham’s “divine madness” (using Plato’s term).

⚅ Kierkegaard concludes that by virtue of his “insanity, Abraham has become the Father of Faith: what Kierkegaard called a “Knight of Faith.”

⚅ The outward behavior of the “Knight of Faith” is the same as everyone else’s.

⚅ They have lost their connection with external, finite worldly things. However, they have been restored to live life in a new way by their faith.

⚅ Abraham’s first life-changing leap was from the (lower) aesthetic self to the (higher) ethical self.

⚅ The second leap involves stepping away from humankind itself; stepping away from finite reality into an unknown and infinite abyss.

⚅ Abraham made this leap of faith.
≻ He risked losing his son but, in being able to overcome his dread and by having faith in God, he came to regain everything in a new way.

⚅ God cannot be known intellectually; one must make a leap of faith into an unknown abyss to know him.
≻ Making this ultimate leap changes how we see life, changes our basic beliefs, and ultimately changes who we are.

⚅ One’s duty to choose to be an individual is higher than to one’s social duties.

⚅ One’s duty to obey God’s commands is higher than one’s individual duties:

⚅ He gave up Regina as Abraham gave up Isaac, but with the faith that she would somehow be restored to him as Isaac was to Abraham.

⚄ Ethics are not relativistic: values are known to a person through the revelation of God (this is a theistic, metaphysical approach to existentialism and values).

⚄ We are the authors of our lives and we each have the responsibility and duty to consciously determine our self through the choices we make.
≻ With this freedom to choose comes anxiety and even dread.
≻ We must make two leaps;

⚅ 1). To overcome our lower, hedonistic, socially based self and to choose to become our ideal self.
≻ To make this choice is to be authentic.
≻ The values we choose determine our personality, and in turn, they determine our acts.

⚅ 2). Leaping into an unknown and infinite abyss allows us to live life in a new way – by our faith.
≻ Ultimately, our choices and acts are the sum of our lives to be judged by God.

⚃ Presented by Bill Tillier at the Seventh International Congress of the Institute for Positive Disintegration in Human Development
Positive Maladjustment: Theoretical, Educational and Therapeutic Perspectives.
August 3-5, 2006, Calgary, Alberta.
Revised 2023

⚃ [This presentation examines the influence of Nietzsche on Dąbrowski and builds upon a presentation by Dr. J. G. McGraw on Nietzsche and Dąbrowski from the 2002 Congress, held in Fort Lauderdale.]

⚄ An excellent student, he began studying classical philology at the University of Bonn.

⚄ A medical orderly during the Franco-Prussian War.
≻ He saw and experienced the traumatic effects of battle.

⚄ Resigned his professorship in 1879 due to several grim health issues that plagued him the rest of his life.

⚄ Began writing prolifically but often struggled, printing copies of his books himself and giving them to friends.

⚄ Rée combined a pessimistic view of human nature with a theory of morality based on natural selection (Darwin).

⚄ In 1882, Louise (Lou) Salomé was in a relationship with Rée.
≻ She met Nietzsche and suggested a ménage à trois.
≻ They lived together until Nietzsche’s unrequited love (and his sister) forced a breakup.

⚅ In 1887, Lou married Friedrich Carl Andreas (their unconsummated marriage lasted 43 years).

⚅ Lou was later a lover of, and major influence on, German poet Rainer Maria Rilke.

⚅ She became a psychoanalyst, joined Freud’s inner circle, and was an important influence on Freud, including introducing Freud to Nietzsche’s ideas.

⚄ Freud several times said of Nietzsche that he had a more penetrating knowledge of himself than any other man who ever lived or was likely to live” (Jones, 1955, p. 344).

⚄ Nietzsche had bouts of illness (including severe migraines and stomach bleeding), depression, suicidal thoughts and lived in relative isolation.

⚅ As legend tells it, in 1889, in Turin, Nietzsche saw a coachman flogging his horse which had refused to move forward.
≻ Nietzsche embraced the horse and collapsed.
≻ Nietzsche becomes psychotic and never recovers.

⚄ The uncommunicative Nietzsche was cared for by his mother, then by sister, Elisabeth, until he died (1900).

⚄ Elisabeth married Bernhard Förster, an anti-Semitic agitator.
≻ In 1886 they founded “Nueva Germania” in Paraguay’s jungle; later, a hideout for escaped Nazis (including Josef Mengele).

⚄ Elisabeth managed and edited Nietzsche’s works, injecting her own ideas and altering some of his.

⚄ Socrates created a false representation of what is real, making morality a set of external ideas (“objects of dialectic”).
≻ With this, “real” [Man] degenerated into the “the good [Man],” “the wise [Man],” etc.

⚄ “Plato believes that there is a timeless realm of intelligible Forms that is the only true reality, the everyday world accessible to the senses being at best a pale imitation of this; for Nietzsche this is a dangerous illusion, dangerous in part because of its drastic devaluing of the here and now” (Bett, 2019, p. 249).

⚄ Nietzsche: All schemes of morality (like Christianity) are just dogmas developed by some given group who hold power at some given time – these “herd moralities” of good and evil deny us the individuality of finding our own values and our own selves.

⚄ Nietzsche laments that the world has degenerated to the lowest common denominator of the herd:

⚅ “The instinct of the herd considers the middle and the mean as the highest and most valuable: the place where the majority finds itself” (Nietzsche, 1968, p. 159).

⚄ “Let us stick to the facts: the people have won – or ‘the slaves,’ or ‘the mob,’ or ‘the herd,’ or whatever you like to call them – if this has happened through the Jews, very well! in that case no people had a more world-historic mission. ‘The masters’ have been disposed of; the morality of the common man has won” (Nietzsche, 1989b, pp. 35-36).

⚄ Ultimately, one finds out that the “truth” and various other-worlds (like Heaven) are literal fabrications.
≻ They are built by Humans to meet their psychological needs, to promote the smooth succession of the status quo, and to provide individuals with security.

⚄ Knowledge and truth are subjective, and provisional; they change over time and with the ruling class:

⚅ “[T]here are many kinds of ‘truths,’ and consequently there is no truth” (Nietzsche, 1968, p. 291).

⚅ Convictions (beliefs) are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies” (Nietzsche, 1996, p. 179).

⚄ Nietzsche saw no ultimate or deeper meaning or purpose to the world or to human existence – he (and Sartre) saw God as a human invention designed to comfort us and to repel our loneliness:

⚄ “There is not enough love and goodness in the world for us to be permitted to give any of it away to imaginary beings” (Nietzsche, 1996, p. 69).

⚄ Social morality suspends us from the need to review our own individual value assumptions or to develop autonomous morality.
≻ Religion suspends us from our need to develop our individual selves.
≻ Our comforts and security, and company are provided by this manmade system of ideas, thus removing the stimuli needed for real, individual development.

⚄ Nietzsche famously proclaimed “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.” This, “the greatest event of our time,” is an attempt to refocus people’s attention from God as a source of absolute moral principles and to see their inherent, individual freedoms and responsibilities. To focus on the hereand-now world, away from all escapist, pain-relieving, heavenly other-worlds (Nietzsche, 1974, 167).

⚄ Without God, we are alone on earth and cannot resort to a deity to guide us or to absolve our sins (or responsibilities).
≻ We must take full responsibility for our actions – to do this, we must reject all external, metaphysical, and religious ideals.
≻ We are now free and must create our own, new, moral ideals.

⚄ Nietzsche used “Apollonian” and “Dionysus” to refer to two central principles in Greek culture (see Nietzsche, 1967).

⚄ Apollonian reflects clarity, calm, harmony, restraint, order, structure, and form, the basis for analytic distinctions: all that is part of the unique individual.

⚄ Dionysus reflects irrationality, frenzy, disorder, wildness, pleasure, intoxication, and madness.
≻ These forces break down one’s character as they appeal to one’s instinctive emotions and not to one’s rational mind.
≻ “I” becomes a chaotic web of competing wills, each struggling to overcome the other.

⚄ The tension between these forces creates tragedy. Nietzsche’s life also displayed both factors.

⚄ Nietzsche said that as a species, man is not progressing. Higher exemplars appear but do not last.

⚅ The “herd” or “slave” masses, made up of content, comfort-seeking “the last man” conformers, with no motive to develop: if we don’t aspire to be more, this is where we all will end up.

⚅ Many “higher men”: A type of human who needs to “be more” and who, “writes their own story.”

⚅ Nietzsche also described the ideal human – a few “Superhumans” – a role model to strive for, but that may be too unrealistic for most people to achieve.

⚅ Common translations: “the Superman” or “overman” or “hyperman”
über: from the Latin for super
ύπερ: Greek for hyper
Mensch: German for Human being.

⚄ Nietzsche outlined a hierarchy of spiritual development in what he called three “metamorphoses of the spirit,” entailing a progression from:

⚅ The camel spirit (“the average man”) slavishly bears the load and obeys the “thou shalt” with little protest.

⚅ The lion spirit (a “higher man”) says “no” and kills the status quo (“the dragon”) of “thou shalt.”

⚅ Culminating in the child spirit (Superhuman), who says an emphatic and “sacred YES” to life and creates a new reality and a new self – with no more rules to obey, the child applies their will in developing and achieving unique values and developing autonomy. (see Nietzsche, 1969, p. 54).

⚄ The obedient camel carries the “weight of the spirit,” kneeling to accept its load, just as we carry the weight of our duties: instructions and roles that society requires of us in order to live a “responsible life.”
≻ We believe in this “herd morality” and feel guilt if we don’t maintain our social burdens.

⚅ In doing our duties, we may come to have doubts.
≻ One heavy blow is the discovery that wisdom and knowledge are only apparent.
≻ We slowly discover there is no foundation supporting “the truth” and we realize we live in a world with no eternal standards.

⚅ As the camel finds the solitude of the desert, the truth seeker also must find and deal with solitude.

⚄ The camel becomes a lion: “It wants to capture freedom and be lord in its own desert” (Nietzsche, 1969,54).

⚅ “The camel is an obedient slave: the might of a lion – a beast of prey, willing to say NO and to kill, is needed to confront the dragon to achieve freedom.

⚅ “To seize the right to new values,” the lion must steal freedom from the love of commandments by killing a dragon – the “thou shalt” – the idea that others tell us what we must believe/accept as truth, and what we must do (and our corresponding love of these rules).

⚅ Capturing freedom creates an opportunity – a “freedom for new creation.”

⚄ Having destroyed the “thou shalt dragon,” the lion realizes he or she is not able to create new values: the lion now must become a child.

⚅ A child’s perspective is needed to create new values.
≻ The child is innocence, with no guilt, and with no lingering sense of the “thou shalt” of the herd – they have not yet been acculturated (e.g., The Little Prince).

⚅ The child (“superhuman”) represents a new beginning of individuality – “the spirit now wills its own will, the spirit sundered from the world now wins its own world” Nietzsche, 1969, p. 55).

⚄ The will to power is an ever-dominant feature of life and the basic drive of humanity. “The will to power is the primitive form of affect and all other affects are only developments of it” (Nietzsche, 1968, p. 366).

⚄ Rejecting pleasure as a core motivator, Nietzsche said that “every living thing does everything it can not to preserve itself but to become more” (Nietzsche, 1968, p. 367).

⚄ Nietzsche casts the will to power as a proactive force – the will to act in life (not to merely react to life).

⚄ The will to power is not power over others, but the feelings of “creative energy and control” over oneself that are necessary to achieve self-creation, selfdirection and to express individual creativity.

⚅ Use one’s will to power to reject and rebel against old ideals and moral codes;

⚅ Use one’s will to power to overcome nihilism and to re-evaluate old ideals or to create new ones;

⚄ The average person is largely constituted by their genealogy – the herd scripts this history by writing the life story of the average person.

⚄ Nietzsche names his main character after the Persian religious leader and prophet Zarathustra.

⚅ In Nietzsche’s version, Zarathustra has spent from age 30 to 40, alone on a mountaintop quest.
≻ He decides to descend and describe his insights on spiritual and individual development in a new, Godless, reality.

⚅ On his descent, someone comments Zarathustra has changed: he has become a child – an awakened one.

⚅ Zarathustra goes to the first village he sees.
≻ A crowd has gathered to see the circus act of a tight-rope walker, and they think he is part of the circus act.

⚅ “I teach you the Superman. Man is something that should be overcome. What have you done to overcome him?”

⚅ “All creatures hitherto have created something beyond themselves; and do you want to be the ebb of this great tide, and return to the animals rather than overcome man?”

⚅ “What is the ape to men? A laughing-stock or a painful embarrassment. And just so shall man be to the Superman: a laughing-stock or a painful embarrassment.”

⚄ “You have made your way from the worm to man, and much in you is still worm. Once you were apes, and even now man is more of an ape than any ape…” (Nietzsche, 1969, pp. 41-42).

⚄ “Man is a rope, fastened between animal and Superman – a rope over an abyss. A dangerous going across, a dangerous wayfaring, a dangerous looking-back, a dangerous shuddering and staying still” (Nietzsche, 1969, p. 43).

⚄ “What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal: what can be loved in man is that he is a goingacross and a down-going. I love those who do not know how to live except their lives be a down-going, for they are those who are going across” (Nietzsche, 1969, p. 44).

⚄ The crowd rejects Zarathustra’s story and he says to the reader: “You Higher Men, learn this from me: In the market-place no one believes in Higher Men. And if you want to speak there, very well, do so! But the mob blink and say: ‘We are all equal'” (Nietzsche, 1969, p. 297).

⚄ Zarathustra laments his reception: “I want to teach men the meaning of their existence: which is the Superman, the lightning from the dark cloud man. But I am still distant from them, and my meaning does not speak to their minds. To men, I am still a cross between a fool and a corpse” (Nietzsche, 1969, p. 49).

⚄ We must cross the abyss to create ourselves, and our ideals, and to become Superhuman.

⚄ Nietzsche said, “Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look long into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you” (Nietzsche, 1969, p. 54).

⚅ When you look into the abyss, you must be strong, as you may see aspects of the abyss within yourself.

⚄ The herd blindly take their ideals of “good and evil” from the cultural and religious conventions of the day.

⚅ Nietzsche calls on us to resist the impulse to submit to “slave morality” and to “undertake a critique of the moral evaluations [our]selves” (Nietzsche, 1968, p. 215).

⚅ Zarathustra: the Superhuman must overcome their acculturated self and apply the will to power to a huge new creativity – to build a truly autonomous self.

⚅ Superhumans move beyond “good and evil” through a deep reflection on their own basic instincts, emotions, character traits, and senses: they go on to develop their own individual values for living [Dąbrowski’s Personality Ideal].

⚄ “Fundamental thought: the new values must first be created – we shall not be spared this task!” (Nietzsche, 1968, p. 512).

⚄ New values, and the process of value creation are not prescriptive: “This – is now my way, – where is yours?’ Thus I answered those who asked me ‘the way.’ For the way – does not exist!” (Nietzsche, 1969, p.213).

⚄ Summary: The Superhuman creates a unique new “master morality” reflecting the strength and independence of a self freed from all “old” acculturated, herd values.
≻ Now, each individual must review current conventions, reject values, adopt old values that he or she deems valid, and create new values reflecting their unique self and ideals.

⚄ “Eternal recurrence” is the idea that one might be forced to relive every moment of one’s life over and over, with no omissions, however small, happy or painful.

⚄ This idea encourages us to see that our current life is all there is – we must wake up to the “the real world,” – that we actually live in the present – there is no escape to other (future) lives or to “higher” worlds.

⚄ Nietzsche says only a Superhuman can face eternal recurrence and embrace this life in its entirety and accept the idea that this is all there is, and all there will be, for eternity.

⚄ The Superhuman also gains a new perspective that brings about their own redemption – the endlessly recurring pains and mistakes of life do not provoke endless suffering, they are now seen and accepted as necessary and usual steps in one’s development, each a step on the path leading to the present.

⚄ Every second of life is now seen as a valued moment, worthy of being repeated over and over, in and of itself, and is not merely a step toward some promise of a better world to come in the future (for example, Heaven), every experience has become a fundamental piece of the fabric of who we are today.

⚄ The Superhuman uses “will to power” to develop a new perspective, a new reality and a new self.

⚄ The Superman becomes their own judge: “Can you furnish yourself your own good and evil and hang up your own will above yourself as a law? Can you be judge of yourself and avenger of your law?” (Nietzsche, 1969, p. 89).

⚄ This process represents the rebirth of the Human and the creation of new, human, life-affirming values in this real and temporally finite world.
≻ These new values/beliefs stem from our intrinsic will to be more, the ability to transcend and to constantly overcome our old self, and to create new life and new works.

⚅ “the “goodness liver” (the Saint) [instinct of will – goodness and love]

⚄ The union of these 3 represents the ultimate model of human beings – the exemplar of the Superhuman.

⚄ The “wisest” person is one who has had a wide vertical [Multilevel] perspective, with experience from the deepest caves to the highest mountaintops.

⚄ Finally, Nietzsche says that development never reaches an endpoint, and growth is never complete.

⚄ For the rest of his life, Zarathustra continues to advocate for the Superhuman.

⚄ Zarathustra comes to see life as a endless cycle that repeats itself; thus even if a higher level of man is achieved, it will only be a phase in the cycle.
≻ Eventually, the lower stages will be have to reappear and be transcended again.

⚄ Nietzsche did not present his ideas in a coherent, systematic way; thus there are many ambiguities and some contradictions in his writing.
≻ As well, Zarathustra has grave doubts, and his ideas change as he has experiences with people and as he ages.

⚄ For Nietzsche, personality must be self-created, largely by overcoming, mastering, and transforming one’s inner “chaos” into order:

⚄ “I tell you: one must have chaos in one, to give birth to a dancing star. I tell you: you still have chaos in you” (Nietzsche, 1969, p. 46).

⚄ One must go through seven steps (“devils”) on the way to personality development (Nietzsche, 1969, p. 90).

⚄ Overcoming involves creating a new unity (McGraw: “synergy”) of cognition, emotion, and volition.

⚄ The Superhuman becomes a “free spirit” and sees the real world and their place in it clearly (without the distortion of social and religious influences).

⚄ The Superhuman develops a clear view of their “calling” [Personality Ideal] and must now obey this inner voice, applying it to their self-mastery.

⚅ Step 1. Social morality [2nd Factor] is used to gain power over nature and the “wild animal [1st Factor].”

⚅ Step 2: “One can employ this power in the further free development of oneself: will to power as self-elevation and strengthening” [3rd Factor] (Nietzsche, 1968, p. 218).

⚄ One overcomes one’s old self to become oneself: “What does your conscience say? – “You shall become the person you are” (Nietzsche, 1974, p. 219).

⚄ In Nietzsche’s view, few achieve what he calls personality (the Superhuman).
≻ Most people are not personalities at all, or are just a confused, undisciplined and non-integrated jumble of wills, roles and duties.

⚄ Superhumans create a small, “higher” ruling class, that humanity should foster: “the goal of humanity cannot lie in its end but only in its highest exemplars” (Nietzsche, 1997, p. 111).

⚄ Nietzsche said only a few are able or willing to discover and to follow themselves.

⚄ Superhumans represent a new, stronger and ultimate morality that easily resists external social controls.

⚄ Nietzsche: “My philosophy aims at an ordering of rank: not an individualistic morality” The ideas of the herd should rule in the herd – but not reach out beyond it: the leaders of the herd require a fundamentally different valuation for their own actions, as do the independent, or the ‘beasts of prey,’ etc” (Nietzsche, 1968, p. 162).

⚄ “The new philosopher can arise only in conjunction with a ruling caste, as its highest spiritualization” (Nietzsche, 1968, p. 512).

⚄ Nietzsche relates an individual’s potential to develop to the richness and intricacy of their emotion, cognition, and volition (their will to power).

⚄ The more potential a person has, the more internally complex he or she is: “The higher type represents an incomparably greater complexity … so its disintegration is also incomparably more likely” (Nietzsche, 1968, p. 363).

⚄ Lower forms of life and people representing the herd type are simpler, and thus, the lowest types are “virtually indestructible,” showing few noticeable effects of the hardships of life (and none of the suffering of the Superhuman) (Nietzsche, 1968, p. 363).

⚄ Nietzsche described a general developmental disintegration – suffering leads to a vertical separation of the “hero” from the herd.
≻ This “rising up” leads to “nobility” and, ultimately, to individual personality – to attaining one’s true self.

⚄ This separation finds one alone, away from the security of the masses, and without God for help.

⚄ “To those human beings who are of any concern to me, I wish suffering, desolation, sickness, illtreatment, indignities – I wish that they should not remain unfamiliar with profound self-contempt, the torture of self-mistrust, the wretchedness of the vanquished” (Nietzsche, 1968, p. 481).

⚄ “In man creature and creator are united: in man there is material, fragment, excess, clay, dirt, nonsense, chaos; but in man there is also creator, formgiver, hammer hardness, spectator divinity, and seventh day: do you understand this contrast? And that your pity is for the “creature in man,” for what must be formed, broken, forged, torn, burnt, made incandescent, and purified – that which necessarily must and should suffer?” (Nietzsche, 1989a, p. 154).

⚄ “The higher philosophical man, who has solitude not because he wishes to be alone but because he is something that finds no equals: what dangers and new sufferings have been reserved for him” (Nietzsche, 1968, p. 514).

⚄ “The discipline of suffering, of great suffering – do you not know that only this discipline has created all enhancements of man so far?” (Nietzsche, 1989a, p. 154).

⚄ “The tree needs storms, doubts, worms, and nastiness to reveal the nature and the strength of the seedling; let it break if it is not strong enough. But a seedling can only be destroyed – not refuted” (Nietzsche, 1974, p. 163).

⚄ “Examine the lives of the best and most fruitful people and peoples and ask yourselves whether a tree that is supposed to grow to a proud height can dispense with bad weather and storms; whether misfortune and external resistance, some kinds of hatred, jealousy, stubbornness, mistrust, hardness, avarice, and violence do not belong among the favorable conditions without which any great growth even of virtue is scarcely possible. The poison of which weaker natures perish strengthens the strong – nor do they call it poison” (Nietzsche, 1974, pp. 91-92).

⚄ Our personal and profoundest suffering is incomprehensible and inaccessible to almost everyone; (Nietzsche, 1974, p. 269).

⚄ The Superhuman is alone, and few can tolerate this ultimate sense of solitariness; most must have the security and company of the herd (and of God).

⚄ “I love him, who lives for knowledge and who wants knowledge that one day the Superman may live. And thus he wills his own downfall” (Nietzsche, 1969, p. 44).

⚄ “You must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame: how could you become new, if you had not first become ashes!” (Nietzsche, 1968, p. 90).

⚄ “I love him whose soul is deep even in its ability to be wounded, and whom even a little thing can destroy: thus he is glad to go over the bridge” (Nietzsche, 1968, p. 45).

⚄ Superhumans see in their suffering and destruction new life: the seed must die for the plant to grow.

⚄ The capacity to experience and overcome suffering and solitariness are key traits of the Superhuman.

⚄ “Suffering and dissatisfaction of our basic drives are a positive feature as these feelings create an ‘agitation of the feeling of life,’ and act as a ‘great stimulus to life’” (Nietzsche, 1968, p. 370).

⚅ “The discipline of suffering, of great suffering, do you not know that only this suffering has created all enhancements of man so far?” (Nietzsche, 1989a, p. 154).

⚄ “[T]he path to one’s own heaven always leads through the voluptuousness of one’s own hell” (Nietzsche, 1974, p. 269).

⚄ “That tension of the soul in unhappiness which cultivates its strength, its shudders face to face with great ruin, its inventiveness and courage in enduring, persevering, interpreting, and exploiting suffering, and whatever has been granted to it of profundity, secret, mask, spirit, cunning, greatness – was it not granted to it through suffering, through the discipline of great suffering?” (Nietzsche, 1989a, p. 154).

⚄ “Thereupon I advanced further down the road of disintegration – where I found new sources of strength for individuals. We have to be destroyers! – I perceived that the state of disintegration, in which individual natures can perfect themselves as never before – is an image and isolated example of existence in general. To the paralyzing sense of general disintegration and incompleteness I opposed the eternal recurrence” (Nietzsche, 1968, p. 224).

⚄ “We, however, want to become those we are – human beings who are new, unique, incomparable, who give themselves laws, who create themselves” (Nietzsche, 1974, p. 266).

⚄ Illness played a major role in Nietzsche’s transformation, as he said, he was “grateful even to need and vacillating sickness because they always rid us from some rule and its ‘prejudice,’ … (Nietzsche, 1998a, p. 55).

⚄ Given his health issues, Nietzsche defined health not as the absence of illness, but rather, by how one faces and overcomes illness.

⚄ Nietzsche said he used his “will to health” to transform his illness into autonomy – it gave him the courage to be himself.
≻ In practical terms, this experience compelled him to modify his way of living.
≻ These adjustments allowed for a more compatible lifestyle with his identity as an author and philosopher.

⚄ Nietzsche described a sort of neurosis afflicting the artist: “It is exceptional states that condition the artist – all of them profoundly related to and interlaced with morbid phenomena – so it seems impossible to be an artist and not to be sick” …

⚅ … “Physiological states that are in the artist as it were molded into a ‘personality’ and, that characterize men in general to some degree:

⚅ 1. Intoxication: the feeling of enhanced power; the inner need to make of things a reflex of one’s own fullness and perfection (Nietzsche, 1968, p. 428).

⚅ 2. the extreme sharpness of certain senses, so they understand a quite different sign language – and create one – the condition that seems to be a part of many nervous disorders – ; extreme mobility that turns into an extreme urge to communicate; the desire to speak on the part of everything that knows how to make signs – ; a need to get rid of oneself, as it were, through signs and gestures; ability to speak of oneself through a hundred speech media – an explosive condition. …

⚄ One must first think of this condition as a compulsion and urge to get rid of the exuberance of inner tension through muscular activity and movements of all kinds; then as an involuntary coordination between this movement and the inner processes (images, thoughts, desires) – as a kind of automatism of the whole muscular system impelled by strong stimuli from within – ; inability to prevent reaction; the system of inhibitions suspended, as it were” (Nietzsche, 1968, pp. 428-429).

⚄ Nietzsche: “Whoever has overthrown an existing law of custom has always first been accounted a bad man: but when, as did happen, the law could not afterwards be reinstated and this fact was accepted, the predicate gradually changed; – history treats almost exclusively of these bad men who subsequently became good men!” (Nietzsche, 1997a, p. 19).

⚄ Dąbrowski was influenced by the existential Spanish philosopher Miguel de Unamuno and his work, The Tragic Sense of Life.

⚄ “But just what does the phrase ‘tragic sense of life’ mean? Even to ask that question suggests to some that the inquirer would not understand the response if one could be offered: either you ‘see’ the essential human condition or you don’t” (Hughes, 1978, 131).

⚄ “The central, defining characteristic of the tragic sense of life is its insistence on the balance between the striving for rationality on the one hand, and the recognition of the underlying irrationality of existence on the other” (Rubens, 1992, 348).

⚄ Unamuno saw tragedy as a ‘sense of life’ – a mode of experience, a subjective shaping, a way of organizing life. The tragic is in the “meaning with which events are imbued and interpreted” (Rubens, 1992, 348).

⚃ What gives life meaning is the longing to understand “wherefore do we now exist?” and our “thirst of immortality” – a basic desire we all share. To have awareness of these questions, creates a “tragic sense of life” as “consciousness is a disease” (Unamuno, 1921).

⚃ The will struggles with the unresolvable, creating a tragic feeling of life: Faith vs. reason, religion vs. science, affect vs. intellect, rationality vs. irrationality.

⚄ The will must forge an authentic existence and an authentic personality out of suffering and the tragic.

⚄ “Man is the more man – that is, the more divine the greater his capacity for suffering, or, rather, for anguish” (Unamuno, 1921).

⚃ “Despite its monumental commitment to the search for rational understanding, the hallmark of the tragic sense of life is its recognition that rationality has its limits. Man’s understanding, while indefinitely extendible, is never total in its extent. So while the tragic figure is willing to risk everything in his pursuit of the truth, he must also recognize that his quest will never be completely fulfillable. He must accept the irrationality that underlies existence, and not artificially attempt to reduce that irrationality to something less than it is” (Rubens, 1992, 348).

⚃ “What counts as suffering – what makes someone suffer – may well vary enormously from case to case, from individual to individual. But suffering as such is a part of every life, and, as tragedy, it is not just suffering. As tragedy, I will argue, it has meaning” (Solomon, 1999, 115).

⚄ [Unamuno says:] “What gives life meaning is a form of rebellion, rebellion against reason, an insistence on believing passionately what we cannot believe rationally. The meaning of life is to be found in passion – romantic passion, religious passion, passion for work and for play, passionate commitments in the face of what reason ‘knows’ to be meaningless” (Solomon, 1999, 116).

⚃ “For my part I do not wish to make peace between my heart and my head, between my faith and my reason I wish rather that there should be war between them!” (Unamuno, 1921, p. 119).

⚃ “Man is said to be a reasoning animal. I do not know why he has not been defined as an affective or feeling animal. Perhaps that which differentiates him from other animals is feeling rather than reason” (Unamuno, 1921, p. 3).

⚃ “He who suffers lives, and he who lives suffering, even though over the portal of his abode is written ‘Abandon all hope!’ loves and hopes” (Unamuno, 1921, p. 44).

⚄ “Faith and reason need each other so that neither can bask in the certainty of its own realm, so that each can live in vivifying doubt. For Unamuno the bedrock of this struggle is a faith which is like a candle in the wind, dying only to be reborn again, doubting only to believe. The goal of the self-conscious man is to pursue his own dream of being – to be is to want to be – and the aim of education is to keep the dream alive” (Hughes, 1978, p. 138).

⚄ “For science destroys the concept of personality by reducing it to a complex in continual flux from moment to moment – that is to say, it destroys the very foundation of the spiritual and emotional life, which rages itself unyieldingly against reason” (Unamuno, 1921, p. 108).

⚃ “Unamuno began his philosophy with the insistence that the authentic man, the man of flesh and bone, contained within himself the conflict between the heart and the head. And because this struggle took place in a conflict where one force could never hope to gain victory over the other, existential agony became the tragic situation of man. Tragedy was thus conceived as the condition of human beings caught in a struggle which could never be resolved, in a struggle between values of the heart and reasons of the intellect” (Morgan, 1966, p. 48-49).

⚃ “Tragedy can also be the arena in which the courage to create emerges, in which reason and feeling find their common battleground. At the foundation of Unamuno’s tragic sense of life is the belief that out of the abyss of tragedy there can arise creativity and joy” (Morgan, 1966, p. 49).

⚃ “My painful duty,” Unamuno once said, “is to irritate people. We must sow in men the seeds of doubt, of distrust, of disquiet, and even of despair” (Barcia & Zeitlin, 1967, p. 241).

⚃ “My aim is to agitate and disturb people. I’m not selling bread; I’m selling yeast” (Unamuno quoted in Tillotson, 2010, p. 23).

⚃ “The satisfied, the happy, do not love; they fall asleep in habit, near neighbour to annihilation. To fall into a habit is to begin to cease to be. Man is the more man, that is, the more divine, the greater his capacity for suffering, or, rather, for anguish” (Unamuno, 1921, p. 206).

⚃ “‘Brother Wolf’ St. Francis of Assisi called the poor wolf who feels a painful hunger for the sheep, and feels, too, perhaps, the pain of having to devour them; and this brotherhood reveals to us the Fatherhood of God, reveals to us that God is a Father and that He exists. And as a Father He shelters our common misery” (Unamuno, 1921, pp. 210-211).

⚃ “And as regards its truth, the real truth, that which is independent of ourselves, beyond reach of our logic and of hearts – of this truth who knows aught?” (Unamuno, 1921, p. 131).

⚃ “What we believe to be the motives of our conduct are usually but the pretexts for it” (Unamuno, 1921, p. 261).

⚃ “Man is the more man – that is, the more divine – the greater his capacity for, suffering, or, rather, for anguish” (Unamuno, 1921, p. 206).

⚃ “If it is nothingness that awaits us, let us make an injustice of it; let us fight against destiny, even though without hope of victory; let us fight against it quixotically.” (Unamuno, 1921, p. 268).

⚃ “Suffering is the substance of life and the root of personality, for it is only suffering that makes us persons. And suffering is universal, suffering is that which unites all us living beings together; it is the universal or divine blood that flows through us all. That which we call will, what is it but suffering?” (Unamuno, 1921, p. 205).

⚃ “Miguel de Unamuno was deeply affected by the realization of the existence of tragic antinomies in human life as something essential for growth and yet impossible to resolve. The experience of these antinomies which evoked in him obsessive reactions, depressions and anguish, became a motivation to turn in the direction of transcendence in the hope of resolving them there” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 147).

⚃ Kubrick
Playboy: If life is purposeless, do you feel it’s worth living?
Stanley Kubrick: “Yes, for those of us who manage somehow to cope with our mortality. The very meaninglessness of life forces man to create his own meaning. Children, of course, begin life with an untarnished sense of wonder, a capacity to experience total joy at something as simple as the greenness of a leaf; but as they grow older, the awareness of death and decay begins to impinge on their consciousness and subtly erode their joie de vivre, their idealism – and their assumption of immortality. As a child matures, he sees death and pain everywhere about him, and begins to lose faith in the ultimate goodness of man. But if he’s reasonably strong – and lucky – he can emerge from this twilight of the soul into a rebirth of life’s élan. Both because of and in spite of his awareness of the meaninglessness of life, he can forge a fresh sense of purpose and affirmation. He may not recapture the same pure sense of wonder he was born with, but he can shape something far more enduring and sustaining. The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent; but if we can come to terms with this Indifference and accept the challenges of life within the boundaries of death – however mutable man may be able to make them – our existence as a species can have genuine meaning and fulfillment. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light” (Norden, 1968, p. 195).

⚃ Overexcitabilities intensify the experience of the “normal and expected” crises and tragedies of life, contributing to a tragic sense of existence. These feelings call for explanations and answers that are not forthcoming, making them very difficult to “get over” and resolve. Realizing the “tragic sense” represents an ongoing challenge to one’s status quo integration. In describing a case study, Dąbrowski said: “R.R. saw and experienced the tragic aspect of existence, its cruel and unjust stresses; he felt an altruistic ‘pain of existence’” (1972, p. 259).

⚃ Tragedy-fueled psychoneurosis and existential crisis contribute to positive disintegration.
≻ The feeling and realization of tragedy in one’s life helps establish a larger worldview and a deep empathic bond with others.
≻ The tragic sense of life ultimately helps to shape one’s personality and define one’s relationship with the world.

⚃ “For all consciousness is consciousness of death and of suffering. We personalize the All in order to save ourselves from Nothingness and the only mystery is the mystery of suffering. Suffering is the path of consciousness, and by it living beings arrive at selfconsciousness. For to possess consciousness of oneself, to possess personality, is to know oneself and to feel oneself distinct from other beings, and this feeling of distinction is only reached through an act collision, through suffering more or less severe, through the sense of one’s own limits” (Unamuno, 1921, p. 140).

⚃ “So then, they will say to me: “What is your religion?” And I will respond: my religion is to look for truth in life and life in truth, even knowing that I may never find them while I am alive” (Unamuno, 1910).

⚃ Summary. We all experience tragedy in our lives. We typically cope using social reinforcers and rationalization.

⚅ “It’s OK, now Grandpa is watching over us from heaven.”
≻ People with developmental potential may have intense experiences of tragedy that are not ameliorated by intellectual or rational arguments.
≻ In these cases, one may come to realize that tragic experiences are an inescapable, irrational, inexplicable part of life that will never “make sense.”
≻ One is left with a choice: a downward spiral into despair or an upward struggle to create meaning.
≻ In tragedy we find our beliefs tested, leading to the realization that only in tragedy can we seek life’s deeper meanings, meaning created by our own unique passionate engagements with life itself.

⚄ Presented by Bill Tillier at The 11th International Dąbrowski Congress
“Creativity: Transforming perceptions of Reality.”
Canmore, Alberta July 24 – July 26, 2014 Revised 2023.

⚃ There is no consensus on what creativity is, how to describe it, how to define it, what factors contribute to it, or on the theories or constructs of creativity.

⚃ “[W]hat creativity is, and what it is not, hangs as the mythical albatross around the neck of scientific research on creativity.” (Prentky, 2001, p. 97).

⚄ The standard definition has 2 parts: “Creativity requires both originality and effectiveness.”

⚅ The original THING must be effective: it must fit and be appropriate in some domain or context. (Runco & Jaeger, 2012, p. 92).

⚃ French philosopher and polymath (studied time, space, evolution and biology).

⚃ Developed a complex theory of time and consciousness he called duration (Describes our experience of time).

⚃ Critical of mechanistic views of evolution (Spencer) – his model extended Darwin and stressed humans’ “intuitive and 1927 creative thinking.”

⚄ [F]or a conscious being, to exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.” (Bergson 1922, p. 8).

⚄ Our understanding of our deeper self and of life is not gained by intelligence or logic (tools used to make more tools and to grasp mechanisms): it must be known by our intuition arising from our experience.

⚃ Intelligence produces things that may be useful in life: real creativity is a process of continual becoming.

⚃ On the psychological level, Bergson equates creativity with developing one’s unique personality.

⚅ “ … [M]ight we not think that the ultimate reason of human life is a creation which, in distinction from that of the artist or man of science, can be pursued at every moment and by all men alike; I mean the creation of self by self, the continual enrichment of personality, by elements which it does not draw from outside, but causes to spring forth from itself?” (Bergson, 1911, pp. 42-3).

⚃ “Every instant we have to choose, and we naturally decide on what is in keeping with the rule. We are hardly conscious of this; there is no effort. A road has been marked out by society; it lies open before us, and we follow it; it would take more initiative to cut across country” (Bergson, 1935, p. 10).

⚃ “The beliefs to which we most strongly adhere are those of which we should find it most difficult to give an account … In a certain sense we have adopted them without any reason, for what makes them valuable in our eyes is that they match the colour of all our other ideas … [our ideas] float on the surface, like dead leaves on the water of a pond: the mind, when it thinks them over and over again, finds them ever the same, as if they were external to it …

⚃ Among these are the ideas which we receive ready made, and which remain in us without ever being properly assimilated” (Bergson, 1913/2001, pp. 135-136).

⚃ Ideas that reflect our true selves and insights are only revealed when we dig deeply below the surface into “the deeper strata of the self” – a task that is extremely difficult and seldom attempted (Bergson, 1913/2001, p. 136).

⚃ Because the deeper self is seldom experienced, when first encountered, it may seem foreign, but the encounter may be felt deeply.

⚃ “An idea which is truly ours fills the whole of our self,” and within our deep self, ideas join and blend together. Therefore these deeper ideas are hard to understand, difficult to articulate into words, and thus hard to communicate to others. (Bergson, 1913/2001, pp. 135-136).

⚄ For Dąbrowski, creativity is deeply connected to the development of one’s personality.

⚄ “The higher the level of development the closer is the link between creativity and developmental dynamisms” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 196).

⚄ “Creativity expresses non-adaptation within the internal milieu and a transgression of the usual standards of adaptation to the external environment” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 11).

⚄ Creative abilities represent “a search for new higher ways of understanding reality and of creating or discovering these new ways” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 196).

⚄ “It does not seem that authentic creativity of a high level is possible without the activity of neurotic and psychoneurotic dynamisms” (Dąbrowski, 1973, p. 41).

⚄ “Generally, it may safely be taken that the lower is the level of function represented by a given psychoneurosis, the fewer creative elements are involved” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 198).

⚄ “Lack of creative tendencies goes together with lack of inner conflicts, lack of positive adjustment” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 198).

⚄ “Greater creative tendencies are exhibited in psychoneurosis of a higher level” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 198).

⚄ “Are creative people mentally healthy? … They are not healthy according to the standard of the average individual, but they are healthy according to their unique personality norms and insofar as they show personality development: the acquiring and strengthening of new qualities in the realization of movement toward their personality ideal” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 115).

⚄ “The creative instinct belongs to those instincts which arise in ontogenesis and are not common to all members of the human species” (Dąbrowski, 1973, p. 24).

⚃ There is no “true, universal creativity” in unilevel integration.
≻ In unilevel disintegration, “creative talent” is limited and often psychopathological.

⚃ “Multilevel creativity is a manifestation of the conjunction of emotional, imaginational and intellectual overexcitability, with emotional being clearly the strongest” (Dąbrowski, 1996, p. 36).

⚄ “Crises are periods of increased insight into oneself, creativity, and personality development” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 18).

⚄ “Disintegration is described as positive when it enriches life, enlarges the horizon, and brings forth creativity” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 10).

⚄ “Creative dynamisms are connected with the process of disintegration in general, and with the process of multilevel disintegration in particular” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 69).

⚄ “Psychoneurotics are very likely to be creative.
≻ They often show loosening and disruption of the internal milieu and conflict with the external environment” (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 115).

⚄ “Creative dynamisms together with inner psychic transformation, empathy and identification represent dynamisms present in all stages of development of a multilevel inner psychic milieu” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 67).

⚄ “On a high level of development creative instinct becomes an instinct of self-perfection which besides the media of artistic expression begins to stress more and more strongly the concern for inner perfection” (Dąbrowski, 1996, p. 20).

⚄ Dąbrowski: Under the direction of the third factor, the developing creative instinct is transformed into the instinct of self-perfection.

⚄ In summary, Dąbrowski proposed: Creativity is the ongoing, incremental, and multilevel process leading to the achievement of one’s unique, ideal personality.

⚄ Amabile, T. M. (1998). How to kill creativity. Harvard Business Review, 76(5), 76-87.

⚄ Azambuja, M. D., Guareschi, N. M. D. F., & Baum, C. (2014). Henri Bergson’s contribution to the invention of a psychology in duration. Theory & Psychology, 24, 186-198. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959354314525875

⚄ Bergson, H. (1922) Creative evolution (A. Mitchell, Trans.). London England: Macmillan. (Original work published 1911).

⚄ Bergson, H. (1946). The creative mind (M. L. Andison, Trans.). New York, NY: Philosophical Library.

⚄ Bergson, H. (2001). Time and free will: An essay on the immediate data of consciousness (3rd ed., F. L. Pogson, Trans.). Mineola, NY: Dover. (Original work published 1913)

⚄ Dąbrowski, K. (with Kawczak, A., & Piechowski, M. M.). (1970). Mental growth through positive disintegration. London: Gryf Publications.

⚄ Dąbrowski, K. (1972). Psychoneurosis is not an illness. London: Gryf Publications.

⚄ Dąbrowski, K. (1996). Multilevelness of emotional and instinctive functions. Part 1: Theory and description of levels of behavior. Lublin, Poland: Towarzystwo Naukowe Katolickiego Uniwersytetu Lubelskiego.

⚄ Prentky, R. A. (2001). Mental illness and roots of genius. Creativity Research Journal, 13, 95- 104. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15326934CRJ1301_11

⚄ Runco, M., & Jaeger, G. J. (2012). The standard definition of creativity. Creativity Research Journal, 24, 92-96. https://doi.org/10.1080/10400419.2012.650092

⚃ Jahoda’s positive mental health approach was a major influence in Dąbrowski’s thinking.

⚃ Jahoda’s (1958) positively based approach generally had minimal impact on psychology at the time.

⚃ Maslow (1954) was the first to coin the term “positive psychology” (353-363) and in the appendix (364-378).

⚃ Positive psychology provides a general framework that readily accommodates Dąbrowski’s theory.

⚃ Reciprocally, Dąbrowski’s theory makes strong contributions to a positive psychology.

⚃ The resurrection of positive psychology advanced by Seligman and Csíkszentmihályi (2000) noted that many human factors protect against illness and they called for a new science of human strength – a psychology that can understand and nurture these factors in youth.

⚃ A careful examination of Seligman’s works reveals a very disappointing and unilevel approach to psychology.

⚄ “Positive psychology is the study of the conditions and processes that contribute to the flourishing or optimal functioning of people, groups, and institutions”(Gable & Haidt, 2005).

⚄ “[T]he scientific study of positive human functioning and flourishing on multiple levels that include the biological, personal, relational, institutional, cultural, and global dimensions of life” (Seligman & Csíkszentmihályi, 2000).

⚄ [T]o properly consider optimal human being we must consider all the different levels, or facets, of a person – that is, the biochemical, neuronal, cognitive, personality, social, and cultural factors that each make unique contributions to human behavior” (Sheldon, 2004, p. viii).

⚄ “[O]ptimal personality functioning is not defined in terms of any particular constructs (i.e., via high self-esteem, self-regulation, self-actualization, subjective well-being, ego development, etc.), but rather is understood to be inclusive of a wide variety of such constructs” (Sheldon, 2004, p. 5).

⚄ Runyan supports the importance of psychobiography, a technique used by Dąbrowski and by positive psychologists. “The discussion is intended to raise basic issues encountered in applying personality theories to the life of a single individual, whether a historical figure, a research subject, or a clinical patient” (Runyan, 1981, p. 1070).

⚄ “[T]he problem of developing explanations of events in individual lives deserves our critical attention as it is inevitably encountered in everyday life and is a crucial task within personology, psychobiography, and the clinical professions” (Runyan, 1981, p. 1076).

⚄ A philosophical dichotomy can be seen in approaches to individual development.

⚄ Kendler (1999) differentiates a Newtonian approach to science assuming that valid knowledge of the material world can be known through the methods of natural science (positivism i.e., the degree to which phenomena could be positively or exactly determined) versus a more holistic approach that emphasized subjective experience and suggested the possibility of scientific discovery beyond a materialistic perspective, for example, including value judgments. Goethe and Hegel carried the latter interpretation forward to German intellectuals.

⚄ Kendler (1999) noted that the gestalt psychologists adopted this position and ultimately suggested psychology could use scientific facts to inform moral truth as shown in the works of Wundt and Kurt Goldstein. Goldstein subsequently influenced Maslow and his approach in perceiving the self as a central concept and in viewing the self as having potential for expansion and growth.

⚄ “Kendler (1999) goes on to build the case that the holistic approach in which human values can be informed by science is false. He is critical of the idea “that values inhere in human experience; they have the quality of objective requiredness. By perceiving one’s own values as empirical facts, one is afforded a sense and direction in one’s life” (Kendler, 1999, p. 830).

⚄ Kendler (1999) rejects the notion that we can move from what is by generating a conceptualization of what ought to be. “The argument that an enchanted view of science can reveal moral principles that are right for humankind fails to offer a coherent prescription as to how this goal is to be attained. The assumption that psychological facts will lead directly to moral truths is contradicted by the failure of is to logically generate ought. In addition, the premise that a monistic moral code exists that is ‘right for humankind' is on equally shaky ground” (Kendler, 1999, p. 832).

⚄ Kendler (1999) notes that it is easy to conflate facts with values but difficult to keep them separate. “[M]oral guidelines are needed in an ethically pluralistic society, but they cannot be set in stone. They require constant evaluation to determine their consequences so that the functional value of moral pluralism will not be endangered either by disruptive moral conflicts or by intolerant restrictions. One must realize that the delineation of moral boundaries in a pluralist society can be approached but never finalized. It must remain a work in progress! A continuous surveillance of the consequences of the guiding moral principles will be needed to elevate the acceptability and effectiveness of social policies” (Kendler, 1999, p. 832).

⚄ “The enchanted view of science, which assumes that values are embedded in facts, fails to meet standards of natural-science methodology. This limitation does not faze those psychologists who believe that their primary mission is to create a just society inhabited by fulfilled individuals” (Kendler, 1999, p. 831).

⚄ The issue of how we define mental health is part of Kendler’s (1999) formulation. Should we define mental health positively or negatively? “Two obstacles prevent psychology from defining the good life. The first obstacle is the inability of facts to justify values logically, and the second is moral pluralism. The error made by those who preach a positive conception of mental health is that they believe a positive conception is symmetrical with a negative one. Their argument is that value judgments are made on each side. Although correct, the kind of value judgment made in each situation is strikingly different” (Kendler, 1999, p. 834). Kendler goes on to conclude that a negative conceptualization of mental health is necessary to serve the needs of society and meet the demands of science.

⚄ Maslow suggested that you could identify exemplars of development and study them scientifically to reveal their characteristics. Kendler (1999, p. 830) was sharply critical of this idea, saying, “Maslow shaped his evidence to create a tautological relationship between facts and values to give the impression that his values were justified by empirical data. He simply selected people who shared his moral code and his conception of fulfillment and thus assigned them the honorific status of being self-actualized.”

⚄ “[I]t seems that the field of positive psychology (and perhaps psychology more generally) is in need of an integrative conceptual and empirical framework in which to a) conceptually unify diverse topics within positive psychology, and b) determine which positive psychology constructs are most essential for bringing about the various positive outcomes of interest. I will briefly describe the candidate model and approach offered in Optimal Human Being: An Integrated Multi-level Perspective (Sheldon, 2004). The model attempts to provide a framework for achieving consilience (Wilson, 1998) between the different levels of science; this must in principle be possible, because they are all operating within a singular, self-consistent reality” (Sheldon, 2011, p. 422).

⚄ This approach is very reminiscent of Miller (1978) and his living systems theory. Miller’s monumental 1978 book of over 1100 pages detailed the various levels and interactions of general systems theory applied to life. This approach might be contrasted with more specific descriptions of levels or developmental levels, either in psychology in general, or subsets thereof. For example, Jane Loevinger’s stages of ego development, Jean Piaget’s stages of cognitive development, Erik Erikson’s developmental stages, or Lawrence Kohlberg’s stages of moral development. Dąbrowski’s levels fall in the latter category.

⚄ Sheldon uses his Multilevel Personality in Context (MPIC) model to examine subjective well-being (SWB) (Sheldon, Cheng, & Hilpert, 2011).

⚄ “We hope we have successfully reemphasized the point that multiple levels of analysis need to be simultaneously considered for a complete explanation of almost any human phenomenon, including the phenomenon of SWB. The MPIC model, representing the upper part of a more general causal hierarchy, was described. In the second part of the article we tried to show that much of what is already known about SWB can be contextualized within the MPIC model, as either level main effects or cross-level interactions” (Sheldon, Cheng, & Hilpert, 2011, p. 14).

⚄ “The MPIC model is not conceived of as a theory to be tested, but rather as a heuristic framework in which to consider ‘the biggest picture'” (Sheldon, 2011, p. 52).

⚄ “Each level is thought to build on the provisions of all of the levels below, adding a new layer of organization on top. Cognitive processes could not exist without neural machinery, but once such machinery is present and functioning, cognitive processes emerge that make use of that machinery to derive pragmatic solutions to adaptive problems. Personality processes require cognitive processes, but once such exist, personality processes emerge to make use of cognitive processes to pursue the person’s goals and needs” (Sheldon, 2011, p. 53).

⚄ “McAdams notes that he has used the term ‘level' in many different and inconsistent ways and offers several important insights into the use of levels” (McAdams & Manczak, 2011).

⚄ “One of the features of hierarchical models that we find especially compelling is the way in which principles at lower levels constrain the operations of higher levels while higher levels reach back down to reorganize lower levels. Sheldon et al. (this issue) show a keen understanding of the interplay between reductionism and higher order emergence across levels” (McAdams & Manczak, 2011, p. 40).

⚄ “By the early 1990s, the once reviled concept of the dispositional trait had made an extraordinary comeback in personality psychology … [due to] mounting empirical evidence for longitudinal (interindividual) stability in trait scores … [the] evidence for stability was so strong that some psychologists began to wonder if personality itself can change in any meaningful way after, say, age 30” (McAdams & Manczak, 2011, p. 41).

⚄ McAdams' approach shows development over time: (1994) “McAdams argued that other features of what many psychologists consider to be personality – such as motives, coping strategies, values and interests, narrative self-conceptions, and so on – may reveal more change across the human life course. Whereas those relatively stable dispositional traits may reside at the first level of personality, McAdams (1994) claimed, motives and goals (and related personal concerns) seem to compose a second, more changeable level, and people’s life stories (internalized and evolving narratives of the self that become increasingly prominent as features of human personality as people move into adulthood; McAdams, 1985) sit at a third” (McAdams & Manczak, 2011, p. 41).

⚄ “[P]ersonality psychologists obtain a first cut of personality from a trait score. As we get to know people better, however, we move beyond traits to deeper levels of personality (e.g., motives, goals, life stories). The essential meaning here is a level of understanding. A deeper level is one where the perceiver knows more. With respect to person perception, then, traits lie on the surface (they are not deep), goals and motives reside further in, and a person’s life story is deepest in the sense that it is harder to get at upon a casual meeting, requires more work to perceive in full” (McAdams & Manczak, 2011, p. 41).

⚄ “Because life stories are deeper in, are life stories more ‘authentic,' more revealing of the ‘true self' than traits? (Answer: Some people think so, but we are not sure. We see the whole idea of ‘authenticity' and ‘true self' to be social and cultural constructions that have evolved out of an Emersonian streak of American Romanticism” (McAdams & Manczak, 2011, p. 42).

⚄ “In the context of person perception, traits are on the surface, whereas goals and stories lie further in. You have to dig more (deeper, further in) to get at personal goals and life stories. This new way of thinking about levels raises interesting questions, and more confusion. Are dispositional traits more ‘conscious' and stories more unconscious (or implicit)? (Answer: No. The issue of consciousness is orthogonal). Because life stories are deeper in, are life stories more ‘authentic,’ more revealing of the ‘true self’ than traits? (Answer: Some people think so, but we are not sure. We see the whole idea of ‘authenticity’ and ‘true self’ to be social and cultural constructions that have evolved out of an Emersonian streak of American Romanticism; McAdams, 2006). Are life stories more about ’self’ and traits and motives more about, well, something else? (Answer: Definitely no. The self encompasses traits, goals, stories, and lots of other stuff, too, as William James, 1892/1963, contended – things like my home, my favorite objects, my pets, and on and on. Therefore, designating a separate level of ‘self’ in any personality hierarchy makes no sense to us). Compared to traits, are life stories more about identity? (Answer: Yes, but in a particular developmental sense, as we now describe)” (McAdams & Manczak, 2011, p. 42).

⚄ “Personality begins with traits – the developmental foundation. Personal goals (goals that consistently differentiate you from me) emerge later, after the child has (a) developed the realization that people’s behavior is largely motivated by internalized goals (theory of mind; Wellman, 1993) and (b) come to understand his or her own daily life in terms of choices made, intentions realized or thwarted, and success and failure in goal pursuit” (McAdams & Manczak, 2011, p. 42).

⚄ “Even as dispositional traits and motivational goals continue to develop and impact daily life, a third layer of personality begins to emerge as young adults seek an identity in the world. As Erikson suggested, identity is an arrangement of the self that manages to provide adult life with some degree of unity and purpose. As a product of the self’s desire to make meaning out of the complexities of adult life (especially as played out against the backdrop of a modern society), identity can come to include many different psychological qualities. But central to the identity quest in adulthood is the psychosocial construction of a life story. That story – [is] narrative identity” (McAdams & Manczak, 2011, p. 43).

⚄ “We believe that integration across different features of personality is better conceived in terms of dynamic and fluid models that resist the urge to reduce one level to another. For this reason, we find the metaphor of a developmental layer to be more convincing and generative than hierarchical levels in thinking about the ways in which personality expresses itself across the life course. As we see it, the developing person successively takes on, over the long course of human life, the three basic self challenges of being a social actor, a motivated agent, and an autobiographical author within and across those social groups and contexts wherein his or her actions, goals, and stories all make sense” (McAdams & Manczak, 2011, p. 43).

⚅ Boniwell, I. (2006). Positive psychology in a nutshell: A balanced introduction to the science of optimal functioning (2nd ed. Rev. ed.). PWBC.

⚅ Cantor, N. (1941). What is a normal mind? American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 11(4), 676-683. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1939-0025.1941.tb05857.x

⚅ Donaldson, S., Dollwet, M. & Rao, M. (2015) Happiness, excellence, and optimal human functioning revisited: Examining the peer-reviewed literature linked to positive psychology, The Journal of Positive Psychology, 10:3, 185-195, https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2014.943801

⚅ Gable, S. L., & Haidt, J. (2005). What (and why) is positive psychology [Special issue]? Review of General Psychology, 9(2), 103-110. https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.9.2.103.

⚅ Haidt, J. (2003). Elevation and the positive psychology of morality. In C. L. M. Keyes, & J. Haidt, (Eds.), Flourishing: Positive psychology and the life well lived (pp. 275-289). American Psychological Association.

⚅ Haidt, J. (2006). The happiness hypothesis: Finding modern truth and ancient wisdom. Basic.

⚅ Joseph, S., & Linley, P. A. (Eds.). (2008). Trauma, recovery and growth: Positive psychological perspectives on posttraumatic stress. Wiley.

⚅ Kendler, H. H. (1999). The role of value in the world of psychology. American Psychologist, 54(10), 828-835. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.54.10.828

⚅ Linley, A., & Joseph, S. (Eds.). (2004). Positive psychology in practice. Wiley.

⚅ Linley, A., Joseph, S., Harrington, S., Wood, A. M. (2006). Positive psychology: Past, present, and (possible) future. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 1(1), 3-16. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760500372796

⚅ McAdams, D., & Manczak, E. (2011). What is a “level” of personality? Psychological Inquiry, 22(1), 40-44. https://doi.org/10.1080/1047840X.2011.544026

⚅ Pawelski, J. O. (2016) Defining the ‘positive’ in positive psychology: Part I. A descriptive analysis, The Journal of Positive Psychology, 11:4, 339-356, https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2015.1137627

⚅ Pawelski, J. O. (2016) Defining the ‘positive’ in positive psychology: Part II. A normative analysis, The Journal of Positive Psychology, 11:4, 357-365, https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2015.1137628

⚅ Runyan, W. M. K. (1981). Why did Van Gogh cut off his ear? The problem of alternative explanations in psychobiography. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 40(6), 1070-1077. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.40.6.1070

⚅ Seligman, M. E. P., & Csíkszentmihályi, M. (2000). Positive psychology: An introduction. American Psychologist, 55(1), 5-14. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.55.1.5

⚅ Sheldon, K. M. (2004). Optimal human being: An integrated multi-level perspective. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

⚅ Sheldon, K. M. (2011). What’s positive about positive psychology? In K. M. Sheldon, T. B. Kashdan, & M. F. Steger, (Eds.), Designing positive psychology: Taking stock and moving forward (pp. 421-429). https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195373585.003.0028

⚅ Sheldon, K. M., Cheng, C., & Hilpert, J. (2011). Understanding well-being and optimal functioning: Applying the Multilevel Personality in Context (MPIC) model. Psychological Inquiry, 22(1), 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1080/1047840X.2011.532477

⚅ Snyder, C. R., & Lopez, S. J. (Eds.). (2002). Handbook of positive psychology. Oxford University Press.

⚅ Snyder, C. R., & Lopez, S. J. (2007). Positive psychology: The scientific and practical explorations of human strengths. Sage.

⚃ Posttraumatic growth: Positive cognitive, emotional, interpersonal and spiritual consequences that one may experience following a traumatic event (Tedeschi & Calhoun, 2004).

⚃ “[T]he experience of growth or positive change following trauma and adversity is not a qualitatively different experience that is distinctly different from normal human development, but rather is a natural, albeit infrequent, life span developmental event” (Joseph & Linley, 2008, p. 341).

⚃ “The growth literature promises a paradigm shift in our ways of thinking about trauma” (Joseph & Linley, 2008, p. 342).

⚃ “We are interested in both positive and negative sides of human experience, and how they relate to each other” (Joseph & Linley, 2008, p. 342).

⚄ “[G]rowth following adversity is about psychological wellbeing and changes in assumptions about the self and the world” (Joseph & Linley, 2008, p. 350).

⚄ “[W]e cannot fully understand growth without taking into account the distress that precedes it, and we cannot fully understand recovery from posttraumatic stress without taking into account the possibility of growth” (Joseph & Linley, 2008, p. 342).

⚄ Clarification: Resilience is a term that we often see misused. Resilience reflects the ability to experience a crisis and return to one’s former level of function.

⚄ People talk about trying to work on and achieve resilience when actually the ideal goal is to try to achieve a higher level of function than you had before – to achieve growth after trauma.

⚄ Growth can occur in five ways: improvement in interpersonal relations, greater personal strength, positive spiritual change, increased appreciation of life, and discovery of new possibilities (Tedeschi & Calhoun, 1996).

⚄ Posttraumatic growth occurs in a wide range of people, facing a wide variety of traumatic circumstances (Tedeschi & Calhoun, 2004).

⚄ The individual has not only survived, but has experienced changes that are viewed as important, and that go beyond what was the previous status quo. (Tedeschi & Calhoun, 2004).

⚃ Post-traumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI). “The development of the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory, an instrument for assessing positive outcomes reported by persons who have experienced traumatic events, is described. This 21-item scale includes factors of New Possibilities, Relating to Others, Personal Strength, Spiritual Change, and Appreciation of Life. Women tend to report more benefits than do men, and persons who have experienced traumatic events report more positive change than do persons who have not experienced extraordinary events.” (Tedeschi & Calhoun, 1996).

⚄ Growth following adversity deals primarily with external crises; death of loved ones, natural disasters, accidents, relationship breakups, etc..

⚄ Positive disintegration is primarily focused upon crises that are internally generated, usually when an individual experiences strong internal conflicts over disparities between higher and lower elements in their behavior, feelings and values.

⚃ The parallels between posttraumatic growth and positive disintegration are striking. Do those who experience posttraumatic growth display some of the same underlying factors as described in TPD? For example, developmental potential.

⚃ Suffering: At a Dąbrowski congress, a speaker said: “we really like growth, but do we really need all this suffering?”

⚄ Suffering is integral to what it means to live and develop as a human being; suffering is often “a vital spur to change” and should not be avoided by drugs, delusions, or escapist activities (Davies, 2012).

⚄ “Life, as we find it, is too hard for us; it brings us too many pains, disappointments and impossible tasks. In order to bear it we cannot dispense with palliative measures. We cannot do without auxiliary constructions, as Theodor Fontane tells us. There are perhaps three such measures: powerful deflections, which cause us to make light of our misery; substitutive satisfactions, which diminish it; and intoxicating substances, which make us insensitive to it. Something of the kind is indispensable. Voltaire has deflections in mind when he ends Candide with the advice to cultivate one’s garden; and scientific activity is a deflection of this kind, too. The substitutive satisfactions, as offered by art, are illusions in contrast with reality, but they are none the less psychically effective, thanks to the role which phantasy has assumed in mental life. The intoxicating substances influence our body and alter its chemistry. It is no simple matter to see where religion has its place in this series. We must look further afield” (Freud, 1961, p. 22).

⚄ “Suffering provides an opportunity to receive or create something of value” (Gibson, 2015, p. 3).

⚄ “When our external and/or internal worlds impede the realization of our human potentialities … “emotional suffering” will signal that all is not well (Davies, 2012, p. 5).

⚄ “Socialisation can lead us to cultivate habits and live in ways that impede the realisation of our higher potentialities. When our realisation is impeded I argue that our suffering is provoked” (Davies, 2012, p. 7).

⚄ “The ‘necessity’ for suffering, which at first glance may seem paradoxical, is deeply embedded in the human soul, and is more common than it appears to the normal mind” (Dąbrowski, 1937, p. 4).

⚄ “One of the highest ideas of humanity, the purifying value of suffering (provided it is correctly interpreted), is continuously alive, for example, in the deepening of the moral culture of man by suffering, in its influence on philosophical creation and on the origin of the educational and moral system” (Dąbrowski, 1937, p. 100).

⚄ “In relation to suffering one does not adopt an exclusively negative attitude, but begins to accept it as something that has meaning, as essential for cultural development, and as a necessary element of one’s psychic enrichment” (Dąbrowski, 1967, p. 139).

⚄ “[H]uman development has to involve suffering, conflicts, inner struggle. Positive maladjustment, challenge and rebellion are as good a part of any culturally growing society as creativity and respect for the law” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 16).

⚄ “Disappointments, suffering, inner conflicts, breakdowns, force one to depart from peaceful adjustment to automatic activities such as daily routine, pursuit of money, pleasures of eating, primitive joys, or superficial, easily resolved conflicts” (Dąbrowski, 1970, p. 37).

⚄ “Mental health, [is] linked with the sensitivity to suffering, to painful experiences of oneself and others” (Dąbrowski, 1973, p. 176).

⚄ “Existentialist philosophy is an expression of the experiences of pain, suffering, depression, elevation, empathy, and above all, disquietude and anxiety. Here man goes beyond the tranquility of thought, of reasoning by means of abstract ideas. He lives and suffers; he feels and experiences pain, disintegration, distraction and inner conflicts” (Dąbrowski, 1967, p. 139).

⚄ “If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete. The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity – even under the most difficult circumstances – to add a deeper meaning to his life” (May, 1992, p. 76).

⚃ The application of Dąbrowski’s multilevel and multidimensional approach may be particularly powerful in helping understand posttraumatic growth.

⚃ It remains to be seen what overlap may exist in the research insights in the literature on posttraumatic growth and on the theory of positive disintegration.

⚃ It would be interesting to look for correlations between the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory and the OEQII.

⚃ Deeper, more subtle views of trauma and suffering, along with Dąbrowski’s constructs and contemporary posttraumatic growth create opportunities for further theory building and research. Clinical aspects can be combined with philosophical insights (Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Unamuno) to yield a powerful analysis.

⚄ Blackie, L. E. R., Jayawickreme, E., Tsukayama, E., Forgeard, M. J. C., Roepke, A. M., & Fleeson, W. (2016). Post-traumatic growth as positive personality change: Developing a measure to assess within-person variability. Journal of Research in Personality. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2016.04.001

⚄ Bonanno, G. A. (2004). Loss, trauma, and human resilience : Have we underestimated the human capacity to thrive after extremely aversive events? American Psychologist, 59(1), 20-28. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.59.1.20

⚄ Brooks, M., Lowe, M., Graham-Kevan, N., & Robinson, S. (2016). Posttraumatic growth in students, crime survivors and trauma workers exposed to adversity. Personality and Individual Differences, 98, 199-207. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2016.04.051

⚄ Carver, C. S. (2010). Resilience and thriving: Issues, models, and linkages. Journal of Social Issues, 54(2), 245-266. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4560.1998.tb01217.x

⚄ Davies, J. (2012). The importance of suffering: The value and meaning of emotional discontent. Routledge.

⚄ Gibson, J. (2015). A Relational Approach to Suffering: A Reappraisal of Suffering in the Helping Relationship. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 0022167815613203-. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022167815613203

⚄ Joseph, S., & Linley, A. (2006). Growth following adversity: Theoretical perspectives and implications for clinical practice. Clinical Psychology Review, 26(8), 1041-1053. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2005.12.006

⚄ Joseph, S., & Linley, A. (Eds.). (2008). Trauma, recovery and growth: Positive psychological perspectives on posttraumatic stress. John Wiley.

⚄ Linley, A., & Joseph, S. (2004). Positive change following trauma and adversity: A review. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 17(1), 11-21. https://doi.org/10.1023/B:JOTS.0000014671.27856.7e

⚄ Tedeschi, R. G., & Calhoun, L. G. (1996). Posttraumatic Growth Inventory: Measuring the positive legacy of trauma. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 9(3), 455-471. https://doi.org/10.1002/jts.2490090305

⚄ Tedeschi, R. G. & Calhoun, L. G. (2004). Posttraumatic growth: Conceptual foundations and empirical evidence, Psychological Inquiry,15(1),1-18. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327965pli1501_01

⚄ Ulloa, E., Guzman, M. L., Salazar, M., & Cala, C. (2016). Posttraumatic Growth and Sexual Violence: A Literature Review. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 25(3), 286-304. https://doi.org/10.1080/10926771.2015.1079286

⚃ Presented by Bill Tillier at the
Eighth International Congress of the Institute for Positive Disintegration in Human Development
Dąbrowski and Gifted Education: Beyond Overexcitabilities.
August 7-9, 2008 Canmore, Alberta, Canada
Revised 2023

⚄ Maslow’s mother was very domineering, controlling and cruel to him – he felt “no mother-love.”

⚄ Very isolated, unhappy child, described himself as a “freak with two heads,” a view echoed by his father: “the ugliest kid you’ve ever seen” (Hoffman, 1988, p. 6).

⚄ Maslow could not see how he had not become “psychotic” in his childhood (Hoffman, 1992, p. 70).

⚄ Too shy to date, he met his first cousin Bertha at family dinners; they fell in love and were married.

⚄ Set out to understand human relations, at first as a strict Watsonian behaviorist.

⚄ He was fascinated by, and attracted to, dominant women all his life but only approached them academically.

⚄ Maslow worked in Harry Harlow’s monkey lab, and they co-authored several papers on primate behavior.

⚄ In primates, dominance is related to and determines sexual behavior, more than sexual drive (Maslow, 1942, p. 292).

⚄ He then studied dominance, motivation, and sexual behavior by interviewing college women.

⚄ Maslow equated an individual’s feeling of dominance with confidence.
≻ He first called this “dominance feeling” but later called it self-esteem: ideas that later influenced his needs hierarchy.

⚃ Using normal subjects became an important model in all psychological research.

⚃ Maslow (1942, p. 291) “[H]uman sexuality is almost exactly like primate sexuality.”
≻ Dominant males and submissive females are equivalent in both species: an idea later reflected in his continuum view of instincts in animals and humans.

⚃ “Therefore, I have been wondering how to protect the biologically gifted from the almost inevitable malice of the biologically nongifted.
≻ The latter could claim with perfect reason that nature was unfair and unjust in parceling out good brains to some and poor brains to others.
≻ The only way I can see out of this dilemma in any future, one-world civilization is for the biological superiors (alphas or aggridants) to become a kind of priestly class to which is given less monetary reward and fewer privileges or luxuries than the average members of the overall population.
≻ The picture I have here is of the leaders of civilization – the sages, teachers, pioneers, and creators – compos sureing something like the Grey Eminence figures of the past, like monks clad in the simplest garments and perhaps vowing to lead selfless lives of poverty.” (Hoffman, 1996, p. 71).

⚃ “Women, especially ‘advanced’ and educated women in the United States of America, are frequently fighting against their own very deep tendencies to dependency, passivity, and submissiveness (because this unconsciously means to them a giving up of selfhood or person-hood). It is then easy for such a woman to see men as would-be dominators and rapists and to treat them as such, frequently by dominating them” (Maslow, 1971/1976, p. 154).

⚃ “In some women, I have also been tempted to think of ‘having a baby’ as fullest self-actualization all by itself, at least for a time. However, I should say that I feel less confident in speaking of self-actualization in women” (Maslow, 1971/1976, p. 154).

⚄ Our instinctoid biology underlies a single continuum of both our lowest and highest traits – “the so-called spiritual or value-life, or ‘higher’ life, is on the same continuum (is the same kind or quality of thing) with the life of the flesh, or of the body, i.e., the animal life, the material life, the ‘lower’ life. That is, the spiritual life is part of our biological life. It is the ‘highest’ part of it, but yet part of it” (Maslow 1971/1976, pp. 313-314).

⚄ No qualitative differentiation between animal instincts and the highest values – metaneeds of humans.

⚃ “[M]an has a higher nature which is just as ‘instinctoid’ as his lower nature, and that this higher nature includes the needs for meaningful work, for responsibility, for creativeness, for being fair and just, for doing what is worthwhile and for preferring to do it well” (Maslow 1971/1976, p 228).

⚄ We have built-in values: “It is these needs, ‘instinctoid’ in nature, that we can also think of as built-in values – values not only in the sense that the organism wants and seeks them but also in the sense that they are both good and necessary for the organism” (Maslow, 1966, p. 125).

⚄ Maslow rejected free choice and existentialism.
≻ He viewed existentialism as a denial of biological and instinctual influences: “For Sartre and all those whom he has influenced, one’s self becomes an arbitrary choice, a willing by fiat to be something or do something without any guidelines about which is better, which is worse, what’s good and what’s bad” (Maslow, 1971/1976, p. 178).

⚄ Kurt Goldstein: the tendency toward self-actualization acts from within, overcoming [physical] disturbances arising from the clash with the world, not out of anxiety but out of the joy of conquest (Maslow, 1938/1975).

⚄ If an organism’s needs are met, its innate biological /psychological potentials can be actualized.
≻ If injured, this drive will try to reorganize and restore balance.

⚄ Already looking at security/motivation, Maslow (1943) quickly applied Goldstein’s idea, interviewing normal subjects about their psychological development.

⚃ Maslow could not find enough sufficiently developed subjects and turned to biographical studies to create the list of factors he felt indicated self-actualization.

⚄ Maslow equated dominance with self-esteem, emotional security, and self-confidence: later reflected in his needs hierarchy and management theory (Cullen & Gotell, 2002).

⚄ To see one’s “natural superiority” is an important precondition of self-actualization: this created a gender bias in self-actualization – men having “natural” dominance.

⚃ Maslow researched and wrote on business: companies should help men achieve their natural potential to be leaders; women lack the instincts to be managers.

⚄ Healthy individuals accept their own nature “without chagrin or complaint or, for that matter, even without thinking about the matter very much.”
≻ He went on: “the self-actualized person sees reality more clearly: our subjects see human nature as it is and not as they would prefer it to be” (Maslow, 1970, p. 155-156).

⚄ Maslow described these individuals as more objective, less emotional, less anxious, and less likely to allow hopes, dreams, fears, or psychological defenses to distort their observations of reality.

⚄ Maslow described various levels of potential within a person and said that all of these potentials must be actualized, the lowest along with the highest.

⚄ “The first and most obvious level of acceptance is at the so-called animal level. Those self-actualizing people tend to be good animals, hearty in their appetites and enjoying themselves without regret or shame or apology” (Maslow, 1970, p. 156).

⚄ “They are able to accept themselves not only on these low levels, but at all levels as well; e.g., love, safety, belongingness, honor, self-respect. All of these are accepted without question as worth while, simply because these people are inclined to accept the work of nature rather than to argue with her for not having constructed things to a different pattern.” (Maslow, 1970, p. 156).

⚄ Maslow rejected pursuing ideals: ideals and “oughts” should reflect “actual potentiality which can actually be fulfilled” (Maslow, 1971/1976, p. 105) – “the best way for a person to discover what he ought to do is to find out who and what he is” (Maslow, 1971/1976, p. 108).
≻ “Do you want to find out what you ought to be? Then find out who you are! ‘Become what thou art!’” (Maslow, 1971/1976, p. 108).

⚄ Unrealistic ideals create anxiety, neuroses, guilt and prevent our acceptance and happiness: “We may feel totally sinful, or depraved or unworthy. We see our is as extremely far away from our ought” (Maslow, 1971/1976, p. 108).

⚄ Maslow: intrinsic guilt “comes from defying one’s own nature and from trying to be what one is not” (Maslow, 1971/1976, p. 327).

⚄ Maslow and Dąbrowski met in 1966 and “began a friendship” and corresponded until Maslow died in 1970 (Piechowski, 1999, p. 326).

⚄ Maslow’s initial position was that Dąbrowski had made a significant contribution but that it could be conceptually subsumed under his (Maslow’s) model.

⚄ Maslow endorsed Dąbrowski (1970), in a quotation appearing on the back cover of Dąbrowski (1972). “I consider this to be one of the most important contributions to psychological and psychiatric theory in this whole decade. There is little question in my mind that this book will be read for another decade or two, and very widely. It digs very deep and comes up with extremely important conclusions that will certainly change the course of psychological theorizing and the practice of psychotherapy for some time to come.”

⚄ Dąbrowski argued that his theory went far beyond Maslow’s with a number of important qualitative differences and, therefore, must be kept separate.

⚄ Must reject self as is – must use multilevelness to consciously identify and differentiate the lower aspects to inhibit, or transform, or transcend versus the higher aspects to retain and expand or create.

⚄ Higher aspects chosen reflect one’s personality ideal and will be “more like oneself” (personality shaping).

⚄ Dąbrowski: if self-actualization is equated with TPD or its levels, his approach would be misunderstood and lessened.

⚄ Cullen, D., & Gotell, L. (2002). From orgasms to organizations: Maslow, women’s sexuality and the gendered foundations of the needs hierarchy. Gender, Work & Organization, 9(5), 537-555. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0432.00174

⚄ Goldstein, K. (1975). The organism: A holistic approach to biology derived from pathological data in man. New York, NY: Zone. (Original work published 1939).

⚄ Hoffman, E. (1988). The right to be human: A biography of Abraham Maslow. Los Angeles: Jeremy Tarcher.

⚄ Hoffman, E., ed. (1996) Future Visions: The Unpublished Papers of Abraham Maslow. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

⚄ Hoffman, E. (1992). The last interview of Abraham Maslow. Psychology Today, 25(1), 68-89.

⚄ Maslow, A. H. (1942). Self-esteem (dominance-feeling) and sexuality in women. Journal of Social Psychology, 16(2), 259-294.

⚄ Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50(4), 370-396. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0054346

⚄ Maslow, A. H. (1966). The psychology of science: A reconnaissance. Chicago: Henry Regnery.

⚄ Maslow, A. H. (1970). Motivation and personality (2nd ed.). New York: Harper and Row.

⚄ Maslow, A. H. (1976). The farther reaches of human nature. New York: Penguin books. (Original work published 1971).

⚄ He saw diseases of the nervous system as a process of de-evolution, or dissolution (see Taylor, 1958; York & Steinberg, 2006)

⚃ Hughlings-Jackson was influential in Dąbrowski’s conceptualization of the levels of neural organization and of the corresponding levels of neuro- and psychological function.

⚃ Influenced by Herbert Spencer, Hughlings-Jackson focused on evolution and dissolution in the nervous system.
≻ Higher levels represent new steps in the brain’s evolution. [Not Darwinian evolution].

⚃ “The notion that the nervous system works by integration of sensorimotor connections, with increasing integration and connection at higher levels, led Hughlings-Jackson to view the nervous system as an information network” (York & Steinberg, 1994, p. 159).

⚃ “[Hughlings-Jackson] described an evolutionary structure of the nervous system wherein the physical body is represented, re-represented, and re-rerepresented, at successive functional levels” [the nervous system is a sensorimotor machine] (Steinberg & York, 1994, p. 169).

⚃ Because functional levels correlate with developmental levels, understanding the organization of the levels leads to the clinical description of cerebral localization.

⚃ “Nervous system evolution, as Hughlings Jackson conceived it, consists of evolutionary levels and a process of moving from level to level. Two principles underlying this theory are that stages of evolution demonstrate increasing complexity, increasing definiteness, and increasing interconnections, and that higher levels exert an inhibitory control over lower levels … The practical clinical consequence of this evolutionary hierarchy is that pathological states are characterized by two types of observable symptoms – positive and negative.Negative symptoms are due to loss of a higher function and positive symptoms result from release of a lower level from inhibitory control” (Steinberg & York, 1994, pp. 169-170).

⚃ Hughlings-Jackson described how the nervous system is hierarchically organized in a series of 3 major levels (Highest, Middle, Lowest), governed by 3 principles of neural evolution.

⚄ 1). Evolution is the transfer from a very well organized lower level to a higher but poorly organized, more vulnerable and malleable one.

⚄ 2). Evolution moves from the simplest, lowest centers to the most complex, highest centers.

⚄ 3). Evolution is a transition from more automatic to more voluntary centers.

⚃ Higher levels control lower levels by exerting inhibitory forces on them.
≻ Dissolution occurs when the inhibition of higher levels is impaired and the more automatic, less reflective functions of the lower levels are released to act.

⚃ Summary: the highest centers, representing the summit of nervous evolution, are the least organized, and most delicate, but the most complex and most voluntary. (see Dąbrowski, 1964, pp. 83-84; Jackson, 1884).

⚃ For Hughlings-Jackson, the brain’s organization posed a problem: the higher, newer features are less stable and more vulnerable.
≻ Disorders of the higher levels (like psychoneurosis) disinhibit the lower levels and are the first step toward total dissolution of psychic functions (“mental involution”).
≻ Thus, progression of psychoneurosis could lead to serious mental illness.

⚃ For Dąbrowski, the initial fluid organization of the highest levels represents an opportunity for further, self-directed reorganization and development. “In our opinion, H. Jackson’s conception of psychoneurosis as the first stage on the way to psychoses and mental dissolution, is erroneous. On the contrary psychoneuroses are an essential stage on the way toward the highest levels of ‘humanization.’ They the express accelerated development of a human individual” (Dąbrowski, 1973, p. 151).

⚄ “Evolution – a development which proceeds from lower to higher levels of organization. Positive disintegration is the type of process through which individual human, evolution occurs” (Dąbrowski, 1972, p. 295).

⚃ Dąbrowski equated Hughlings-Jackson’s construct of dissolution with positive disintegration: “Many mechanisms, viewed by him as ‘dissolution,’ play a key role in evolution. We call them processes of positive disintegration.” (Dąbrowski, 1996, p. 10).

⚄ “Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing direction. You change direction, but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn’t something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn’t get in, and walk through it, step by step. There’s no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverised bones.
That’s the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine. And that’s exactly what I do. I imagine a white funnel stretching vertically up like a thick rope. My eyes are closed tight, hands cupped over my ears, so those fine grains of sand can’t blow inside me. The sandstorm draws steadily closer. I can feel the air pressing on my skin. It really is going to swallow me up… . And you really will have to make it through that violent, metaphysical, symbolic storm. No matter how metaphysical or symbolic it might be, make no mistake about it: it will cut through flesh like a thousand razor blades. People will bleed there, and you will bleed too. Hot, red blood. You’ll catch that blood in your hands, your own blood and the blood of others.
And once the storm is over you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.
Murakami (2005). Kafka on the shore. (P. Gabriel, trans.). Vintage.

⚁ 3.11 An Excellent Overview Article by Tylikowska, (2000).

⚃ The foundation of the theory of positive disintegration is the assertion about the multi-level structure of reality.
≻ In Dąbrowski’s works, reality is defined as a multifaceted and multilevel totality of phenomena that occur in the external and internal environment of a human being and are perceived by him, grasped, and also experienced through the senses and mental, emotional, imaginative and intuitive activities, interconnected.
≻ Thus, multilevelness concerns both the totality of reality and its individual elements or phenomena.
≻ Also man, his functioning and the structure of his psyche, along with the factors dynamizing its changes, are subject to description and explanation in terms of a multi-level structure.

⚃ According to the theory of positive disintegration, the drives characterizing a person and individual functions: perception, feelings, thinking, images, intuition, are varied according to the level of experience and action.
≻ To illustrate the horizontal differentiation in feeling, expression, and the meaning of a specific drive, Dąbrowski often refers to the differences between the sexual instinct and mature love.
≻ Another, more concrete and pictorial example of multilevelness may concern products and experiences of an aesthetic nature.
≻ Dąbrowski describes a horizontal upward ascent:
≻≻ “… from rhythmicity and dance sensuality, to religious dances, from sensuality and rhythmic music of the Beatles, releasing motor-sensual tensions, to music that introduces us to silence, reflection, and even existential and transcendental moods (Mozart, Bach, Beethoven and others). The same phenomenon occurs in painting and sculpture, ranging from plainly naturalistic, non-individualized sculptures and primitive-naturalistic painting, to the heights of Greek sculpture, revival architecture with Michelangelo at the forefront, impressionism and abstractionism …” (Dąbrowski, 1989a, p. 29).

⚃ … in the theory of positive disintegration, development of a person is tantamount to development towards identity and personality.
≻ It is about moving to higher and higher levels of functioning.
≻ The development potential is greater at subsequent levels of development.
≻ It increases with an increase in the number and dynamics of factors contained in the personal mental structure, factors that determine the ability to self-regulate experience and behavior.
≻ The dependence of the development potential on the complexity of the mental structure and its dynamisms results, according to Dąbrowski, from the fact that the driving force behind all changes are internal conflicts, requiring decisions that may be developmentally positive.
≻ The emergence of conflicts is of course the more likely the more complex and dynamic a person’s internal structure is.

⚃ Traditionally understood, integration is something functional, beneficial, desirable and – as a result – positive.
≻ Disintegration, on the other hand, perceived through the prism of association with the disintegration, or even the decay of certain wholes, is generally treated as a negative and non-functional process.
≻ The theory of positive disintegration undermines this stereotypical, unambiguous conceptualization of both categories.
≻ Both processes – integration and disintegration – can have both positive and negative effects.
≻ Therefore, their role and meaning cannot be categorized at the poles: favorable – unfavorable, good – bad.

⚃ The theory of positive disintegration distinguishes five levels of development: from primary integration, through three levels of disintegration, to secondary integration.
≻ The lowest level of primary integration is non-functional, both individually and socially.
≻ At this level, the integrity of the mental structure, its cohesiveness, is of little benefit.
≻ On the contrary, it can cause complacency – beautiful indifference.
≻ It inhibits the influence of the factors that dynamize the changes and encourage positive efforts.
≻ Disintegration processes are an opportunity to move beyond the stage of developmental deadlock.
≻ They loosen or break the cohesiveness of the primary – drive and impulsive – mental structure, its functions, ways of experiencing and acting.
≻ By breaking down and differentiating the personal structure, they cause crises and conflicts, and – as a result – create the need to deal with the disturbance of integrity.

⚃ As Dąbrowski uses the concepts of identity and personality in an inconsistent way, it is necessary to initially systematize his position on the issue of identity and personality.

⚃ The theory of positive disintegration assumes that every human being is a person.
≻ Personality and identity, on the other hand, are the result of such transformations of a person’s mental structure that lead him to achieve the highest of the five levels of development – the level of secondary integration.
≻ Although the author of the theory applies the concepts of identity and personality in relation to the previous levels, it is probably the result of the lack of terms differentiating qualitatively different characteristics of different developmental statuses.
≻ On the one hand, Dąbrowski sometimes talks about the lower levels of personality, or about having two personalities at the lowest level of disintegration.
≻ On the other hand, the author emphasizes in many places that the level of personality is tantamount to the level of secondary integration, and personality is the result of reaching this level.

⚃ Personality is a mental structure that forms at the highest level of personal development.
≻ Building a personality is related to the development of two essences in the psychological structure of a person, individual and social, which are conceptually synonymous with identity.
≻ Although essences and personality constitute a structural and functional whole, the stabilization of an essence precedes a complete transformation of psychic structure into personality.
≻ Therefore, in the light of the findings of the theory of positive disintegration, identity is a preliminary – and necessary – condition of personality.

⚃ Primitive integration is sometimes referred to by Dąbrowski as primitive integration.
≻ The mental structure of people at this level is developmentally the lowest.
≻ It is a coherent, impulsive and drive structure that mechanically regulates experience and behavior.
≻ At this level, mental functions are integrated, well organized, and unconscious.
≻ Their goal is direct satisfaction derived from meeting primitive, genetically conditioned needs.
≻ Since people on the level of primary integration do not have an internal mental environment developed or have only “faint seeds,” they are not exposed to contradictions and instability of drives, feelings and aspirations, and do not experience internal conflicts that could disturb the coherence of their mental structure.
≻ When encountering difficulties from external reality, the primordially integrated persons may display some form of disintegration.
≻ In general, however, these are weak and periodic disintegrations, which do not lead to changes in the mental structure.
≻ When the stress factor subsides, people return to their initial state, ie to the “primitive adaptation attitude” (Dąbrowski, 1979, p. 10).

⚃ People whose development has stopped at the level of primary integration are not able to reflect, evaluate, select or eliminate constitutional and environmental influences.
≻ They perceive reality in a narrow, one-sided way.
≻ Their experiences and behaviors are mechanically regulated by direct stimuli.
≻ They lack a fully developed time perspective – they do not understand the role played by the flow of time on the stage of constantly changing reality.
≻ Consequently, they cannot put themselves in the face of imagining their own death.
≻ A further consequence is insensitivity to the death and suffering of others.
≻ In describing the status of primitive integration, Dąbrowski emphasizes the inability to empathize and – more generally – a low level of emotionality.
≻ He also notices that the primitivism of emotional functions can go hand in hand with one-sided intellectual development.
≻ Mental and imaginative functions remain then an instrument for the realization of primary drive goals.

⚃ According to Dąbrowski, the status of primary integration is appropriate for a significant part of the population – for “the majority of the so-called average people” (Dąbrowski, 1989 b, p. 53).
≻ The development potential of people who are representatives of the so-called the statistical norm is small.
≻ In the case of people from among the “majority,” the chance to brighten the perspective of individual evolution lies in the unequal cohesiveness of their primary psychological structure and in the events of external reality that violate the integrity of this structure:
“The structure of an individual may be more or less prone to disintegration, therefore it may be stimulated by stresses and harsh experiences.
≻ These environmental factors that influence the tendency to disintegrate, thus determine the possibilities of active development …” (Dąbrowski, 1979, p. 10).

⚃ The theory of positive disintegration distinguishes four types of factors causing the first, i.e. the lowest, form of disintegration in people.
≻ Two of them are internal in nature and are related either to normative conflicts emerging in the course of the life cycle, or to individual psychophysical properties.
≻ The other two categories of factors are of an external nature.
≻ The first of them includes changes taking place in the life situation of a person, requiring them to develop new forms of adaptation.
≻ The second category of external factors includes such changes or events in the environment of the individual that cause strong injuries or trigger the disease process (cf. Kobierzycki, 1989, p. 46).
≻ One-level disintegration is thus caused by a broad class of phenomena.
≻ It can be a reaction to the death of a loved one, job loss or a car accident.
≻ It may appear: Kazimierz Dąbrowski’s theory of positive disintegration …

⚃ “… during development crises, eg in the periods of puberty and menopause, overcoming difficulties in an unfavorable external situation or under the influence of certain psychological and psychopathological factors, such as nervousness and psychoneurosis” (Dąbrowski, 1979, p. 12).

⚃ People characterized by one-level disintegration show strong ambivalence and ambitiousness which, by affecting their relations with the environment, may cause numerous external conflicts.
≻ They are passive in the face of cyclically changing internal states, fall into extreme moods (with the dominance of negative states – depression and sadness), toss between a sense of inferiority and a sense of superiority, and between feelings of harmony with the external environment and an attitude of rebellion and hostility towards the environment.
≻ Subject to conflicting drives and changing moods, they behave in an unstable and inconsistent manner.

⚃ One-level disintegration loosens, and in some cases even breaks, the mental structure.
≻ The processes of the simplest form of disintegration do not, however, encompass the entire personal psychological structure, but run on one level of it.
≻ Since single-level disintegration is dominated by automatic dynamisms, poorly or not at all unconscious and not subject to personal control, the processes of decomposition outweigh the processes of reconstruction.
≻ At the first level of disintegration, there is still no third factor.
≻ People lack an internal disposition center and autonomy that would allow them to consciously regulate the transformations of the internal structure.
≻ They also lack a clear and stable hierarchy of values that would set a developmental direction for the breakdown of the mental structure.
≻ For this reason, the end of one-level disintegration is most often regression, tantamount to reintegration at the original level.
≻ The consequence of the prolonged process of one-level disintegration may be severe mental disorders, especially psychoses and suicidal tendencies.

⚃ It happens that one-level disintegration takes forms similar to the initial stages of multi-level disintegration.
≻ If it is subject to gradual differentiation over a greater number of levels, then it should be treated as a preliminary stage of multi-level disintegration.
≻ Dąbrowski claims, however, that a significant part of the population is susceptible only to one-level disintegration.
≻ Most people’s mental structure is characterized by a strong integration of drives, low plasticity and emotional sensitivity, little ability to sublimate, and a narrow range of abilities.
≻ The evaluation processes are subordinated to external norms in the majority of cases, and the activities undertaken by people focus on meeting specific needs, often created by the cultural and social environment.
≻ Even when – under the influence of internal or external disintegrating factors – people who belong to the majority described by Dąbrowski undertake developmental challenges, their efforts are usually counterbalanced by a strong tendency to return here to the structure of primary integration and end in regression (Dąbrowski, 1964, p. 26; cf. Kobierzycki, 1989, p. 49).

⚃ Dąbrowski sometimes describes the multi-level spontaneous disintegration as impulsive and insufficiently organized.
≻ It differs from single-level disintegration in the degree of complication of the processes that characterize it.
≻ Complication is the result of breaking down mental structures and functions into individual levels, described by Dąbrowski as lower and higher.
≻ The personal internal structure becomes a hierarchical structure.
≻ Structures of different levels are in opposition to each other, there are clashes between their elements.
≻ As a result, people are subject to strong internal conflicts and crises, which dynamise the changes in the mental structure.

⚃ Conflicts and crises resulting from the difference in levels cause states of high mental tension.
≻ Mental stress, in turn, causes various forms of neurosis – depressive, anxious and obsessive, hysteria and psychasthenia.
≻ The appearance of their symptoms indicates:
“… slow activation of hierarchy mechanisms revealing channels upwards. There are strong tensions, dramatic and even tragic experiences, but there is considerable help in solving them precisely through the hierarchy of development. There are times of breakdowns, even suicides, periodic deterioration of the state of neuroses and psychoneuroses, crises on the road due to various forms of increased mental excitability, but at the same time mental resilience and the ability to solve many complicated problems increases” (Dąbrowski, 1989 b, pp. 54-55).

⚃ It should be noted here that Dąbrowski distinguishes between neuroses of a lower level and neuroses characteristic of higher developmental statuses.
≻ A phobia in response to external trauma is not the same as an existential fear phobia.
≻ The first appears in people who are disintegrated at one level and, in general, is associated with a regression to primary integration.
≻ The second type of phobia is the result of increased mental excitability, characteristic of multi-level disintegration.
≻ The appearance of its symptoms means the person enters the royal path of development.

⚃ The mental functioning of individuals on the level of multi-level spontaneous disintegration is varied and dynamic.
≻ In the mental structure, an autonomous third factor is formed and evolved, which gradually takes control over experience and behavior.
≻ People gain the ability to self-reflection and self-esteem.
≻ The developing emotionality of higher levels allows the discovery of a hierarchy of values and goals, which also gains importance in the regulation of feeling and action.
≻ The multi-level processes of loosening and breaking the mental structure are an expression of crossing the biological cycle, departing from the rectilinear dependence on development phases, freeing oneself from genetic and social determinants.
≻ At this stage, the anxiety experienced by individuals is described as existential, and crises and conflicts are often of a moral nature.
≻ Dąbrowski wrote on this topic:
“Attitudes of hesitation are replaced by a growing sense of what should be, as opposed to what is in one’s own personality structure. Internal conflicts are large and represent the hierarchical organization of emotional and intellectual life – what is against what should be” (Dąbrowski, 1989, p. 43).

⚃ As conflicts and crises are a symptom of entering a higher level of development, spontaneous multi-level disintegration is of fundamental importance for developmental transformations and is treated as an initial form of multi-level organized disintegration.
≻ The spontaneous multilevel structure does not yet have a degree of organization sufficient for integration on the secondary level and the formation of a personal identity and personality.
≻ However, the personality ideal that ruthlessly dynamizes further transformations is formed in it.

⚃ The specificity of multi-level organized disintegration can be inferred from its name.
≻ They distinguish themselves from the previous form of disintegration by a higher level of systematization.
≻ What characterizes people at this stage of development is a clearly formed autonomous factor and a highly developed hierarchy of values and goals.
≻ Therefore, people no longer experience such strong tensions and conflicts, they are characterized by:
“… quite a significant psychological calming, organization and systematization of development and a much higher share of reflective elements” (Dąbrowski, 1989 b, p. 55).

⚃ A man whose internal reality is organized in a multi-level disintegration is capable of self-reflection and self-assessment to the extent that allows him to purposefully transform his own mental structure and his attitude towards the environment.
≻ As development factors characteristic of the third level of disintegration, Dąbrowski lists: the third factor enabling conscious differentiation and choice, the dynamism of the subject-object in itself, the dynamism of a high level of empathy, the dynamism of intra-psychological transformation, self-awareness and self-control, and the dynamics of self-education and self-psychotherapy.

⚃ At the fifth level of development, the mental structure is reintegrated.
≻ This, of course, is not to return the structure to the state it was before its loosening or disintegration, but to organize it at a higher level.
≻ Secondary integration is: “… with the level of secondary harmonization after the individual goes through the phases of one-level and multi-level disintegration, through heavy internal and external experiences, through the phase of lowering dynamisms of lower and growth of higher dynamisms” (Dąbrowski, 1989b, p. 55).

⚃ Dąbrowski emphasizes, however, that: “Secondary integration can be realized in many ways; it may include: a return to the previous forms of integration in a more perfect form (I), a transition to a new form of integration, but with the same primitive elements of the structure without a higher hierarchy of values and goals (II), or a transition to a new structural form with a new, a higher hierarchy of values (III). The latter path is the most appropriate path for the mental development of the internal environment” (Dąbrowski, 1979, pp. 27-28).

⚃ Only at the level of secondary integration, and only in the case of its third variant, do people have a formed identity, and their psychological structure is a personality.
≻ The dominant development factors are then: the highest level of self-awareness and empathy available to the study, autonomy and authenticity, responsibility, shaping all major interests and talents, and the personality ideal.
≻ The most powerful dynamism, the main factor of further development is the personality ideal, built on the foundation of two essences – individual and social.
≻ Individual essence contains the most important interests and abilities of persons that, her lasting and unique bonds of friendship and love, and a conscious sense of identity with her own development history, with herself in the present and with self-projection into the future.
≻ The social essence, also known as common or universal, includes empathy, responsibility, autonomy, authenticity and a high degree of social awareness.
≻ Dąbrowski, I am writing: “These two essences constitute two closely related groups of basic personality traits, each of which is a sine qua non-condition for the existence and development of the other” (Dąbrowski, 1989 b, pp. 55-56).

⚃ The content of both essences is the foundation for a personality shaped by one’s ideal.
≻ The personality ideal and its essence constitute a functional whole, leading to the development in the mental structure of central individual and social qualities, which form into a set of permanent, individual-specific properties and functions.
≻ The personality characteristics created in this way are not subject to qualitative modifications in the course of their lives.
≻ On the other hand, the mental structure retains the possibility of quantitative changes and the ability to acquire less significant additional properties.
≻ After the formation of the personality, development mainly consists in confirming and improving its typical features and forms of activity.

⚃ Individuals who have reached the personality level have a stable hierarchy of values and goals governing their experience and behavior.
≻ They no longer feel normative internal conflicts, they do not hesitate between what is and what should be.
≻ They show a strong tendency to altruistic actions and are characterized by a high level of compassion, described by Dąbrowski as universal.
≻ Achieving secondary integration is therefore not only of individual importance.
≻ Since it can have considerable social consequences, striving for the level of personality has a moral dimension and, therefore, is treated postulatively by Dąbrowski.

⚃ In this context, let the final conclusion be the postulate of taking a closer look at the theory of positive disintegration and taking seriously both its entirety and the detailed findings it offers – including those relating to identity and personality.
≻ Despite the fact that Dąbrowski’s concept seems to go to extremes – moving from idealism, or even romanticism, to a very pessimistic assessment of the possibility of the realization of personal potential by the majority of people, perhaps it is worth considering again.
≻ Again, because there was a time when the theoretical and practical importance of theory was reflected in publications and conference debates.
≻ Many of its claims have made personality psychology a dead end.
≻ The theory of positive disintegration could provide a new (old?) Impulse to research and analyze the issues of identity and personality

⚃ Above from google translate, Tylikowska, A. (2000) Teoria dezintegracji pozytywnej Kazimierza Dąbrowskiego. Trud rozwoju ku tożsamości i osobowości. [The theory of positive disintegration by Kazimierz Dąbrowski: The effort of development towards identity and personality.] In: Gałdowa, A. (Ed.). Tożsamość człowieka. [Human identity] (pp. 231-258). Kraków: Wydawnictwo UJ. Website.

⚁ 3.12 Biography.

A Personal Context.

⚂ In 2007 I was pleased to provide a biography of Kazimierz Dąbrowski for Sal Mendaglio’s book on Dąbrowski (Mendaglio, 2008, Tillier, 2008).
≻ I also incorporate the comprehensive biographies of Dąbrowski published by Tadeusz Kobierzycki in 2000 and translated by Anna Przybylek as well as his 2010 update.
≻ This webpage update also integrates information from (Skrzyniarz, 2019).

⚂ Dąbrowski had a profound effect on my life.
≻ I was just beginning my master’s program in Edmonton when one of his colleagues, Marlene Rankel, picked me out of a crowd and said “I have a book for you to read and someone for you to meet.”
≻ Reading the book (Dąbrowski, 1972) gave me a unique perspective and insight into my personality and life history that I had never had before and I couldn't wait to meet him.
≻ I certainly wasn't disappointed, and it was my privilege to be his student and later, to receive his unpublished papers.

⚂ Over the years that I knew him, I developed a tremendous appreciation for many aspects of Dr. Dąbrowski, but two particularly stand out.
≻ First, in my life experience, he was a unique human being.
≻ He had a tremendous energy about him, an animation, a twinkle in his eye, and yet he also had a tremendous sense of calm about him.
≻ He was extremely gracious and one of the most humble people I've ever met.
≻ Above all, Dąbrowski had a tremendous sense of compassion and an ability to look you in the eye and deeply connect with you – I recall an occasion I was asking him about my anxiety and he put his hand on my shoulder and said, “ah yes, but this is not so negative.”
≻ You couldn't help but feel better after just sitting beside him.

⚂ My second appreciation was academic.
≻ Dąbrowski, a truly Renaissance man, had an astounding command of world cultures, the arts, philosophy, medicine, neurology and, of course, psychiatry and psychology.
≻ The list of people Dąbrowski mentored under or worked with is literally a Who’s Who of psychiatry and psychology, for example, Błachowski, Mazurkiewicz, Bovet, Piaget, Claparède, Stekel, Janet, Mayer, Mowrer and Maslow.
≻ While many of these people had a major effect on Dąbrowski, his theory stands as a complete and unique system of thought.
≻ The more one tries to dissect it, the more its comprehensiveness and integration become obvious.
≻ My appreciation for his body of work has grown over the years as I have come to know it more intimately.

⚂ There is no question that Dąbrowski left a tremendous legacy, both in terms of his family and in the theory he gave us.

⚂ In reflecting back on Dąbrowski, it seems so obvious that he was a human being who lived his theory: he strove to meet his own high standards and acted as an exemplar by action – whatever the peril, you could sense he always chose the higher path in his life.

Skrzyniarz.

⚂ Kazimierz Dąbrowski’s Lublin teachers, during the difficult times of the First World War and the Polish statehood being built in new conditions, instilled a love of literature and art, history and philosophy in him, and fascinated him with the biographies of great artists.
≻ This, in turn, became an impulse for Dąbrowski to work out a theory of positive disintegration, the thought that ‘the passion of life and development,’ despite the hardships and turmoil of everyday existence, should be an incentive to discover the path of authentic development in accordance with the specific message he left in a poem:

To storm up, to meditate in the whirlwind,
To separate, to tear through, to wander out of oneself
Ethereally, astrally, spiritually,
But to be the same, the same
Though higher, though new.

⚂ The significance of the biographies of outstanding creators of culture that became known during Polish studies in Lublin was already recognised by Bohdan Urbankowski, who wrote that it is in them that ‘private’ sources of the theory of positive disintegration should be sought.
≻ After examining 200 biographies of poets, philosophers and creators of social life (Lincoln, Gandhi, Piłsudski), Dąbrowski observed that 194 of them (i.e. 97%) were considered nervous, conflicting and even mentally unstable in their surroundings.
≻ ‘People with increased emotional excitability included both Pascal, weeping under the cross, and Nezval […], Poe and Słowacki and, among the philosophers, Nietzsche showed excitability of imagination; Leonardo and Michelangelo showed hyperactivity of intellect expressed in (‘obsessive’) thirst for knowledge and throwing themselves into many fields at once.’

⚂ Dąbrowski also had his own, internally torn life; after all, scientific and artistic work is a derivative of the artist’s personal experience, and he somehow illustrated the main assumption of the theory of positive disintegration he had worked out.
≻ Włodzimierz Świątek wrote that Dąbrowski ‘is a mysterious and tragic figure. He is a man whose life – full of love and goodness – was plagued by terrible ‘fate of evil,’ some cruel force that constantly brings agonising suffering and pain.’
≻ At the same time, he had an insatiable passion for development, visible already at school, when as a junior high school pupil he was running for lectures at a university less than a kilometre away, studied – in three specific development periods imposing such thematic blocks – Polish studies at the Catholic University of Lublin, continuing with philosophy, pedagogy, psychology and sociology at the University of Poznań and medicine at the University of Warsaw, then broadening his acquired knowledge at other universities in the country and around the world.

⚂ The analysis of his own biography, as well as the interest in the biographies of outstanding creators aroused in the Lublin period, ‘showed him that the hardship of existence that man struggles with interferes with his existence and functioning,’ and at the same time is the ‘driving force’ of human development.
≻ The world spares no man chaos, changes, wars and cultural and social revolutions.
≻ These stressors lead to destabilisation of the world of values, emotions and social situation, causing changes in our development.
≻ Dąbrowski believed that man’s task is to face these negative feelings and to learn to cope with difficult situations.

⚂ In 1978, in the journal ‘Problemy Studenckiego Ruchu Naukowego,’ [Dąbrowski] wrote: ‘scientific work and creativity […] must always be associated with moral and social values, with service to the state and the nation. […] acquiring knowledge should also become a process of acquiring personality, i.e. the highest human structure.’

Skrzyniarz, (2019).

⚃ Kazimierz Dąbrowski was born September 1, 1902 in Klarów, on Lubelszczyzna, Poland.
≻ Dąbrowski’s father, Antoni, was an “administrator of the estate in Klarów in the Lublin region belonging to Count Antoni Roztworowski” (Skrzyniarz, 2019, p. 197).
≻ Kazimierz was one of four children; he had an older brother and a younger brother and sister.

⚃ Reflecting on the early death of his sister, Dąbrowski said, “I learned about death very early in my life.
≻ Death appeared to me not just something threatening and incomprehensible, but as something that one must experience emotionally and cognitively at a close range.
≻ When I was six my little three-year-old sister died of meningitis” (Dąbrowski, 1975, p. 233).

⚃ One of the most significant early influences on Dąbrowski was his first hand experience of World War I.
≻ He spoke of being particularly affected by observing the aftermath of a major battle that occurred near his hometown when he was about 12.

⚃ “I remember a battle during the First World War.
≻ When the exchange of artillery fire ended, fighting went on with cold steel. When the battle was over, I saw several hundred young soldiers lying dead, their lives cut in a cruel and senseless manner. I witnessed masses of Jewish people being herded toward ghettos. On the way the weak, the invalid, the sick were killed ruthlessly. And then, many times, I myself and my close family and friends have been in the immediate danger of death. The juxtaposition of inhuman forces and inhuman humans with those who were sensitive, capable of sacrifice, courageous, gave a vivid panorama of a scale of values from the lowest to the highest” (Dąbrowski, 1975, p. 233).

⚃ As Dąbrowski walked among the dead soldiers laying in his former playfield, he related how he was fascinated by the various positions their bodies took and the different expressions frozen on their faces.
≻ Some seemed calm and peaceful while others appeared horrified and frightened (K. Dąbrowski, personal communication, 1977).

⚃ The details of Dąbrowski’s education are both rich and complicated.
≻ I have taken a timeline approach to presenting this material.

⚃ Dąbrowski was a very prolific scholar; he had 20 publications between 1929 and 1940

⚃ 1916-1921 Stefan Batory Private School for Boys (the so-called “Lublin School”) [Male College Szkola Lubelska] among his teachers was Roman Witold Ingarden, phenomenologist, (1893-1970) (Kobierzycki, 2000, p. 276; Kobierzycki, 2010).

⚃ 1920: “Dąbrowski watched as classmates of his year, among others Józef Chałasiński belonging to the team named after Zawisza Czarny, joined the army and went to the front. Over 150 armed pupils stood up to fight, many served in non-frontal formations; 32 pupils were killed in the fronts of the First War and during the invasion. Dąbrowski was active in the underground organisations of Polish youth – Związek Młodzieży Polskiej ‘Przyszłość’ i Związek Młodzieży Polskiej ‘Zet’” (Skrzyniarz, 2019, p. 198).

⚃ “In many of Dąbrowski’s biographies there is repeated information that at school ‘he was learning with a constant sense of loss of time and delay in learning […] He wanted to make up for it to compensate emotionally and morally for the death of his older brother and younger sister. First, he wants to become a journalist and a writer’” (Skrzyniarz, 2019, p. 199).

⚃ “In, more or less this period of time, Dąbrowski made his first poetic and dramatic attempts. Referring to his childhood dreams of journalism, he got involved in the creation and publication of a magazine titled ‘W Przyszłość: Miesięcznik Młodzieży Szkół Średnich’, issued by Samopomoc Szkół Średnich Lubelskich. He became its editor-in-chief. The editorial staff, which included seven pupils, including Chałasiński, was tasked with taking care of the artistic and substantive level of the magazine” (Skrzyniarz, 2019, p. 199).

⚃ 1921 After classes at school, he [Dąbrowski] ran to lectures by Wiktor Hahn [historian of literature and bibliographer] (1871-1959) at Katolicki University Lubelski, Faculty of Polish Studies [later, KUL, The Catholic University of Lublin] as a ‘listener’ [‘free student’] (Skrzyniarz, 2019, p. 202).
≻ [Hahn] infected his pupil Kazimierz Dąbrowski with his love for Słowacki (Skrzyniarz, 2019, p. 202).
≻ Dąbrowski attended philosophy and psychology lectures from Father Jacek Woroniecki (1878-1949), and Henryk Jakubanis (1878-1949) among others (Kobierzycki, 2000, p. 276).
≻ “Woroniecki’s views aroused the interest of the young junior high school student and later student, and their echoes are found in Dąbrowski’s views on the Third Factor in the theory of positive disintegration, taking part in the self-improvement of man” (Skrzyniarz, 2019, pp. 203-204).

⚃ By the time of the matura secondary school leaving examination, Kazimierz Dąbrowski passed the exams included in the programme for the first and second year of studies.
≻ In 1923, he passed the matura secondary school leaving examination and the university authorities granted him the completion of the first two years of study (Skrzyniarz, 2019, p. 204).

⚃ 1923 (October) his his Polish studies continued at the University of Lublin (Kobierzycki, 2000, p. 276).

⚃ 1924 (April), moved to Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, as a second year philosophy student, where his brother Stanisław studied under Florian Znaniecki (Skrzyniarz, 2019, p. 204).
≻ Attended Polish studies lectures from Stefan Błachowski, psychologist, (1889-1962), Stefan Szuman, psychologist, (1889-1972), Florian Znaniecki, sociologist, (1882-1958), Czeslaw Znamierowski, philosopher, (1888-1967), and Adam Żółtowski, philosopher, (1881-1958), (Kobierzycki, 2000, p. 276).

⚃ 1926-1927 Dąbrowski entered Warsaw University, Faculty of Medicine where Jan Mazurkiewicz had a profound influence on him (Kobierzycki, 2000).

⚃ 1928, Given a scholarship from the Polish National Culture Foundation to study psychology and education at the School of Educational Sciences, Jean-Jacques Rousseau Institute in Geneva created by the neurologist and child psychologist Édouard Claparède (1873-1940).
≻ Claparède recruited philosopher-psychologist Jean Piaget (1896-1980) and the psychologist-educator Pierre Bovet (1878-1965) All three instructed Dąbrowski (Aronson, 1964; Kobierzycki, 2000).

⚃ 1929 Received a medical degree from the Forensic Medicine Department of the University of Geneva, completing a doctoral thesis on suicide, entitled Les Conditions Psycholopique du Suicide [The Psychological Conditions of Suicide] (Dombrowski, 1929). Note 1. Done under the supervision of Francis Naville (1883-1968) [who later became one of the independent experts investigating the Katyń Massacre]
≻ Dąbrowski uses the term overexcitability [surexcitabilité] (Kobierzycki, 2010).
≻≻ “Par contre les hommes hypersensitifs, hyperindividualistes, surexcilables, ressentent la mort bieu plus profon Nightdément, même lorsque cela ne les touche pas personnellement” (p. 62).
≻≻ “Les théories de l'école psychoanalytique jettent sans doute une lumière sur certains phénomènes anormaux de la vie sexuelle, lesquels, de même que d'aulres tares psychiques ou organiques, diminuent la force de résistance d'un individu et, peuvent, en conséquence, amener des troubles psychiques, tels que surexcitabilité, pessimisme, désir du suicide. Mais rechercher les causes profondes du suicide dans la sexualité, nous paraît le plus souvent exagéré sinon vain” (p. 11).

⚃ 1929 Also received a Certificat de Pedagogie [Teaching Certificate], from the University of Geneva, Faculty of Letters (Dąbrowski’s curriculum vitae).

⚃ 1930 Continued postgraduate studies at the University of Geneva and the Institute of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
≻ After completing these studies in 1931, Dąbrowski was offered an assistant position at the Institute but decided to return to Poland instead (Kobierzycki, 2000).

⚃ 1931 Upon his return to Poland, Dąbrowski completed a study he had begun with Błachowski, and nostrificated a doctor’s philosophy degree in psychology from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Dąbrowski’s thesis (Dąbrowski, 1934a) focused on self-mutilation and was supervised by Błachowski [Title: Psychological Basis of Self-Mutilation ] (Dąbrowski, 1934b).
≻ Later published in English (Dąbrowski, 1937) (Kobierzycki, 2000).

⚃ 1931 Dąbrowski nostrificated a second medical diploma from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań (Kobierzycki, 2000; Kobierzycki, 2010).

⚃ 1931 Organized a clinic for neurotic, mentally disabled, and children in moral danger (Kobierzycki, 2000, p. 276).

⚃ 1931 Dąbrowski studied child psychiatry in Paris under George Heuyer (1884-1977) (Aronson, 1964).

⚃ 1931-1933 Dąbrowski was a lecturer in Child Psychology and Psychopathology, at the Free Polish University, Warsaw. [ref?]

⚃ 1932 Established Child Neuropsychiatry Ward in the Public Hospital situated at Zaota Street [Warsaw] (Kobierzycki, 2000, p. 276).

⚃ 1932-1934 Dąbrowski received a two year research scholarship from the National Culture Fund to study in Vienna and Paris.
≻ In Vienna he did a “short training analysis” in the Institute of Active Psychoanalysis under fellow Pole, Wilhelm Stekel (1868-1940) and was given a letter of qualification from Stekel (dated 1934) Note 2.
≻ Kobierzycki (2000, p. 276) said: “This diploma authorised him to conduct psychoanalysis practice.”

⚃ In Vienna, Dąbrowski “met most of the great psychoanalytic personalities, including Sigmund Freud” (Tillier, 2008).

⚃ 1932-1934 Did postgraduate studies in neurology under Otto Mahrburg (1874-1948), developmental psychology studies under Karl Ludwig Bühler (1879-1963) and his wife, Charlotte Bühler (1893-1974) and internal-neurological studies under W. Schesinger (?) (Kobierzycki, 2010).

⚃ 1933 By invitation of the Rockefeller Foundation, Dąbrowski and his first wife went to Harvard University to study at the School of Public Health. Note 3.

⚃ 1933-1934 Dąbrowski studied under C. Macfie Campbell, Director of the Boston Psychopathic Hospital and William Healy, first Director of the Judge Baker Foundation (Aronson, 1964).

⚃ 1933-1934 Dąbrowski also participated in a practice at the clinic of Adolf Mayer (1866-1950) at Johns Hopkins University (Kobierzycki, 2000).

⚃ 1934 Trainee-ship at the Neuropsychiatric Clinic for Children under the guidance of G. Hoyer (Kobierzycki, 2010).

⚃ 1934 In Paris he took up a practice in clinical psychiatry and psychopathology at the Institute of Mental Prophylaxis and Applied Psychology under the guidance of Jean-Maurice Lahy (1872-1943) and the French neurologist and psychologist, Pierre Janet (1859-1947) (Kobierzycki, 2010).

⚃ 1934 Presented a thesis on psychopathology and qualified as assistant professor under the guidance of Claparède and worked with him as privat-dozent [a licensed teacher or lecturer] in child psychiatry at the University of Geneva (Kobierzycki, 2000, p. 276).

⚃ 1934 Returned to Poland and created the Polish League of Mental Hygiene and became its secretary.

⚃ 1934 With the financial help of the Rockefeller Foundation and the goodwill of the Ministry of Social Welfare, Dąbrowski organized the Institute of Mental Hygiene and became its leader (Kobierzycki, 2000).

⚃ 1935 Published a major work, Nervousness of Children and Youth (Dąbrowski, 1935).

⚃ By 1938, branches of the Institute of Mental Hygiene had been set up in Cieszyn, Gdynia, Kraków, Lublin, aóda, Stanislawów and Wilno (Kobierzycki, 2000).

⚃ 1935-1948 Except for the interruption of the German occupation, Dąbrowski was the director of the Institute (Aronson, 1964).

⚃ 1937-1938 theological studies at the University of Warsaw.
≻ His studies were interrupted after the University’s authorities realized who their student was and asked him to give classes in mental hygiene (Kobierzycki, 2010).

⚃ 1938 Published Typy Wzmozonej Pobudliwości Psychicznej. [Types of Increased Psychic Excitability].

⚃ 1939 Bought Zagórze-Dwór estate in order to create “a sanatorium for neurotic children” (Kobierzycki, 2000, p. 277).

⚃ 1939 The Germans closed the Institute of Mental Hygiene in Warsaw and Dąbrowski shifted his operations to the Zagórze estate.

⚃ A “secret” School of Mental Hygiene and Child Psychiatry was founded at Zagórze, which later was transformed into the College of Mental Hygiene in Warsaw (Kobierzycki, 2010). Note 4.

⚃ The details of Dąbrowski’s life during the war years are sketchy, but there is no doubt that they were very difficult.
≻ Aronson indicated that “of the 400 Polish psychiatrists practicing before the war... only thirty-eight survived” (Aronson, 1964, p. x).

⚃ 1941 Dąbrowski’s younger brother was killed, while his older brother was captured in the Warsaw Insurrection and sent to a concentration camp (Kobierzycki, 2000).

⚃ 1942 Founded College of Mental Hygiene and Applied Psychology, that obtained academic rights granted by Polish underground authorities (Kobierzycki, 2000).

⚃ 1942 Dąbrowski was arrested by Gestapo and put into jail together with Maria Żebrowska (1900-1978) “in Aleja Szucha and Pawiak in Warsaw and later sent to Montelupich in Kraków.
≻ After a few month investigation Dąbrowski was set free and came back to his work to Zagórze” (Kobierzycki, 2000, p. 277).

⚃ Dąbrowski’s second wife, Eugenia (whom he married in 1940, his first wife having passed away of tuberculosis), was apparently instrumental in negotiating his eventual release from German Police.
≻ Dąbrowski was arrested more than once, perhaps as many as three or four times, and his release was obtained by the payment of money to the prison officials: he was able to avoid the concentration camps (Kawczak, personal communication, 2002).

⚃ Contrary to Kaminski-Battaglia (2002), Dąbrowski was never held in Auschwitz.

⚃ Kobierzycki (2000) said that Dąbrowski had planned to use the Institute as a Hospital for insurgents’ in preparation for a Warsaw uprising but that these plans were never realized.

⚃ Dąbrowski said that during his wartime experiences he saw examples of both the lowest possible inhuman behavior as well as acts of the highest human character.

⚃ After the war, Dąbrowski returned to Warsaw and resumed his former position of director of the Institute of Mental Hygiene, it now being transformed into the High School of Mental Hygiene, in Warsaw, and by 1948 there were 12 branches and 20 dispensaries (Kobierzycki, 2000).

⚃ Dąbrowski obtained his specialty as a psychiatrist in June 1948 under Adrian Demianowski (1887-1959) at Wroclaw University (Kobierzycki, 2000) [Habilitation in Psychiatry, University of Wroclaw (under Breslau) (Dąbrowski’s curriculum vitae) Note 5.

⚃ Also, in 1948, he founded and became president of the Polish Society of Mental Hygiene.

⚃ In December 1948, Dąbrowski received a six-month Ford Foundation Fellowship and he returned to the United States where he studied mental health, neuropsychiatry and child psychiatry in New York and at Harvard (Kobierzycki, 2000).

⚃ 1949 (?) A two month stay at the Centre National de Recherches Scientifiques in the H. Roussel Hospital and attended L. Michaux’s lectures at the Child Psychiatry Clinic (Kobierzycki, 2010).

⚃ In April 1949, the Polish Government, under Stalin, closed the Institute of Mental Hygiene, confiscated the Zagórze-Dwór estate and declared Dąbrowski a persona non grata.
≻ He and Eugenia attempted to flee.
≻ Dąbrowski and his wife arranged passage and, on the night before they left, they went to their best friends to say goodbye.
≻ Their friends (a couple) turned them in to the authorities in exchange for political immunity.
≻ This was a devastating betrayal to Dąbrowski (Peter Roland, personal communication, 1990).

⚃ The Polish communists imprisoned Dąbrowski in 1950 for some eighteen months (and Eugenia was briefly imprisoned as well).
≻ When released, Dąbrowski’s activities were kept under strict control and he was assigned work in Kobierzyn and later at the Rabka resort, as a tuberculosis physician.

⚃ In 1956 he was declared “rehabilitated” and was again allowed to teach, securing an associate professorship of at the Catholic Academy of Theology in Warsaw (Kobierzycki, 2000).
≻ Dąbrowski was able to reinvigorate the Polish Society of Mental Hygiene and in 1962 became its chairman but he was unable to reestablish the Institute and High School of Mental Hygiene (Kobierzycki, 2000).

⚃ In 1962, Dąbrowski was allowed to travel and with the support of the Ford Foundation he travelled to the United States, France and was able to attend several International psychiatry congresses (e.g., in Spain, France, England, etc.).
≻ On his return to Poland, Dąbrowski gave lectures at the Catholic University in Lublin Note 6.

⚃ In the early 1960’s, Jason Aronson, editor of the International Journal of Psychiatry, traveled behind the iron curtain to invite psychiatrists to submit articles for his journal and he met Dąbrowski in Poland.

⚃ In 1964, Dąbrowski and Aronson spent two months in New York translating material Note 7. that became Dąbrowski’s first major book in English, Positive Disintegration, (Dąbrowski, 1964b).
≻ Aronson edited and wrote an introduction to the book.
≻ Aronson subsequently published the first chapters of this book in his journal (Aronson, 1966; Dąbrowski, 1966).

⚃ Dąbrowski also visited Canada in 1964 at the invitation of the Ministry of Health in Québec and accepted a position at a hospital in Montréal.
≻ While in Montréal he met Andrew Kawczak, a Polish lawyer and subsequently a philosopher, who became an important collaborator.

⚃ In 1965, Dąbrowski secured a visiting professorship at the University of Alberta and moved his family to Edmonton.
≻ He also held a visiting professorship at Université Laval (Laval University), Quebec City and gave lectures at Feminina University Note 8. in Lima Peru where Sister Alvarez Calderon taught Dąbrowski’s theory.

⚃ Kobierzycki (2000, p. 278) indicates that in 1966 “Dąbrowski and his family took advantage of Wanda Rohr Foundation de Connecticut and met with Abraham Maslow, who was interested in his theory.” Kobierzycki (2000) also says that shortly before his death in 1970, Maslow had arranged an invitation for Dąbrowski to become leader of the Institute of Psychology at the University of Cincinnati Note 9.

⚃ Maslow and Dąbrowski had lengthy discussions and became friends and correspondents.
≻ While Maslow’s (1970) conceptualization of self-actualization does emphasize developing autonomy, Dąbrowski rejected it because it lacked a multilevel perspective and did not differentiate between lower versus higher aspects of the self; Maslow’s self was to be actualized as is, with an acceptance of its shortcomings, even its lower level animalistic impulses.

⚃ In spite of their differences, Maslow endorsed Dąbrowski’s 1970 book, Mental Growth Through Positive Disintegration, saying:

⚄ [quote] I consider this to be one of the most important contributions to psychological and psychiatric theory in this whole decade. There is little question in my mind that this book will be read for another decade or two, and very widely. It digs very deep and comes up with extremely important conclusions that will certainly change the course of psychological theorizing and the practice of psychotherapy for some time to come. [end quote] (Maslow in Dąbrowski, 1972, back cover)

⚃ Dąbrowski’s second major English publication, Personality Shaping Through Positive Disintegration appeared in 1967 (Dąbrowski, 1967).
≻ An introduction to this book was written by American learning theorist O. Herbert Mowrer (1907-1982).

⚃ A core group of students formed in Edmonton and several went on to become Dąbrowski’s coauthors including Dexter Amend, Michael M. Piechowski and Marlene Rankel.
≻ In 1969, a series of applications where made to the Canada Council to support scientifically based research on the theory and fund these efforts.

⚃ Dąbrowski spent his last years teaching, writing and dividing his time between Alberta, Quebec and Poland.
≻ Several Polish and English publications were the result of this last flurry of activity, including, Mental Growth Though Positive Disintegration (Dąbrowski, 1970), Psychoneurosis is Not an Illness (Dąbrowski, 1972), Dynamics of Concepts (Dąbrowski, 1973) and the two volume Multilevelness of Emotional and Instinctive Functions (Dąbrowski, 1996; Dąbrowski & Piechowski, 1996).
≻ Dąbrowski also maintained a hectic lecture schedule, speaking extensively in both Canada and the United States.

⚃ English was Dąbrowski’s last learned language.
≻ The majority of his Polish publications remain untranslated, however, many of his twenty or so major Polish books were also published in French and Spanish (in addition to his English works, referenced here).
≻ There were major Dąbrowski centers in Spain and in Lima Peru where, in 1970, Dąbrowski attended the “Congress of the World Federation of Psychic [Mental] Health” (Kobierzycki, 2000).

⚃ During the 1970s, Dąbrowski regularly visited Poland.
≻ He still maintained his involvement in the Polish Society of Mental Hygiene. “In 1975 he purchased the estate in Aleksandrów bordering to Zagórze and erected buildings with a view to create a scientific and dispensary centre there” (Kobierzycki, 2000, p. 279).

⚃ In 1979, Dąbrowski had a serious heart attack in Edmonton, but was resolute that he would not die on what he considered foreign soil.
≻ Kazimierz Dąbrowski returned to Poland and died in Warsaw on November 26, 1980.

⚃ At his request, Dąbrowski was buried beside his friend and fellow physician, Piotr Radlo (the grave on the right), in the forest near the Institute at Zagórze.
≻ His wife and two daughters survived him.

⚃ As I understand it, after Dąbrowski death, the countryside home was ransacked.
≻ After his wife passed away, the apartment and most of its contents in Warsaw were also lost to the family and taken over by the government.

⚃ A memorial conference was held for Dr. Dąbrowski in Edmonton in November of 1982.
≻ By then, I was a psychologist working with the Government; however, over the years, a priority of mine was to keep Dąbrowski’s theory alive by maintaining an archive containing his original writings, and collections of publications related to his theory.
≻ With the development of the world wide web, I established and continue to maintain the Dąbrowski website (Tillier, 2008).
≻ My efforts at disseminating his legacy have included making his original writings available to interested parties and participating in, and hosting conferences on the theory.
≻ Some of Dąbrowski’s original writings are held at the Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa.

⚃ One area where Dąbrowski’s theory is alive and well is in the study of giftedness and gifted education.
≻ In Dąbrowski’s (1967, 1972) earlier Polish research, he conducted comprehensive examinations and testing of children who displayed superior abilities.
≻ He found that every child displayed characteristics suggestive of positive disintegration, including developmental potential and psychoneurosis.
≻ Piechowski (1979, 1991) subsequently introduced Dąbrowski’s concept of overexcitability, a component of developmental potential, to the field of gifted education and over the past several decades, many research projects and papers have addressed the topic (see Mendaglio & Tillier, 2006).

⚃ Over the years, many Dąbrowski related workshops have been held as well as a number of major conferences. See: Congresses on the TPD.

⚃ An important part of continuing Dąbrowski’s legacy has been maintaining friendships with former students of Dąbrowski, who have contributed to the dissemination of the theory in their own ways.

⚃ Kazimierz Dąbrowski was a member of a number of scientific societies, among others: the French Society Medico-Psychologique (Paris), affiliate of the Royal Medical Society (London), Executive Council of World Federation of Mental Health (Geneva), the Psychologists Association of Alberta (Edmonton), the Corporation des Psychologues (Quebec) and the Polish Psychiatric Association (Warsaw) (Kobierzycki, 2000).

⚃ Dąbrowski was the founder and editor of the Biuletyn Instytutu Higieny Psychicznej, Warsaw, 1937-1939, 1946-1949, 1958-1965.
≻ He was also the editor of a scientific and popular series in the field of mental health published by the Instytut Higieny Psychicznej, Warsaw, 1937-1939, 1946-1949.

⚃ Dąbrowski’s publications number in the hundreds in Polish including some 20 major books.
≻ Translations into French, Spanish, German and English have been made of many of these books.

⚃ Aronson, J. (1964). Introduction. In K. Dąbrowski, Positive disintegration (pp. ix-xxviii). Boston: Little Brown and Co.

⚃ Aronson, J. (1966). Discussion of K. Dąbrowski: the theory of positive disintegration, International Journal of Psychiatry, 2, 244-247.

⚃ Dąbrowski, K. (1934a). Podstawy psychologiczne samodraczenia (automutylacji) [Psychological Basis of Self-Mutilation], Warszawa: Lekarskie Towarzystwo Wydawnicze Przyszlola,

⚃ Dąbrowski, K. (1934b). Behawioryzm i kierunki pokrewne w psychologii. [Behaviourism and related schools in psychology.] Warsaw: Lekarz Polski.

⚃ Dąbrowski, K. (1935). Nerwowosc dzieci i mlodziez [The nervousness of children and youth.] Warsaw: Nasza Ksiegarnia.

⚃ Dąbrowski, Casimir (1937). Psychological basis of self mutilation. (W. Thau, Trans.) Genetic Psychology Monographs, 19, 1-104.

⚃ Dąbrowski, K. (1938). Typy wzmozonej pobudliwoaci psychicznej. [Types of increased psychic excitability]. Biuletyn Instytutu Higieny Psychicznej, 1(1), 12-19.

⚃ Dąbrowski, K. (1964a). 0 dezyntegracji pozytywnej. [About positive disintegration.] Warszawa: Panstwowy Zaklady Wydawnictw Lekarskich.

⚃ Dąbrowski, K. (1964b). Positive disintegration. Boston: Little Brown and Co. (Edited and with an introduction by Jason Aronson).

⚃ Dąbrowski, K. (1966). The theory of positive disintegration. International Journal of Psychiatry, 2 (2), 229-244.

⚃ Dąbrowski, K. (1967). Personality-shaping through positive disintegration. Boston: Little Brown & Co.

⚃ Dąbrowski, K., (with Kawczak, A., & Piechowski, M. M.). (1970). Mental growth through positive disintegration. London: Gryf Publications.

⚃ Dąbrowski, K. (1972). Psychoneurosis is not an illness. London: Gryf Publications.

⚃ Dąbrowski, K., (with Kawczak, A., & Sochanska, J.). (1973). The dynamics of concepts. London: Gryf Publications.

⚃ Dąbrowski, K. (1975). Foreword. In M. M. Piechowski, A theoretical and empirical approach to the study of development. Genetic Psychology Monographs, 92, (pp. 233-237).

⚃ Dąbrowski, K. (1996). Multilevelness of emotional and instinctive functions. Part 1: Theory and description of levels of behavior. Lublin, Poland: Towarzystwo Naukowe Katolickiego Uniwersytetu Lubelskiego.

⚃ Dąbrowski, K. & Piechowski, M. M. (with the assistance of Marlene Rankel and Dexter R. Amend). (1996). Multilevelness of emotional and instinctive functions. Part 2: Types and Levels of Development. Lublin, Poland: Towarzystwo Naukowe Katolickiego Uniwersytetu Lubelskiego.

⚃ Dombrowski, K. (1929). Les conditions psychologique du suicide. [The Psychological Conditions of Suicide] Geneva: Imprimerie du Commerce.

⚃ Kobierzycki, T. (2000). Summaries: Profesor dr. Kazimierz Dąbrowski (1902-1980). (A. Przybyłek, Trans.). Heksis: Scientific-didactic quarterly devoted to problems of person, health, creativity and spirituality, 1-3 (22-24), 276-279.

⚃ Kobierzycki, T. (2010). Biography of Kazimierz Dąbrowski. Retrieved from https://www.heksis.com/

⚃ Maslow, A. H. (1970). Motivation and personality. (2nd ed.). New York: Harper and Row.

⚃ Mendaglio, S. (Ed.). (2008). Dąbrowski’s theory of positive disintegration. Scottsdale AZ: Great Potential Press, Inc.

⚃ Mendaglio, S., & Tillier, W. (2006) Dąbrowski’s Theory of Positive Disintegration and Giftedness: Overexcitability Research Findings. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 30, p. 68-87.

⚃ Piechowski, M. M. (1979). Developmental potential. In N. Colangelo and R. T. Zaffrann (Eds.), New voices in counseling the gifted (pp. 25-57). Dubuque, IA: Kendall Hunt.

⚃ Piechowski, M. M. (1991). Emotional development and emotional giftedness. In N. Colangelo and G. Davis (Eds.) Handbook of gifted education (pp. 285-306). Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

⚃ Kobierzycki, T. (2000). Summaries: Profesor dr. Kazimierz Dąbrowski (1902-1980). (A. Przybylek, Trans.). Heksis: Scientific-didactic quarterly devoted to problems of person, health, creativity and spirituality, 1-3 (22-24), 276-279.

⚃ Skrzyniarz, R. (2019). Lublin Teachers, Lecturers and Masters of Kazimierz Dąbrowski. Discovering the Biography. Polska Myśl Pedagogiczna, 5, 195-207. https://doi.org/10.4467/24504564PMP.19.010.11105

⚃ Tillier, W. (2008). Kazimierz Dąbrowski: The man. In S. Mendaglio (Ed.). Dąbrowski’s Theory of Positive Disintegration (pp. 3-11). Scottsdale AZ: Great Potential Press, Inc.

⚃ Tillier, W. Dąbrowski Webpage. Retrieved February 22, 2008 from: https://www.positivedisintegration.com/

⚃ 1. There is some confusion over this degree, Aronson (1964, p. x) indicates it was in “experimental psychology” and was granted by the University of Poznan in 1932.

⚃ 2. Dąbrowski’s curriculum vita indicates “Certificate of psychoanalytic studies, Vienna (under Wilhelm Stekel), 1931. Aronson (1964) indicates this was in 1930. Here is the document (dated 1934).

⚃ 3. Dąbrowski’s curriculum vita indicates a “Certificate of school of public health,” Harvard University, 1934, however, Kaminski Battaglia (2002, p. 67) indicates that Dąbrowski did not meet the criteria and no certificate was given.

⚃ 4. It is not clear how this Institute was able to operate during the Nazi occupation of Germany.

⚃ 5. Several versions of Dąbrowski’s curriculum vitae are available to us as he submitted it as part of his supporting documentation to several Canada Council grant applications; 1970, 1971-1972, 1972-1975 and 1973-1975.

⚃ 6. Dąbrowski’s curriculum vita indicates: “Professorship in Experimental Psychology, Academy of Catholic Theology, Warsaw, 1956” and “Professorship in the Polish Academy of Sciences since 1958.”

⚃ 9. Dąbrowski also declined an job offer arranged by Maslow because he refused to renounce his Polish citizenship, a requirement for American citizenship (a stipulation of the offers).

⚀ 3 A guide to self-education:
The Theory of Positive Disintegration.

William Tillier
2024

Key Menu:

Part One

Part Two

Expanded Menu:

⚁ 3.1 Introduction to This Guide.

⚁ 3.2 Introduction to TPD. [Section 3.2 is reproduced from tab 1]

⚁ 3.3 50 Key Points.

⚁ 3.4 Major Constructs.

⚁ 3.5 Unique Terms.

⚁ 3.6 Dąbrowski’s Glossary.

⚁ 3.7 Tillier’s Initial Presentation of the Theory.

⚁ 3.8 Tillier’s Advanced Presentation of the Theory.

⚁ 3.11 An Excellent Overview Article by Tylikowska, (2000).

⚁ 3.12 Biography.

⚀ 3 A guide to self-education: The Theory of Positive Disintegration.

William Tillier2024

Key Menu:

Part One

Part Two

Expanded Menu:

⚁ 3.1 Introduction to This Guide.

⚁ 3.2 Introduction to TPD. [Section 3.2 is reproduced from tab 1]

⚁ 3.3 50 Key Points.

⚁ 3.4 Major Constructs.

⚁ 3.5 Unique Terms.

⚁ 3.6 Dąbrowski’s Glossary.

⚁ 3.7 Tillier’s Initial Presentation of the Theory.

⚁ 3.8 Tillier’s Advanced Presentation of the Theory.

⚁ 3.11 An Excellent Overview Article by Tylikowska, (2000).

⚁ 3.12 Biography.

⚀ 3 A guide to self-education:
The Theory of Positive Disintegration.

William Tillier
2024