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#Post#: 225--------------------------------------------------
Dabrowski's Theory of Positive Disintegration
By: forbitals Date: August 9, 2022, 5:41 pm
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Dabrowski's Theory of Positive Disintegration
Sal Mendalio editor.
Great Potential Press, Scotsdale AZ 2008.
Now GPP is a major Gifted Movement Publisher, and Dabrowski is
very highly thought of in the Gifted Movement.
He was a Polish Psychiatry, tortured by the first the Nazi's and
then by the Communists.
He came to Canada and to the US and he had work groups and
students, and many of these wrote the chapters in this book. I
recognize some of the names.
Michael M. Piechowski, Linda Kreger Silverman, Nicholas
Colangelo.
Now, what exactly is Positive Disintegration? I have long wanted
to know. I will have to read it to find out.
#Post#: 226--------------------------------------------------
Re: Dabrowski's Theory of Positive Disintegration
By: forbitals Date: August 9, 2022, 5:44 pm
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So Michael M. Piechowski was the one who really promoted
Dabrowski in the Gifted Movement.
Theory of Positive Disintegration, in Dabrowski's theory,
personality is not a fixed, universal attribute; personality
must be shaped -- created -- by an individual to reflect his or
her own unique character. Positive disintegration, the process
by which personality is achieved, is a twofold process of: (1)
disintegration of a primitive mental organization aimed at
gratifying biological needs and mindlessly conforming to
societal norms, and (2) re-integration at a higher level of
functioning, in which the individual transcends biological
determinism and becomes autonomous. Personality, shaped by
positive disintegration, develops primarily as a result of the
action of developmental potential, which is a constitutional
endowment that includes overexcitability--a high level of
reactivity of the central nervous system, and
dynamisms--autonomous inner forces, assumed to be normally
distributed in the population.
Dabrowski to an interest in Rudolph Steiner's Anthroposophy and
in Alice Baily (Theosophy UK). Parasychology and Eastern
studies,and he practiced meditation daily.
He saw emotions as directing forces of development.
Got into areas covered by DSM., things he came to call
Psychoneurosis. And he said, Psychoneurosis is not an illness.
These serve the transition from lower to higher development by
generating the disintegration process.
Reading about Dabrowski here and knowning that his first major
English language book was in 1964, I can see that being trained
as a psychiatrist what Dabrowski was doing was serving as an
anti-psychiatrist, in the same manner and Frantz Fanon, R. D.
Laing, and D. G. Cooper.
#Post#: 227--------------------------------------------------
Re: Dabrowski's Theory of Positive Disintegration
By: forbitals Date: August 9, 2022, 7:09 pm
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So Deleuze and Guattari are clear that clinical mental illness
is created in the mental health system, its the drugs and its
the talk therapy.
But they do say that there is one genuine mental illness,
Neuroticism, and it is incurable and it is fatal.
Well, Dabrowski decimates the conventional notions of mental
health. He describes that as psychoneurosis.
His idea of Positive Disintegration is something which is
happening on multiple levels simultaneously. So there is always
intense flux.
And it is always the disintegration of biologically determined
and social conformity drive structures. So there is this
biologically determined mental development.
Then there is this autonomous mental development, which is what
we want. Transends the demands of biology and social norms.
Then there is also this one-sided mental development which is
anti-social. It is egocentric and manifests in crime and
paranoia.
Dabrowski takes apart the views that Mental Health is the
absence of mental disorders or is a state of psychological
integration.
Dabrowski's ideas revolve around his concept of
Overexcitability.
He writes in 1970:
"
[Overexcitability] first provokes conflicts, disappointments,
suffering in familily life, in school, in professional life--in
short, it leads to conflicts with the external environment.
Overexcitability also provokes inner conflicts as well as the
means by which these convlicts can be overcome. Second,
overexcitability precipitates psychoneurotic processes, and,
third, conflicts and psychoneurotic processes become the
dominant factor in accelerated development.
"
Dabrowski called a lot of this "positive infantilism" or
"positive immaturity", and this is all associated with
creativity and accelerated development.
And so inner conflicts and frustrations are inherent in positive
disintegration. And so one with high developmental potential
will become more introspective, more aware of possible choices
and consequently, more conscious of different levels--higher and
lower--in his or her feelings, thoughts and behavior. In his or
her feelings, thoughts, and behavior. In these internally and
often externally tumultuous conditions, such an individual
"introduces into his life a new controlling factor, where higher
feelings [being to control] the lower forms of instinctual,
emotional and congnitive functions".
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