Self-organization in the clinical practice of psychotherapists

Abstract

Self-organization is a multi-faceted concept, generally indicating the ability of a system to change its dynamics without the need for an instructing external agent. In such a broad sense, very different processes like embryo development (Wennekamp et al. 2013), the onset of self-sustained cyclic chemical processes (Mikhailov and Hess 1996), protein folding (Gerstman and Chapagain 2005), and Benard rolls (Karsenti 2008) are self-organizing processes. Benard rolls are probably the simplest (and well-studied) example of self-organization (Karsenti 2008; Prigogine and Nicolis 1967): they are longitudinal cylinders of liquid molecules that form precise and stable dynamic patterns when a fluid is traversed by a flow of energy (e.g. boiling water).