Complexity of the Self: A Developmental Approach to Psychopathology and Therapy

by Vittorio Guidano.

In this profound work, Vittorio Guidano expands upon his earlier seminal contributions on the application of cognitive and developmental principles to individuals struggling with various forms of psychopathology. Here, he fully develops the idea that individuals' experiences, both positive and negative, are powerfully influenced by their personal psychological organizations. Guidano illustrates how early developmental experiences and ongoing psychological processes may collude to perpetuate dysfunctional patterns and personal distress. The book contends that the deep structure or core organizing processes that constrain human psychological experience may be at the heart of successful intervention as well as the problems of resistance, relapse, and refractory behaviors. Guidano offers exciting ideas about how to conceptualize and facilitate change in the self system. The volume draws together many disparate themes from object relations theory, ego psychology, attachment theory, constructivist models of human cognition, and lifespan developmental psychology.
 

248 pages, Hardcover

First published May 9, 1987

Reviews

[Alex Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book. Guidano finds a way to present a structural account of a post-structural view of human psychological development. He uses systems theory in order to speculate on a way for human selfhood to develop through epistemological accounts of learning and contextualization.

This is as simple as a formal constraint that uses the expressed message in a contextualized emotional experience in order to gather messages about who one is in the world and how one should live. Guidano surpasses the propositional knowing of classical psychology and starts to abut the participatory mode of knowing for selfhood as a connection of interpersonal scripts for gaining wisdom and achieving management of emotional cues.

This book is not that hard to read but it is breathless in its magnitude. I appreciate Guidano's work immensely!