Dynamical Systems Therapy (DST): Theory and Practical Applications

Abstract

Despite bringing about a revolution in our comprehension of the world, reductionist science has constructed a mechanistic picture of the Universe with no place for emergent complexity, free will, or mental phenomena (Murphy, 2007). The Cartesian split between the material and the mental continues to impact our models of human nature and psychopathology, nowhere more evident than in the widely divergent languages of neuroscience and psychodynamics. The informational language of complexity theory stands as a holistic approach with the power to reunify the domain of the mind (first-person subjective perspective) with the “objective” domain of affective, cognitive, and social neuroscience. The author’s earlier paper (Shapiro, 2014) used the complexity paradigm to construct a comprehensive psychodynamic formulation that transcends the brain/mind dichotomy by examining the patient’s adaptive landscape, where both subjective experiences and observational data are charted as malleable attractor/repellor states. The therapeutic implications of this complexity approach were operationalized as Dynamical System Therapy (DST). The DST model is built on a strong evolutionary foundation, incorporating qualitative emergence in the phylogeny and ontogeny of the brain/mind system, as well as systemic complexity in the patient-therapist interaction. It allows us to revise the classical assumptions of human nature, psychopathology, and therapeutic process in the light of recent research on non-linear Complex Adaptive Systems that incorporate both biological and psychological self-organizing processes. It is the aim of this paper to provide theoretical and practical review of the DST model in clinical work, ranging from individual to group therapy to psychodynamic training and supervision.

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Notes on contributors

Yakov Shapiro

Yakov Shapiro, M.D., is an Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy Supervisor at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada; and Co-Director, Psychiatric Group Outpatient Program, Grey Nuns Hospital, Edmonton.