Systems models in development and psychoanalysis: The case of vocal rhythm coordination and attachment

✍ Scribed by Beatrice Beebe; Joseph Jaffe; Frank Lachmann; Stanley Feldstein; Cynthia Crown; Michael Jasnow

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2000
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 132 KB
• Volume: 21
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0163-9641
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1097-0355(200001/04)21:1/2<99::aid-imhj11>3.0.co;2-#

✦ Synopsis

Our work owes a great intellectual debt to Louis Sander. Of his many publications, we were most influenced by the 1977 statement of his systems approach, where he suggested that ". . . organism, surround, and exchanges-between can be represented, or discussed, as a system . . . exchanges between interacting components in a system, through mutual modification, reach a harmonious coordination consistent with the conditions for enduring existence of each". (p. 138). A fundamental aspect of Sander's systems approach was his emphasis on timing as central to coordination: ". . . the domain of time and the temporal organization of events . . . provide the framework for . . . unscrambling the difficulties in conceptualizing the interface between two ongoing organizations" (p. 137). These two concepts, the systems approach, and the central importance of time in the coordination between two people, form the basis of work we present here.

Systems models of dyadic communication are potentially of great value to developmental psychology and psychoanalysis. They can provide organizing principles for interactive models of the dyad, of development, and of mind. This article illustrates systems concepts through