Biological reactivity to psychological stressors comprises a complex, integrated, and highly conserved repertoire of central neural and peripheral neuroendocrine responses designed to prepare the organism for challenge or threat. Developmental experience plays a role, along with heritable, polygenic variation, in calibrating the response dynamics of these systems, with early adversity biasing their combined effects toward a profile of heightened or prolonged reactivity. Conventional views of such high reactivity suggest that it is an atavistic and pathogenic legacy of an evolutionary past in which threats to survival were more prevalent and severe. Recent evidence, however, indicates that (a) stress reactivity is not a unitary process, but rather incorporates counterregulatory circuits serving to modify or temper physiological arousal, and (b) the effects of high reactivity phenotypes on psychiatric and biomedical outcomes are bivalent, rather than univalent, in character, exerting both risk-augmenting and risk-protective effects in a context-dependent manner. These observations suggest that heightened stress reactivity may reflect, not simply exaggerated arousal under challenge, but rather an increased biological sensitivity to context, with potential for negative health effects under conditions of adversity and positive effects under conditions of support and protection. From an evolutionary perspective, the developmental plasticity of the stress response systems, along with their structured, context-dependent effects, suggests that these systems may constitute conditional adaptations: evolved psychobiological mechanisms that monitor specific features of childhood environments as a basis for calibrating the development of stress response systems to adaptively match those environments. Taken together, these theoretical perspectives generate a novel hypothesis: that there is a curvilinear, U-shaped relation between early exposures to adversity and the development of stress-reactive profiles, with high reactivity phenotypes disproportionately emerging within both highly stressful and highly protected early social environments.

https://cals.arizona.edu/fcs/sites/cals.arizona.edu.fcs/files/D&P%20Boyce%20&%20Ellis%202005.pdf

Biological sensitivity to context: I. An evolutionary–developmental theory of the origins and functions of stress reactivity

Asymmetric neural control systems in human self-regulation

The article presents a history of general systems theory and discusses several of its various aspects. According to the author, the notion of general systems theory first stemmed from the pre-Socra...

The History and Status of General Systems Theory

Although theories of early social development emphasize the advantage of mother-infant rhythmic coupling and bidirectional coordination, empirical demonstrations remain sparse. We therefore test the hypothesis that vocal rhythm coordination at age 4 months predicts attachment and cognition at age 12 months. Partner and site novelty were studied by recording mother-infant, stranger-infant, and mother-stranger face-to-face interactions in both home and laboratory sites for 88 4-month-old infants, for a total of 410 recordings. An automated dialogic coding scheme, appropriate to the nonperiodic rhythms of our data, implemented a systems concept of every action as jointly produced by both partners. Adult-infant coordination at age 4 months indeed predicted both outcomes at age 12 months, but midrange degree of mother-infant and stranger-infant coordination was optimal for attachment (Strange Situation), whereas high ("tight") stranger-infant coordination in the lab was optimal for cognition (Bayley Scales). Thus, high coordination can index more or less optimal outcomes, as a function of outcome measure, partner, and site. Bidirectional coordination patterns were salient in both attachment and cognition predictions. Comparison of mother-infant and stranger-infant interactions was particularly informative, suggesting the dynamics of infants' early differentiation from mothers. Stranger and infant showed different patterns of vocal rhythm activity level, were more bidirectional, accounted for 8 times more variance in Bayley scores, predicted attachment just as well as mother and infant, and revealed more varied contingency structures and a wider range of attachment outcomes. To explain why vocal timing measures at age 4 months predict outcomes at age 12 months, our dialogue model was construed as containing procedures for regulating the pragmatics of proto-conversation. The timing patterns of the 4-month-olds were seen as procedural or performance knowledge, and as precursors of various kinesic patterns in the outcomes of 12-month-olds. Thus, our work further defines a fundamental dyadic timing matrix--a system that guides the trajectory of relatedness, informing all relational theories of development.

Rhythms of Dialogue in Infancy: Coordinated Timing in Development.

http://www.chialvo.net/Curso/UBACurso/DIA9/Papers/Stamreview2012.pdf

The organization of physiological brain networks.

It is often disconcerting to learn that a discovery that one has made has been around a long time, and thus is no discovery at all; but this should not deter one from sharing his good fortune. Ludwig von Bertalanffy has been writing about a general systems theory since at least 1945 but it did not become a component of psychiatric study until introduced by Dr. William Gray in 1965 at an APA panel. It has not, however, managed to sustain much over-all enthusiasm in psychiatry except for a small group of investigators. The present volume by Bertalanffy, as its title suggests, covers the foundations, the development, and the applications of this theory. This reviewer can only suggest and urge that every psychiatrist read it. Once that has been done, I would next urge you to read it again. The book consists of ten chapters

General System Theory: Foundations, Development, Applications.

A separate diagnostic category of acute narcissistic injuries is proposed. These disorders are defined as injuries of a psychologic nature to one's self or self-esteem. The category is differentiated from that of acute depressive reactions although the clinical phenomena are similar and the distinction is mainly in order to propose a psychotherapeutic approach. This in turn is based on the psychotherapist being used as a narcissistic object or a functional unit of the self to facilitate the healing of the injury. Case reports are included to illustrate the process. Some relevant literature is reviewed and suggestions for a continued utilization of new insights into the psychology of the self obtained from psychoanalytic investigations is urged.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/PSYCH/articlepdf/490903/archpsyc_28_5_016.pdf

Psychotherapy of narcissistic injuries

This small volume is a collection of essays written by Mr. Haley over the last ten or so years. The earliest is entitled "The Art of Psychoanalysis" which was hilarious when I read it ten years ago and remains humorous to this day. Others are on "The Power Tactics of Jesus Christ," "The Amiable Hippie," "Whither Family Therapy?," "The Art of Being a Failure as a Therapist," and "The Art of Being Schizophrenic." Each of the essays is sprinkled with humor and a touch of anger. As the titles indicate, the efforts tend to be literary or "works of art" as opposed to being scientific presentations. As such they can readily be accepted as light reading though there does seem to be a secret plea for considering the deeper implications of the works. Without any attempt to analyze the authors motives or intentions he is

The Power Tactics of Jesus Christ and Other Essays.

The readiness for termination of psychotherapy is considered from the perspective of the importance of the narcissistic features. After a guiding theoretical orientation, several case vignettes are presented that illustrate outstanding changes in the patient's self seen during the terminal phase of psychotherapy. These include the re-experiencing of narcissistic injury, a different response to interpretation, and a substantial alteration in the reaction to disappointment.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/PSYCH/articlepdf/491367/archpsyc_32_6_001.pdf

Narcissism and the readiness for psychotherapy termination.

A series of adolescent patients complained of a feeling of being unable to adequately love and thereby miss out on something. The thesis is that these patients were indeed missing something, but it more properly was to be considered a missing bit of psychic structure; other people were used primarily as specific psychological structures rather than loved for their own qualities. Treatment of these narcissistic individuals focuses on delineation of their narcissism in a nonjudgmental way utilizing the transference to demonstrate the use of the therapist as a regulator of self-esteem. Psychotherapy is effective with the acceptance of a relative paucity of object love and a necessary use of others. It is suggested that more narcissistic problems may be seen currently because periods of rapid social change do not allow for phase-specific nontraumatic disillusionment in overidealized parents, and old aspects of grandiose behavior thereby persist.

Arnold Goldberg

Papers

General System Theory: Foundations, Development, Applications.

Psychotherapy of narcissistic injuries

The Power Tactics of Jesus Christ and Other Essays.

Narcissism and the readiness for psychotherapy termination.

On the incapacity to love. A psychotherapeutic approach to the problem in adolescence.