Alterity and the Theory of Positive Disintegration

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Alterity and the Theory of Positive Disintegration

• An Organizing Template

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Purpose

• Once again, TPD provides a beautiful organizing
  framework for a complex psychological state.
• Many definitions, all pulled together in a
  developmental sequence.

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Definitions of Alterity

• State or quality of being other
• Alterity not always different
• Not always disparaged or silenced
• Not always marginal
• Alterity is part of symbolic reality

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Some Quotations

• Autistic states
• Radical Alterity
• Fusion-Identification
• Transcendent Alterity (Paradoxical Alterity)

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Psychology and Alterity

• MahlerAutism-Symbiosis-Rapprochement-Separation
• Permeable-self-other (Object Relations)
• Interpersonal Construction Negotiated Cognition
• Collective Unconscious
• Phenomenological self, other(experienced
  self/other)
• Positivist self, other(Measurable qualities only)
• Self and other in the field of language(linguistic
  constructions)

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Philosophy and Alterity

• Descartes
• Hegel
• Levinas
• Pragmatists
• Merleau-Ponty
• Sartre

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Religion and Alterity

• Mystical Core versus Container
• Tat twam asi
• Cloud of Unknowing
• Atman
• Pleroma

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Social Science and Alterity

• Taussig
• Kerttula
• Joseph Carrier--De los Otros
• The Social Management of Alterity
• Marcuse-the Hamburg School
• McLuhan

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Art and Alterity

• Kafka
• Nabokov Invitation to an Execution
• Double Life of Veronique
• The Others
• Movie with Words
• Fat Girl
• Samuel Beckett

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Theory of Positive Disintegration and Alterity
an Integration

• Correspondence of different forms of alterity
  with levels of TPD
• Pre differentiation-Differentiation-Post
  Differentiation
• Diachronic and Synchronic process
• Alterity and Emptiness

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Clinical Examples

• INDIVIDUAL
• Other as self, oneself as an other
• Introjection/Projective Identification
• Connection with the Collective Unconscious
• Acceptance of Alterity-Separation Individuation
• Transcendent Alterity Synchronicity
• Trauma as alteric

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GROUP

• Roles and alterity
• Work and alterity
• Fusion and identification
• Differentiation in families

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A Measure of Alterity

• 29 items
• N109
• Factor Analysis
• Factor 1 Disconnection---Connection
• Cronbach alpha .78
• Correlates with Emptiness
• Factor 2 People Unknowable---People Knowable

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Conclusion

• Alterity complex
• Many forms of Alterity
• Again TPD works as a useful organizer of this
  concept, correlating different forms with
  different levels.

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Correspondences between forms of Alterity and TPD
SELF
OTHER
I II III IV
V
TPD LEVELS
Synchronic and Diachronic
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Self and Other A Developmental Sequence
Paradoxical Alterity
Individuality

No self No Other
Symbiosis
Self Self
Self Other Other
Other
S
O
Transcendent Alterity
Intimations of Connection
TPD Levels I II III
IV V