Self-organization in the clinical practice of psychotherapists

Self-organization is a multi-faceted concept, generally indicating the ability of a system to change its dynamics without the need for an instructing external agent. In such a broad sense, very different processes like embryo development (Wennekamp et al. 2013), the onset of self-sustained cyclic chemical processes (Mikhailov and Hess 1996), protein folding (Gerstman and Chapagain 2005), and Bénard rolls (Karsenti 2008) are self-organizing processes. Bénard rolls are probably the simplest (and well-studied) example of self-organization (Karsenti 2008; Prigogine and Nicolis 1967): they are longitudinal cylinders of liquid molecules that form precise and stable dynamic patterns when a fluid is traversed by a flow of energy (e.g. boiling water). Ilya Prigogine (1967) stressed that their existence stems from the need to dissipate a flow of energy traversing the system (we can imagine a fluid inside a pan heated from below). Molecules at the bottom of the pan have a higher thermal motion; this generates a lighter layer of liquid than that at the top, leading the system to break its symmetry (molecules in different locations within the container behave differently). At a critical temperature (depending on the nature of fluid and the geometry of the pan), molecules start to behave collectively, all moving up together on one side of the roll and downwards on the other (Karsenti 2008). A long-range correlation emerges: the whole pattern of rolls in the container stems from the collective properties of the molecules in the fluid and the geometry of the container and it cannot be predicted from the properties of any of its parts (Karsenti 2008).