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Nothing in nature is random… A thing appears random only through the incompleteness of our knowledge.
Our job is not to penetrate…the essence of things, the meaning of which we …[cannot perfectly] know anyway, but rather to develop concepts which allow us to talk in a productive way about phenomena in nature.
This essay considers how best to apply chaos theory to psychoanalysis. The increasing number of publications on this challenging subject requires some exegesis that is understandable by individuals not trained specifically in mathematics.
Levenson (1994) is quite skeptical that anything useful for psychoanalysis will ever come from chaos theory. However, others strongly disagree and see a great potential for chaos theory to benefit our field. In the United States, Galatzer Levy (1978, 1995, 1997) and Moran (1991) describe the utility of chaos theory in explicating development, quantitative to qualitative shifts, and the importance of recognizing fractal-like signatures in psychoanalytic clinical material. Levin (1996a, 1997a, 1997b) believes chaos theory offers a unique vocabulary and perspective which might further our understanding of learning, development, and psychopathology. Forrest (1991a, 1991b, 1995, 1996a, 1996b) explores the boundary of