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The author founded this journal in 1968 and was President of the World Association for Dynamic Psychiatry from its establishment in 1980 until his death in September 1995. In this article Ammon outlines the basic elements of his theory of constructive aggression and social energy as determinants of identity formation. He demonstrates the potential for healthy assimilation and adaptation that his holistic, analytically based model offers when applied to the dilemma of divergent clinical theories and practices.
Reflecting the influence of an important mentor, Karl Menninger, Ammon argues effectively for the advantages of eclecticism as opposed to its dangers. He draws on philosophers of science and on his own research in group dynamics to demonstrate the potential for positive growth that exists if a system is open rather than closed and if a person is encouraged to develop within the context of a group rather than be ignored or isolated.
Ammon's research in group dynamics has shown that in the course of a constructive group process each participant is at some moment perceived as the central figure in the group. This occurs by virtue of the individual's successful effort to integrate and coordinate the interests and needs of the group as a whole. In the initial phase of a group therapy the therapy fills this role. The fact that a group process can create or release each group member's capacities to become the group leader reflects the potential that exists for positive growth through interpersonal experience and for the creation of something new within both the group and the individual. This is what Ammon calls “constructive integration.” In calling for the integration of diverse clinical practices and theoretical models, he is calling for an open, continuing, highly flexible process in which the definition of “truth” from a clinical point of view is never static but always in flux and open to re-evaluation.