Introduction

THIS ISSUE OF PSYCHOANALYTIC DIALOGUES IS ASSEMBLED AS A TRIBUTE to Emanuel Ghent, a beloved analyst and teacher who died on March 31, 2003. Mannie was one of the founders of the Relational Track at the NYU Postdoctoral Program, and he was a training analyst at the William Alanson White Institute. He had a long-standing interest in the frontiers of psychoanalytic thinking and devoted much attention to dynamic systems theory. He studied the work of Gerald Edelman and wrote an important paper (Ghent, 2002) amalgamating Edelman's theories, dynamic systems models, and current psychoanalytic concepts. It is therefore appropriate that a section of this issue includes three essays by thinkers in the realm of dynamic systems.

Readers of this section have a treat in store. The three papers in it give a clear and readable introduction to what many feel is an intimidating conceptual paradigm. The need for such a paradigm has emerged in recent decades as it has become clear that we have not had an intellectual instrument to help us understand the complex biological and psychological world in which we live. Dynamic systems theory is one that helps to fill in this deficit in our understanding.

For those with little previous exposure to systems models, the papers will provide an interesting and friendly introduction. For those who are more familiar with this thinking, each paper will clarify and embellish what they know. And each provides different examples of the beauty of the models. Craig Piers presents the scientific and visual patterns of chaos and fractals, Esther Thelen shows the basic applications to motor learning and physical movements, and Stephen Seligman provides applications to clinical experience and psychological development.