ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that the evidence about convergers and divergers was compatible with reasonably simply psychodynamic model. Convergers may differ from divergers for hereditary reasons, or because of experiences occurring at any point between birth and mid-adolescence. The crucial influences may lie within the home, at school, among their friends, or in the fastnesses of their own minds. C. Bereiter and M. B. Freedman record the familiar pattern for the arts specialist: concern with people; sociability; greater sensitivity to their own emotions, and hence the impression, of greater emotional instability; liberality of attitude; and so on. The diverger’s mother is the one who binds her child to her by disregarding his practical, logical accomplishments and by holding out a promise of love which she may or may not be able to fulfil. The child grows up addicted to people: he sees them as the source of his security, and fears impersonal logic as guillotine which could sever him from them.
