ABSTRACT
If a naturalistic interpretation is applied, an array of personal, behavioural and structural complexity in primary care impediments to well-being is exposed, leading to a dierent strategy for resolution. The contribution of the principles of complexity is to extend our ability to theorise about how, in practice, this process of deliberative speculation might express itself. The mathematics of chaos opened up new vistas for the quantitative sciences, in the last quarter of the twentieth century the principles of complexity were increasingly being applied in order to understand how large organisations operated and changed. The complexity in primary care analysis helps us understand why change imposed from outside a system is often unsuccessful. Doctors deploy not one but a whole range of ontological perspectives when they consult, drawing on a range of epistemological frameworks to populate their explanations. In general practice it is important not to let one perspective form the unique basis of the interaction.
