ABSTRACT
Strange attractors exist in a mysterious place called phase space. Phase space is a mathematical term that allows physicists to visualize many numbers simultaneously. Although the concept of duality is inexorably embedded in the definition, strange attractors are not simply bidimensional. Particularly in the realm of human relationships, even the most basic two-person relationship includes the two as a couple, each as individual, and each as a product of his or her own family and social experience. Strange attractors began their existence as mathematical terms that helped explain why smoke from a cigarette finds a patterned swirl as it curls up from the first puff and why flooding water finds its point of ebb and flow. In terms of providing a broad application of strange attractor dynamics to family functioning and pattern change, clinicians could begin by examining where the information or energy in the family has collapsed.
