ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with a review of the pioneering contributions regarding how best to apply chaos theory to psychoanalysis. Chaos theory contributes a supremely useful terminology for and a way of thinking about development, learning, and psychopathology. In a nutshell, psychoanalysis invites learning by means of its effect on the hierarchical modes of the mind so that new levels of complexity are added to the ways these modes are actually utilized. Scholars of mathematics, neuroscience, psychology, and psychoanalysis have been experimenting with chaos theory in order to establish better models of developmental change, learning, and psychopathology. The core idea of chaos theory can be demonstrated most simply by reference to a Feigenbaum diagram, which represents the graphing of an equation, called the quadratic iterator. The subject of growth is important to this discussion because chaos theory neatly describes developmental patterns, whether the growth of trees, snowflakes, brains or minds.
