ABSTRACT
This chapter explores principles for an organismic approach, which provides a unifying framework to conceptualize development and integrate diverse findings from the field. In contrast to a mechanistic approach, an organismic approach gives primacy to the whole over its parts and processes over products. Moreover, rather than seeing development as caused by external inputs, it explores how the process is directed by the organism itself within the vicissitudes of the environment. Methodologically this involves following phenomena in a state of development from their undifferentiated beginnings towards a structured form, closely entangled with the environment all the while. This chapter begins by pointing out the dominance of mechanistic tendencies in contemporary psychology and how an organismic approach views phenomena differently. It proceeds to reconstruct the roots of organismic thinking in historical context and outline its key features for an understanding of psychological and cultural development. Lastly, it describes a method for triggering and analyzing development taking place on levels.
