ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the etiology of dysfunction from a diachronic perspective. The emergence of psychopathological symptoms and other problems presented to therapy is explained by the concept dysfunctional attempts to restore the lost simplicity of a set of information processing programs. In periods of change and crisis, programs lose their simplicity and are unable to mobilize corrective feedback. The people involved, who are in deep emotional distress, are unable to adapt themselves to the new reality by changing the previous programs or developing new ones. They make dysfunctional attempts to regain simplicity by keeping or restoring only some of the four subcomponents of simplicity. Their partially simple programs are therefore bugged. The bugs prevent the programs from mobilizing corrective feedback. Dysfunctional deviation-amplifying feed-forward processes are activated, spreading and infecting other programs in other subsystems like a cancer. Various psychopathological syndromes and symptoms are generated in this way.
