ABSTRACT
This chapter includes a brief synchronic and diachronic (developmental) survey of a sample of the internal subsystems that play roles in the etiology of cases brought to therapy and in the therapeutic process. Each subsystem can be explicated, formalized and systematized in the languages of information processing, cybernetics and semiotics. The concept developmental profile refers to the question of which stage of development a person has reached on each of the subsystems relative to age norms in the population he or she belongs to. Development in each of the internal subsystems moves along developmental lines. Development on each line advances through the following dimensions: growth; internalization; complexity; coordination and integration; differentiation; depth of processing; concreteness vs. abstraction; constancy and stability; objectivity; and monitoring and control. The subsystems surveyed in this chapter and their development along these dimensions are: perception and language of the cognitive and psychomotor subsystems; the subsystem of emotions; and the personality and social development subsystems – self and body images and concepts, object relations, self and body boundaries and attachment.
