1st Edition

The Transformational Self Attachment and the End of the Adolescent Phase

By Harold K. Bendicsen Copyright 2013
    264 Pages
    by Routledge

    264 Pages
    by Routledge

    This book is an attempt to add to the theoretical discussion regarding the nature of the intrapsychic and interpersonal transformational changes associated with the transition from adolescence to young adulthood. The author introduces the concept of the 'Transformational Self', a phase-specific dimension of the neural self, and demonstrates the enhanced explanatory power that it offers in attempting to examine the sometimes dramatic shifting self-states accompanying the metamorphosis from adolescence into young adulthood. A necessary precondition for the emergence of the Transformational Self is the maturation of the pre-frontal cortex and its enhanced neural connectivity. With this biological achievement, executive functioning, a strengthened ego/self capacity, can arrive at a mature level of external stabilization and internal, intrapsychic structuralization. Conceptualized in self-referencing metaphor and expressed and reinforced through long term potentiation (repeated firing patterns of synchronous neural assemblies), the late adolescent reconfigured self-state becomes a true developmental potentiality evidenced by the use of different self (and other) representations.

    Preface , Introduction , Context and Problem Formulation , Introductory considerations , Theoretical considerations , The Nature of the Transformational Self , Introduction to Part II , The transformational self in adolescence , After Notes to Chapters Two and Three , Classification of transformational selves , Locating the transformational self within the larger self system , After Notes to Chapter Five , Contributions to the Understanding of the Transformational Self , Introduction to Part III , The contribution from the linguistic theory of metaphor , The contribution from attachment theory , The contribution from neurobiology , After Notes to Chapter Eight , The contribution from non-linear dynamic systems theory , The contribution from cognition , The Appearance of the Transformational Self in Two Cases , Two psychotherapies , Synopsis , The transformational self: gateway to young adulthood , Comparing and contrasting ego psychology with self-psychology , Modern and postmodern philosophical paradigms in clinical social work from a developmental model perspective

    Biography

    Harold K Bendicsen