This presentation was delivered live over zoom on December 8th 2021 at our annual academic symposium. Jack was a third-year student at Ikon at the time of recording. This talk is the result of his personal research.
"Every decade or so, research in clinical psychology forces shifts in how we think about the mind and organise treatment in psychotherapy. In the last decade, several eminent theorists have pointed to Sydney Blatt’s Dynamic Structural model of dialectic personality development as just such a shift, potentially serving as the foundation for the future paradigm of psychopathology. For Blatt, personality development is understood simply as the integration of the capacity for relatedness and self-definition. Here, establishing meaningful, mutually satisfying, reciprocal interpersonal relationships as well as establishing a differentiated, integrated, realistic, essentially positive sense of self are the most fundamental processes in personality development, from infancy to old age. Importantly, these twin processes are engaged in a constant dialectic; a mature sense of self cannot develop without satisfying interpersonal relationships, just as mature, reciprocal, interpersonal relationships cannot exist without a coherent sense of identity and relatively clear self-definition. This talk will illustrate Blatt’s dialectic model of development as it manifests in early infant development, as well as extending into the realm of biology and physics, demonstrating this dialectic process from the perspective of systems theory and ecology."
- Jack Dale, Bachelor of Counselling and Psychotherapy