Terry Marks-Tarlow, Creativity Research Center of Southern California, Fullerton, CA

Abstract: Sciences of chaos and complexity theory reveal new universalities in nature applicable to psychology. This article proposes that the psychic structure long known as the "self is best conceptualized as an open, complex, dynamical system. With chaos at the core of development, healthy selves self-organize and evolve to the edge of chaos, where they are capable of flexible reorganization in response to unpredictable social and environmental contingencies. The boundaries of the self are dynamically fluid and ever changing, mediated by complex, recursive, feedback loops existing simultaneously at physical, social, cultural, and historical levels. Because of multiplicity and multistability, wherein multiple descriptions and states are simultaneously possible, it is suggested that the self be considered dynamically as a processstructure that is fractally organized.

Keywords: self, dynamical system, process-structure, self-organization, edge of chaos