Living Systems, Evolving Consciousness, and the Emerging Person ─ A Selection of Papers from the Life Work of Louis Sander

This collection of previously published papers can be viewed as a story of the gradual emergence of an overarching idea through the course of a life’s work. The idea concerns the way emerging knowledge of developmental processes, biological systems, and therapeutic process can be integrated in terms of basic principles that govern the living system as an ongoing creative process – a process in which there is a continuing impetus, both energizing and motivational, that moves the living system toward an enhanced coherence in its engagement with its surround as it achieves an ever-increasing inclusiveness of complexity.

The papers have been selected in a roughly chronological order from a career of early developmental research within the background of psychoanalytic thinking. The biological underpinnings of psychoanalysis can be extended by systems thinking. Our notions of the evolution of consciousness can also be extended from this simple level of a neural machinery essential for adaptation and survival to the capacity for the awareness of one’s own inner state within the flow of one’s engagement with one’s surround. From this enrichment of inner experiencing through evolving self-awareness, the unique organization of the "person" emerges within the developmental process – from expectancies and emotions, to values, meaning, purpose, goals, and "direction". The title of the book has been chosen to capture this sequence. Further evolution of conscious organization will enable the human species to achieve the state of being "together-with" and yet "distinct-from" as the system as a whole, on a wider, more global level, gains increasing coherence as it complexity increases.

Hopefully, the implications of this idea will emerge in the reader’s thinking, as the chapters move from the level of adaptation to recognition.

Louis Sander, M.D., received his medical degree at the University of California Medical School, followed by three years in the USAAF Medical Corp (1943-46), then advancing from resident in psychiatry to Professor of Psychiatry and psychoanalyst and Boston University School of Medicine (1947-68), completing his professional career as Senior Scholar and Professor of Psychiatry at University of Colorado Medical School (1979-87). His early developmental research contributions stemmed from data collected in the 25 year Boston Longitudinal Study in Early Development.

Part I: Issues in Early Mother-Child Interaction. Adaptive Relationships in Early Mother-Child Interaction. The Longitudinal Course of Early Mother-Child Interaction: Cross-case Comparison in a Sample of Mother-Child Pairs. Infant and Caretaking Environment: Investigation and Conceptualization of Adaptive Behavior in a System of Increasing Complexity. Part II: Investigation of the Infant and its Caregiving Environment as a Biological System. Investigation of Interactive Regulation in Three Infant-caretaking Systems. The Event-structure of Regulation in the Neonate-caregiver System as a Biological Background for Early Organization of Psychic Structure. Paradox and Resolution: From the Beginning. Recognition Process: Context and Experience of Being Known. Part III: Reflections on Developmental Process: Wholeness, Specificity, and the Organization of Conscious Experiencing. Awareness of Inner Experience: A System Perspective on Self-Regulatory Process in Early Development. Thinking Differently: Principles of Process in Living Systems and the Specificity of Being Known. Development as a Creative Process.