Abstract
In this work, the catalytic process is discussed as a semiotic process of transformation of the field. This is the precondition that allows the realization of semiotic processes of signification and action (semiotic function of pertinentization). Catalysis is seen as process of field which acts in temporal terms (mediating between continuity and discontinuity) and spatial terms (the relationship between the parts and the whole, and between the inside and the outside). Catalysis in psychological terms is understood as a process of contextual pertinentization triggered and organized by emotional/perceptual relationship of a subject with his relational environment. In this work, we define emotion as a psychophysical process of semiotic activation (symbolopoiesis) and organization of relations according to specific operating modalities (symmetry and generalization), believing that it always works in interaction with the perceptual processes (aimed at identification of differences and asymmetries). Catalysis, in our point of view, creates a contextual activation of a morphogenetic field of semiosis, which regulates the relationship between the parts and the whole (between the signs and their organization) and the development over time of the process of meaning making (in terms of continuity and discontinuity/rupture).
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Point-like signs are static and stable conceptions/representations of something. The most common example of a point‐like sign is a word. […] Therefore, we can identify the presence of a catalyst in the form of a point‐like sign by a particular word that provides the conditions necessary for regulated change (Cabell 2010, p. 28). […] Field-like signs are mental conceptions/representations structured in space and time and represent through the embeddedness of something in relationship to its (spatio–temporal) environment. For example, the notion of “identity” can be viewed not as an entity (“I am X”) but as a field‐like sign through which catalytic processes can take place (Cabell 2010, p. 30). […] Hypergeneralized signs allow for symbolic generalization and symbolic linkages with the indefinite and indefinable. They provide a representation of the totality of life experiences in a form that is overwhelmingly indefinable, and yet actively operating (and many times regulating) in the psychological functions of the individual (Cabell 2010, p. 31, emphasis added).
- 2.
Here, we avoid entering in the debate about whether the emotion is inherent in every living being.
- 3.
The use of the term “unconscious” in this work is not in reference to representations that are repressed and relegated in some alleged “region of the psyche.” The term “unconscious” refers to a specific modality of semiosis according to the principles of condensation, displacement, absence of the concepts of space and time, lack of denial (Freud 1915) whose extensive study by Matte Blanco have made possible to draw the principles of symmetry and generalization (Matte Blanco 1975, 1989) of affective semiosis (Carli and Paniccia 2003; Salvatore and Zittoun 2011, Salvatore and Freda 2011, De Luca Picione and Freda 2012). In this way, the unconscious is not a region of a reified psychic system but is a modality of a specific process of meaning of the experiences that Freud called “primary process” (no temporal relationship of before and after, no denial, lack of distinction between reality internal and external reality; Freud 1900, 1911, 1915).
- 4.
According Matte Blanco, the ways of working of unconscious are the “principle of generalization” and the “principle of symmetry.” The former states that the unconscious system treats an individual thing (person, object, concept) as if it were a member or element of a set of class which contains other members; it treats this set or class as a subclass of a more general class, and this more general class as a subclass or subset of a still more general class, and so on. The latter states that unconscious system treats the converse of any relation as identical with the relation. In other terms, it treats asymmetrical relations as if they were symmetrical. From this, some consequences can be deductible. When the principle of symmetry is applied the (proper) part is necessarily identical to the whole. When the principle of symmetry is applied, all members of a set or of a class are treated as identical to one another and to the whole set or class (Matte Blanco 1975).
- 5.
By catalysis, we mean a process that “brings together” the becoming of the context and of the subject. What we are defining psychological catalysis is rather the creation of a field of semiotic space–time continuity realized through corporeity (namely, the possibility of a percipient and affective body) of the subject. Von Uexküll (1926) defines that every reality is a subjective phenomenon. In this sense, the psychological catalysis can be understood as a process of construction of an umwelt. Through catalysis, the environment is transformed in a relevant and salient context for the perceptual/operational structure of the subject (Freda and De Luca Picione in press).
- 6.
Processes of semiotic self-regulation operate through temporary hierarchies of signs (Valsiner 2001). Generalized and hypergeneralized feelings, as well as differentiated emotions—all encoded as signs—operate as parts of such hierarchy. Signs operate upon signs, and become regulators with respect to one another. The multifunctional nature of signs guarantees the emergence of flexible hierarchical systems of semiotic regulation. The move of a sign into a regulator’s role creates the minimal case of a hierarchical dynamic system of semiotic regulators—a superior sign regulates its underlying process. The hierarchy of semiotic regulation is dynamic—a constructed regulator can immediately be superseded by another level of hierarchical semiotic regulation. […] The regulation by signs includes—recursively—constraining (enabling) the generation of a super-ordinate organizer from the field of possible signs. We may encounter potentially ever increasing and ever generalizing growth of the semiotic regulatory system (Cabell and Valsiner 2011, p. 101).
References
Andrade, E. (2002). The organization of nature: Semiotic agents as intermediaries between digital and analog informational spaces. S.E.E.D. Journal (Semiotics, Evolution, Energy, and Development), 2(1), 56–84.
Bertuglia, C. S., Vaio, F. (2011). Complessità e modelli. Un nuovo quadro interpretativo per la modellizzazione nelle scienze della natura e della società. (Complexity and models. A new interpretative frame work for the modelization in the science of nature and society). Torino: Bollati Boringhieri.
Branco, A. U., Valsiner, J. (2009). Values as signs: The role of field theory in semiotic understanding of feelings. Paper presented at the 10th World Congress on Semiotics, La Corua, September 25th (at Round Table ‘Feeling (Our Way) Through Signs’.) Co-conveners: Robert Innis (University of Massachusetts Lowell) and Jaan Valsiner (Clark University).
Brentano, F. (1874). Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt. Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag.
Cabell, K. (2010). Mediators, regulators, and catalyzers: A context inclusive model of trajectory development. Psychology & Society, 3(1), 26–41.
Cabell, K. R. (2011). Catalysis: Cultural constructions and the conditions for change. JISS: Journal of Integrated Social Sciences, 2, 1.
Cabell, K. R., Valsiner, J. (2011). Affective hypergeneralization: Learning from psychoanalysis. In S. Salvatore & T. Zittoun (Eds.), Cultural psychology and psychoanalysis. Pathways to synthesis (pp. 87–113). Charlotte: Info Age Publishing.
Carli, R., Paniccia, R. M. (2003). Analisi della domanda. Teoria e tecnica dell’intervento in psicologia clinica. (Analysis of demand. Theory and technique of the intervention in clinical psychology). Bologna: Il Mulino.
De Luca Picione, R., & Freda, M. F. (2012). Senso e significato. (Sense and meaning). Rivista di Psicologia Clinica, 2 (2012), 17–26.
De Luca Picione, R. & Freda, M. F. (in press). A discussion about the processes of meaning making starting from the morphogenetic theories of Rène Thom. Accepted by Culture and Psychology Journal.
Deacon, T., Sherman, J. (2008). The pattern which connects pleroma to creatura: the autocell bridge from physics to life. In J. Hoffmeyer (Ed.), A legacy for living systems: Gregory Bateson as precursor to biosemitoics. Springer.
Fornari, F. (1976). Simbolo e codice. (Symbol and codex). Milano: Feltrinelli.
Fornari, F. (1983). La lezione freudiana. (The Freudian lesson). Milano: Feltrinelli.
Freda, M. F., De Luca Picione, R. (2012). Relational and organizational value of self-positions. International Journal for Dialogical Science, 6(1), 51–60.
Freda, M. F., De Luca Picione, R. (in press). The identity as a system of translation of the boundary between subject and context
Freda, M. F., De Luca Picione, R., Martino, M. L. (in press). Times of illness and illness of time.
Freud, S. (1900). The interpretation of dreams. J. Strachey et al. (Eds.) London: The Hogart Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis.
Freud, S. (1911). Formulations on the two principles of mental functioning. J. Strachey et al. (Eds.) London: The Hogart Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis.
Freud, S. (1915). The unconscious. J. Strachey et al. (Eds.) London: The Hogart Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis.
Husserl, E. (1900). Logische Untersuchungen. Halle: Niemeyer.
Kauffman, S. (1995). At home in the universe: The search for the laws of self-organization and complexity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kuhn, T. S. (1962). The structure of scientific revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lotman, J. (2000). Universe of the mind. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
Lotman, J. (2005). On the semiosphere. Sign Systems Studies, 33(1), 205–229.
Matte Blanco, I. (1975). The unconscious as infinite sets: An essay in bi-logic. London: Gerald Duckworth & Company.
Matte-Blanco, I. (1988). Thinking, feeling and being. London and New York: Routledge and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis.
Margherita, G. (2012). L’Insieme multistrato. Gruppi, masse, istituzioni tra caos e psicoanalisi. (Multilayer set. Groups, masses, institutions between chaos and psychoanalysis). Roma: Armando Editori.
Neuman, Y. (2003). Processes and boundaries of the mind: Extending the limit line. New York: Springer.
Neuman, Y. (2009). On love, hate and knowledge. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 90, 697–712.
Neuman, Y. (2010). Penultimate interpretation. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 91, 1043–1054.
Salvatore, S. (in press). The reciprocal inherency of 2 and context. Notes for a semiotic model of the constitution of experience.
Salvatore, S., Freda, M. F. (2011). Affect, unconscious and sensemaking: A psychodynamic, semiotic and dialogic model. New Ideas in Psychology, 29, 119–135.
Salvatore, S., & Zittoun, T. (2011). Cultural psychology and psychoanalysis. Pathway to synthesis. Greenwich: Information Age Publishing.
Searle, J. (1983). Intentionality: An essay in the philosophy of mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Uexküll, J. (1926). Theoretical biology. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co.
Valsiner, J. (2001). Cultural developmental psychology of affective process. Invited Lecture at the 15. Tagung der Fachgruppe Entwicklungpsychologie der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Psychologie, Postdam, September, 5.
Valsiner, J. (2006). The overwhelming world: Functions of pleromatization in creating diversity in cultural and natural constructions. International Summer School of Semiotic and Structural Studies. Imatra, June, 12.
Valsiner, J. (2007). Culture in minds and societies. New Delhi: Sage Publications.
Valsiner, J. (2008). The social and the cultural: Where do they meet? In T. Sugiman, K. J. Gergen, W. Wagner, & Y. Yamada (Eds.), Meaning in action. Constructions, narratives and representations. Tokyo: Springer.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
De Luca Picione, R., Freda, M. (2014). Catalysis and Morphogenesis: The Contextual Semiotic Configuration of Form, Function, and Fields of Experience. In: Cabell, K., Valsiner, J. (eds) The Catalyzing Mind. Annals of Theoretical Psychology, vol 11. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8821-7_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8821-7_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-8820-0
Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-8821-7
eBook Packages: Behavioral ScienceBehavioral Science and Psychology (R0)