Chaos and Nonlinear Psychology: Keys to Creativity in Mind and Life

The pandemic, and our response to it, have shown how unpredictable, irrational, illogical, suddenly changing, and muddled human interactions can be in a time of crisis. How can we make sense of such confusing and baffling behavior?

This book reveals how chaos and nonlinear dynamics can bring new understanding to everyday topics in social sciences. It brings together chapters from leaders at the intersection of psychology and chaos and complexity theories. Conceptual and user-friendly, it is built around six themes: 1) Seeing nonlinearity, 2) Finding patterns, 3) using Simple models, 4) Intervening nonlinearly, and 6) teaching a new Worldview. It takes no specialized study-although there is more sophisticated material and optional math for those wishing it. The techie will, in addition, find concepts and diagrams to ponder.

The volume is engaging, at times startling-whether about the weather, Internet, organizations, family dynamics, health, evolution, or falling in love. It reveals how many social, personal, clinical, research, and life phenomena become understandable and can be modelled in the light of Nonlinear Dynamical Systems (NDS) theory. It even offers a broadening worldview, happening already in other sciences, toward a more dynamic, interconnected, and evolving picture, including process-oriented appreciation of one's own experience.

The book offers those in the field of psychology and the social sciences a stunning new perspective on human behaviour.

David Schuldberg received a B.A. in Social Relations from Harvard, and M.A. and Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from UC Berkeley. He joined the University of Montana's Psychology Department in 1984, doing teaching, clinical supervision, and research. He was also evaluation director at the National Native Children's Trauma Center.
Research areas focus on physical and psychological heath, nonlinear data analysis, assessment and evaluation, and rural minority health care. He is interested in training effective workers for rural health and well-being.
Across areas, he is interested in "meta-methodology," choosing methods that work best "here," moving tools from one problem to new ones.

Ruth Richards is educational psychologist and psychiatrist, affiliated with Saybrook University (Creativity Studies, Consciousness, Spirituality, Integrative Health) and Integral and Transpersonal Psychology, California Institute of Integral Studies. She has studied Everyday Creativity in diverse settings (www.DrRuthRichards.com), authored/co-authored/edited multiple books, articles, and the Lifetime Creativity Scales. She is Fellow of the American Psychological Association, Arnheim Award winner for Lifetime Accomplishment (Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts) and is on editorial boards of two journals. Her 2018 book, Everyday Creativity and the Healthy Mind: Dynamic New Paths for Self and Society, won a Silver Nautilus Award ("Better Books for a Better World").

Shan Guisinger is a researcher and clinician with 30 years of experience studying and treating eating disorders. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley and completed postdoctoral work at the Yale Eating Disorders Clinic. In her research and practice she seeks to understand how biological, psychological, and social factors interact in complex systems to create or ameliorate problems. She has taught her approach in the US and Italy. Shan has authored articles for Psychological Review and American Psychologist on evolution, anorexia, and interpersonal relatedness. Her treatment manual will be published by American Psychological Association Press in 2022.