Positive disintegration experience3/27/2023 ![]() The concept of level allows for progression and regression, for unique patterns of development.ĭynamisms are forces of development that drive the process of positive disintegration and assist in actualizing persons’ endowment of developmental potential. In addition, progression through the levels is not accomplished in a linear, invariant sequence. For one thing, progression beyond level one, primary integration, is by no means universal in the population. There are some significant differences between Dabrowski’s use of level and the notion of stage. Levels of development may lead one to believe that TPD is a type of stage theory similar to well-known theories of development, such as Erikson’s (1963) theory of life span development and Piaget’s theory of cognitive development (Piaget and Inhelder 1969). There are five levels of development: initial or primary integration three levels referring to increasing complexity of disintegration called unilevel, spontaneous multilevel and organized multilevel and secondary integration that refers to the highest level (see Dabrowski 1964). Positive disintegration propels a person to TPD’s higher levels of development. It is a comprehensive, complex theory with far-reaching implications for understanding human development in general. ![]() As such, TPD is neither a theory of giftedness nor a theory of emotional development. A theme in my presentation is that TPD is a theory of personality development (for example, Dabrowski 1964, 1967 Pyryt and Mendaglio 1993). This article presents elements of TPD that have deepened my understanding of gifted persons and that may prove useful for educators. In the absence of a comprehensive theory of giftedness, TPD offers a significant contribution to gifted education by providing provocative concepts that shed light on the affective aspects of gifted persons while simultaneously requiring an examination of our notions of giftedness itself. This cannot be used to criticize TPD because Dabrowski, a psychiatrist and psychologist, was primarily concerned with personality development and psychotherapy. Arguably, TPD has implications for the education of gifted students, but it provides no strategies or techniques that can be readily applied to the classroom. It has been used to address various aspects of gifted students’ functioning, including emotional sensitivity and intensity (Fiedler 1998 Piechowski 1997) misdiagnosis of conditions, such as ADHD (Baum, Olenchak and Owen 1998) creative personality (Schiever 1985) spiritual development (Morrissey 1996) and counselling (Hazell 1999 Colangelo and Ogburn 1989 Mendaglio 1998). Dabrowski’s theory of positive disintegration (TPD) (Dabrowski 1964, 1967, 1970, 1972), while largely unknown in education, psychology and psychiatry, has found a home in gifted education. ![]()
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