Transformation Through Crisis:
Finding Opportunity in the Midst
of Danger
Michael R. Bütz, Ph.D.
Linda L. Chamberlain, Psy.D.
Robert F. Morgan, Ph.D.
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The Handouts…
www.aspenpractice.net
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Setting The Context…
“A mind that is stretched by a
new experience can never go
back to its old dimensions…”
Oliver Wendell Holmes
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Setting The Context…
“The place of my origin had changed,
and having gone away I had not
changed with it. In my memory it
stood as it once did and its outward
appearance confused and angered
me. When I went away I had died,
and so became fixed and
unchangeable…”
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Setting The Context…
“…My return caused only confusion
and uneasiness. Tom Wolfe was
right. You can't go home again
because home has ceased to exist
except in the mothballs of memory…”
John Steinbeck
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Setting The Context…
“The significance of a crisis is in its
temporal telescoping of
development. Major alterations in
pattern may occur in a relatively
short period and may subsequently
remain stable for a long time.”
Gerald Caplan
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So, Why Crisis?
• In essence, it is the seed from
which all developmental
processes unfold,
• And, crises are markers in time, a
representative embodiment of all
significant change processes…
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Transformation Through Crisis:
Finding Opportunity in the Midst
of Danger
Michael R. Bütz, Ph.D.
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What Got This Started..?
“…will one day make a systematic study
of the unfolding of the significant ideas
in this transitional period, assuming
that events confirm our prediction that
we are witnessing the beginning of a
metamorphosis…”
Gerald Caplan, 1964
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What Got This Started..?
• Most common crisis descriptors
inappropriately continue to focus
on:
• Homeostasis,
• Equilibrium,
• And, static developmental
notions of crises…
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What Got This Started..?
• Besides, it’s the Big Picture…
• Crisis Theory truly belongs to no one
discipline, theoretical perspective, modality
of treatment or model of care.
• Moreover, Crisis Theory applies regardless
of the point of service; that is to say the
individual, couple, family, community or
even nation.
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Wrangling with Linearity
• Despite years of literature on this topic,
forty plus, there is the pervasive belief
that:
• Stresses or emergencies are causally linked
to interpersonal crises…
• And, then there’s the pervasive sentiment
I’ve eloquently termed: The whole avoid
the “crisis experience” deal…
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The Up Side
•The field, simultaneously, also
acknowledges that crises are:
•Multi-determined
•Present unique opportunities for
individuals, families, communities and
larger social systems…
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The Up Side
• In fact, ‘most’ mainstream crisis theorists
acknowledge this, and use this symbol as
a central theme:
•Aguilera, Gilliland and James, and Hoff.
• And, make use of this Chinese symbol to
represent the phenomenon of crisis, that
while there is “danger,” there is
“opportunity” for adaptation and growth.
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Theory ≠ Ordinary language…
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Theory ≠ Ordinary language…
“Mathematics essentially means the
existence of an algorithm which is
much more precise than that of
ordinary language. History of science
attests that expression in ordinary
language often preceded
mathematical formulation, i.e.
invention of an algorithm.”
von Bertalanffy, 1968
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Theory ≠ Ordinary language…
“The normal consistency of pattern,
or equilibrium, is maintained by
homeostatic re-equilibrating
mechanisms, so that temporary
deviations from the pattern call into
operation opposing forces which
automatically bring the pattern back
to its previous state.”
Caplan, 1964
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Common Sense
• “Natural systems collect information over time that is
stored and exerts an effect on both their current and
future activity. Therefore, it is impossible in a
natural system to ‘start over again’ or return to
a baseline. Time cannot be reversed, nor can the
inevitable changes that occur over time be undone.”
Chamberlain (1995)
• “It’s essentially meaningless to talk about a complex
adaptive system being in equilibrium: the system can
never get there. It is always unfolding, always in
transition. In fact, if the system ever does reach
equilibrium, it isn’t stable. It’s dead.”
Waldrop (1992)
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Common Sense
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Theory = Common Sense
• Arrow of Time – Time is a one way
ticket, therefore so is development..
• Cybernetics – Feedback is important…
• General Systems Theory – Open
systems adapt…
• Nonlinear Dynamics – Change occurs
in unexpected ways and based on
previous patterns…
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Transformative Crisis Intervention
• Always working toward transformation
fully considering the coherence and
energy of the individual or system,
• Honoring the behavioral health and
nonlinear dynamics literature that has
been laid down before, incorporating a
“lessons learned” stance given current
vernacular,
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Transformative Crisis Intervention
•And focusing on a growth model,
acknowledging that development
may be represented by a variety of
“psychiatric-appearing” states,
such as an anxiety, depression,
disorientation, and periodic
regressions.
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Transformative Crisis Intervention
• Terminology
• Dynamic Steady States both honors von
Bertalanffy’s contribution to the field, as well as
describes the ‘dynamic’ nature of a stable state
informed by nonlinear dynamics in a
developmental framework.
• Transformative States is also a required
introduction, not explicitly described in earlier
GST, and more fully describes unstable states
with cybernetic properties, bifurcation cascades,
complexity and chaos as transformative
processes.
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Transformative Crisis Intervention
• A Constant Striving – No Matter What…
• Another premise here is that whether or not it is
evident, that individuals or systems are constantly
striving to adapt - regardless of whether or not
they are successfully adapting.
• When systems lack either coherence or energy, or
both, they may exist in a phase of development in
which they toil at the edge of complexity without
adequate transformative resources to make use of
complexity, no less, chaos, as a transformative
process.
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Transformative Crisis Intervention
• A Constant Striving – No Matter What…
• Resource Structural Maladaptations describes
this process, wherein the system lacks the metabolic
and structural properties that would enable it to
continue on its developmental path .
• Resource Structural Maladaptations may also be may
also be viewed as somewhat dangerous if left to
cycle too long, akin to a kayaker being caught in
what is termed colloquially as a ‘keeper-hole,’ as the
system may begin to run out of energy and call
upon its own structure, physical or psychological, to
maintain it...
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Transformative Crisis Intervention
• The Process Represented, & 2006…
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