Krystyna Laycraft

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Positve Maladjustment
as
a Transition from Chaos to Order

Krystyna Laycraft

presentation on 7th International Congress of the Institute for Positive Disintegration in Human Development, Calgary, AB, Canada, August 3-5, 2006

Abstract

First, I use the Chaos Theory to describe the process of Positive Disintegration. The Chaos theory studies open, complex, and dynamic systems, those that constantly interact with and adjust to their environment, changing, growing, learning and evolving. One of the main concept of the Chaos theory is attractor, which is the state to which system is drawn by its own nature. The Positive Disintegration is the process of transition from point attractor (primitive integration) to cycle attractor (unilevel transformation) and then to chaotic attractor (spontaneous multilevel disintegration) and emerging order (organized multilevel disintegration) and order (secondary integration) with increasing complexity. A driving force for this development is the movement from simplicity toward complexity. Mental structure is maximizing its complexity and therefore its stability by pushing forward to higher levels.
Next, I concentrate on spontaneous multilevel disintegration described by the chaotic attractor. The spontaneous multilevel disintegration corresponds to adolescence. As an individual makes transition from childhood to adulthood, from dependence to independence, the changes in behavior are dramatic. As soon as person feels that some modes of thinking, feeling, and acting are higher, conflicts of a vertical nature arise. Emotional, unconscious and slightly conscious forces dominate the spontaneous multilevel disintegration. I analyse in details positive maladjustment as a conscious and selective process of rejection and lack of adjustment to lower levels of reality and the need to adaptation to higher hierarchy of values. I show that the process of spontaneous multilevel disintegration corresponds to dramatic changes in brain of adolescent. During adolescence, brain organization and function enter a unique period of change. The emotional behavior of adolescent is due to increased reliance on the instinctual part of brain (amygdala) while the area for rational thought, the frontal lobes develops. I postulate that the positive maladjustment appears when the brain activity of teenagers seems to shift from amygdala to frontal lobes and emotions become more conscious and selective.

Part I

1. Introduction to Chaos theory

Negative and Positive Feedback

Bifurcation

Attractors
2. Theory of Positive Disintegration
3. Positive Disintegration as a Transition from Simplicity to Complexity.

Part II

1. Emotions / Dynamisms
2. Adolescence Brain Development
3. The Low and High Road to Amygdala
4. Prefrontal Cortex
5. Developmental Dynamism of Spontaneous Multilevel Disintegration

Creation of the Self

The Self - conscious Emotions

Positive Maladjustment

Part I

1. Introduction to Chaos Theory (Gleick, 1988, Briggs & Peat, 1989)

Chaos Theory studies open, complex, and dynamic systems, those that constantly interact with and adjust to their environment, changing, growing, learning, and evolving. They exhibit an extreme sensitivity to their initial conditions. The very slight difference in their starting points made a very large difference in their fates. Such systems are highly sensitive because they are always on the move, always changing, never precisely recycling to their initial states. One reason that the elements in chaotic dynamical systems are so sensitive to their initial conditions is that these complex systems are subject to feedback. Systems that change radically through their feedback are said by scientists to be nonlinear . In some conditions nonlinear systems behave in a regular, cyclical way until something sets them off - a critical point is passed, and suddenly they go chaotic. This critical point where system changes character of the motion is called the bifurcation point . The complex structures of chaotic motion are attractors . Attractor is a state to which system is drawn by its own nature. Examples of such systems are everywhere around and inside of us. They are our bodies, our brains, our consciousness, our psyche, our creativity, our lives, our organizations, our schools, our families, nature, weather, and many more.

Negative and Positive Feedback

In chaotic system, everything is connected, through negative and positive feedback, to everything else. Negative feedback is the type that keeps things in check and responsible for stability of system. Processes characterized by positive feedback, where more leads to more and less to less, are important in accounting for escalating patterns of system change. Sometimes positive feedback pushes system to explode or spiral out of control. These feedback mechanisms can explain why systems gain or preserve a given form and how this form can be transformed over time. Feedback is the instrument of new life. One of the most important discoveries of chaos theory has been that positive feedback can cause complex, even chaotic behavior concealed inside orderly systems to unfold, and that negative feedback can grow inside an otherwise chaotic system, suddenly organizing it and making it stable. The theory of chaos and complexity encourage us to understand how change unfolds through circular patterns of interactions.

Bifurcation

A bifurcation is a place or point of branching or forking into qualitatively new types of behavior. It is usually a sudden change, rather than a slow and gradual evolution. In other way bifurcations are the sensitive decision points. Far away from bifurcation a system can be well behaved, but as a bifurcation is approached, the system's trajectory becomes random and unpredictable ( system presents large fluctuations). Such system "hesitates" among various possible direction of evolution. Even little fluctuation in subsystems combine through positive feedback loops, becoming strong enough to shatter any pre-existing organization. At this point, the disorganized system either disintegrates into chaos, or leaps to a new higher level of order of organization. Through this means, order arise spontaneously from disorder through self-organization.
When we consider ourselves as complex systems, bifurcation can be viewed as special events along the flow of our life during which choices can be made to influence future possibilities.
The psychological bifurcations are the rapid transformations of sensory, perceptual, cognitive, and affective experiences that may radically alter our lifestyle. They appear in process of learning, motivational states, in brain activity, in developmental stages and their associated increasing complexity, in personality and family organization.
There are many examples:
1. "Aha" or insight experiences when rapid perceptual or cognitive restructuring takes place in the context of working on a difficult problem.
2. Moments when we experiences overwhelming emotional transformations (we fall in love).
3. Times when "of body" information rises to attention (we feel hungry).

Attractors

Attractors are useful for characterizing the behavior of a system; the same system can be characterized with different types of attractors at different times in its development. There are several kinds of attractors. Assume that a pendulum is the simple system. When pushed, the pendulum swings back and forth until friction on the system bring it to stop. When plotted on the phase space, the trajectory of the pendulum looks like a spiral. The point at the center of the spiral locates the trajectory of the system at zero displacement and zero velocity. State of this system is characterized by point attractor . The point attractor is the most predictable, the simplest way to bring order out of chaos. We can compare it to a fixation on one desire. Point attractor is single-minded attractor, black-white, good-bad, and hate-love. For human life dynamics - the attractor of death is a point attractor. As far as life dynamics of each individual are dissipative, they "shrink" with time, gradually (or suddenly) stop to be connected with any other attractors of life activity and fall into the fixed - point attractor (Dimitrov, 2004) Taking our simple pendulum and giving it a timed electrical kick would cancel out the dissipative effects of friction on the system. For this reason, the trajectory in phase space would not longer be spiral, but rather, it would be a circle. The pendulum's trajectory is described as a cycle attractor . Characteristic of the cycle attractor is the ability to resist change. Both the point and the cycle attractors describe systems that are highly regular, and thus, predictable. Routine is a good example for the cycle attractor, when we attract to two activities, and we oscillate between them (work and family). Three - dimensional attractor is torus attractor . It is complex cycling which moves forward and so is different while it repeats itself. The torus attractor is a higher degree of regularity and complexity than the cycle attractor, but pattern is fixed and finite. An example of torus attractor at work be more complex set of attracting events which occur to a person on many levels over a course of a year, and repeat again, year in and year out. The strange or chaotic attractor describes systems that are in a state of turbulence, such as a violent river or brain activity. The chaotic attractors can take an infinite number of different forms. Their patterns are fantastic, complex maps that capture the interplay between stability and change in system. Essentially, a chaotic attractor is a process that unfolds through the complex interactions between elements in a system. It is through a pattern of folding and stretching that the structure of the chaotic attractor emerges. Chaotic attractors are the foundation for hidden order in natural systems.

Fig.1 Attractors: Point attractor, Cycle attractor, Torus attractor, and chaotic Attractor

2. Theory of Positive Disintegration

(Dabrowski, 1964, 1970, 1973) "Positive Disintegration is the basis for development thrust upward, the creation of new evolutionary dynamics, and the movement of the personality to a higher level..." (K. Dabrowski, 1973) Human existence is possible only through intensive and accelerated mental development. This development must be multidimensional and multilevel. Multidimensional development includes all basic of mental life, especially innate drives, emotions, intellect, imagination, aesthetic, etc. Multilevel development consists not only in quantitative growth and replacement of some elements with others, but acquires new insights and new qualities, which progress human to a self-controlled, creative and authentic structure.
The theory of positive disintegration is the mental development, which is described by the process of transition from lower to higher levels of mental life with a great deal of tension, inner conflict and struggle, anxiety and despair. The process of positive disintegration includes five clearly distinguishable levels:
1. Primary integration
2. Unilevel Disintegration
3. Spontaneous Multilevel Disintegration
4. Organized Multilevel Disintegration
5. Secondary Integration
Primary integration is characterized by mental structures and functions of a low level. They are automatic and impulsive, determined by primitive, innate drives. Intelligence neither controls nor transforms basic drives. Individuals on this level are not capable of having internal conflicts, although they often have conflicts with their external environment. They are not able to understand the meaning of time. They cannot postpone immediate gratification, and follow long-range plans but are limited to the reality of immediate, passing feelings. Disintegration of this primitive structure is possible only if there are nuclei of psychoneurotic traits, or sensitivity, which are acted upon by very strong positive influence of highly developed environment.

Unilevel disintegration begins with loosening of the rigid structure of primary integration. Among the first symptoms of disintegration are increased sensitivity to internal stimuli , vague feelings of disquietude, ambivalences, and disharmony. There is a continuous fluctuation of "pros" and "cons", no clear direction "up" and "down."

Next developmental stage is spontaneous multilevel disintegration . This is time of the appearance of such developmental dynamisms as

astonishment with oneself,

disquietude with oneself,

dissatisfaction with oneself,

feeling of inferiority toward oneself,

feeling of shame and guilt,

positive maladjustment.
The individual searches not only for novelty, but for something higher. He/she searches for examples and models in his external environment and himself/herself. He starts to feel the difference between a higher and a lower level. We can notice the formation of the critical awareness of oneself and other people, awareness of one's "essence" as it arises from one's These dynamisms are acting as positive feedback that cause the system to change, to be more complex, more open and more sensitive to internal and external stimuli.

Organized multilevel disintegration which is the next stage, exhibits more tranguility, systematization and conscious transformation of oneself. The developmental dynamisms that distinctly appear at this stage are: "subject-object" in oneself, the third factor, self-awareness and self-control, identification and empathy, education of oneself and autopsychotherapy. The ideal of personality takes more distinct contours.

These dynamisms are negative feedback that grows inside of chaotic system - mental structure, organizing it and making more stable.

The last stage called secondary integration consists in a new organization and harmonization of personality. The main dynamisms active at this stage are: responsibility for oneself, responsibility for others, autonomy, and authenticity.

3. Positive Disintegration as a Transition from Simplicity to Complexity

Mental structure is a complex, nonlinear, dynamic, open system, constantly interacting with internal and external environment. It goes through bifurcation points of instabilities and fluctuations (emotions) transforming into new stages of increased complexity. They act as attractors, characterized by a different steady-state behavior.
The lower levels of mental structure are organized more rigidly and operate more automatically than the higher levels.
First level of positive disintegration - primitive integration can be described by point attractor, which is characterized by rigid, automatic and impulsive behavior. Next stage - unilevel disintegration is a limit cycle attractor , characterized by continuous fluctuations of "pros" and "cons." Third stage - spontaneous multilevel disintegration can be described by chaotic attractor . Through this stage mental structure started to be more "open" to inner and external environment. Fluctuations of functions and mental tension associated with the search for a new hierarchy of values cause an acceleration of the process of shaping personality. Next stage - the organized disintegration is characterized by openness to external experiences, sensitivity and identification with others. Mental structure transforms itself into a new structure of increased complexity. Personality grows toward integration of its ideal. We can say that new order started to emerge with higher complexity. Last stage - secondary integration is a new organization and harmonization of personality , characterized by autonomy and authenticity.

The process of Positive Disintegration can be expressed as a transformation from point attractor to cycle attractor, and then to strange attractor and to emerging order and order with increasing complexity. A driving force for this development is the movement from simplicity toward complexity. Mental structure is maximizing its complexity and therefore its stability by pushing forward to higher levels. Attractors of mental structure emerge in interaction with the internal and external environment.

Part II

1. Emotions / Dynamisms

There is a wide range of ideas about how to define emotional processes. In developmental psychology, emotions both are regulated and perform regulatory functions. We can say that emotions are everywhere in the process of mind. Kenneth Dodge state that "all information processing is emotional, in that emotion is the energy that drives, organize, amplifies, attenuates cognitive activity and in turn is the experiences and expression of this activity."
Daniel Siegel sees emotions as the flow of energy, or states of arousal and activation, through the brain and other parts of body. This process emerges from and directly affects the further processing of information within the mind of the appraisal meaning. Emotions can be thought as processes that integrates distinct entities into a functional whole (Siegel, D. 2004).
Emotions are dynamic processes of change. This why Dabrowski called these processes developmental dynamisms. Developmental dynamisms are instinctual-emotional-cognitive forces fueling and shaping emotional developmental. They can interact either synergistically or antagonistically. Dynamisms fall into two categories:
1. Dynamisms which are characterized by spontaneity and lack of definite organization (positive feedback).
2. Dynamisms which reshape, assimilate and organize the process of positive disintegration (negative feedback).

2. Adolescence Brain Development

The process of spontaneous multilevel disintegration corresponds to dramatic changes in brain of adolescent. Our analysis are based on the latest discovery of neuroscience. Neuroscience - the study of brain development has made great progress due to the sophistication of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) that safely provides detailed pictures of the living, and growing brain. Adolescence (10 -20 years of age) is the transition from childhood, a period during which an individual acquires the skills necessary to survive on his/her own away from their parents.
MRI studies show that during adolescence, the brain is in dynamic state. It has the enormous plasticity, or capacity for change. On MRI scans, these changes can be seen as a thickness of the gray matter -cell bodies and dendrites - in the cortex. The level of gray matter in the frontal lobes does not stabilize until well into the third decade of life. The frontal lobe thickness peaks around age 12. This is purely quantitative value and does not reflect efficiency of information flow between neurons (Fig. 2). J. Giedd - neuroscientist from the National Institute of Mental Health thinks that the exuberant growth during the pre-puberty years gives brain enormous potential.

Fig.2 Brain Development in healthy Children and Adolescence (Weinberg, D.el al.,2005)

Next stage of brain development, even more interesting, is the process of "pruning" - a cutting back of inefficient or ineffective connections to achieve maximal efficiency of function. Certain connections are strengthened and others eliminated - in essence, brain functions are sculpted to reveal and allow increasing maturity in thought and action. Giedd said that in this critical period of brain development the rule for brain structures appears to be "use it or lose it." Those cells and connections that are used will survive and flourish. Those cells and connections that are not used will wither and die. The teenage years are a kind of critical time to optimize the brain. Parallel to the process of pruning, MRI studies show a steady increase in white matter - myelination in the frontal and parietal cortices. As a result, the transmission speed of neural information in the frontal cortex steadily increases throughout adolescence.(Fig. 3)

Fig.3 Processes of Pruning and Myelination

Using fMRI, investigators at Harvard University showed teens and adults pictures of faces expressing different emotions (Baird et al. 1999). When trying to identify the emotions expressed by the faces, the teens activated their amygdala - part of limbic system . By contrast, adults activated the frontal lobes when performing the same task. This investigation suggests that the adults and teens processed the same information using different parts of their brains (Fig. 5).

Fig.4 Location of amygdala

Fig.5. Activation of frontal lobes by adult, Activation of amygdala by adolescent

(The amygdala ia a brain structure that is esential for decoding emotions, and in particular stimuli that are threatening to the organism).

The increased activity of the amygdala in teens may be because the frontal lobes have not matured. As teens grow older, their brain activity tends to shift to the frontal lobe, leading to more reasoned perceptions and improve performance.

3. The Low and High Roads to Amygdala

The cognitive processes that underline the ability to inhibit inappropriate behavior are evolving and are not fully mature in early adolescence. Behavior of young teens can be described by low-road (short route) processing ( Fig.7).
The external stimuli reaches the amygdala by way of direct pathways from thalamus. This path is short and fast transmission but unfiltered and biased toward evoking responses. This processing leaves the individual in a state of intense emotions, impulse reactions, rigid and repetitive responses, and lacking in self-reflection

Fig.6 The Low (Short) and High (Long) Road to the Amygdala

If neural connection to cortex responsible for the complex cognitive processing are not physiologically mature, the young teen brain may struggle when it is necessary to control impulsive behavior or inhibit inappropriate behavior.

During adolescence neural connections to cortex started to build up and during adulthood more often the information about external stimuli goes from thalamus to the cortex and to the amygdala. This is the high (long) road processing, which allows for mindfulness, flexibility in our responses, and an integrating sense of self-awareness. This form of processing involves the higher, rational, and reflective thoughts. This supports our ability to reflect on possibilities and consider our choices and its consequences. (Siegel, D. 2004), (Le Doux, 1996).

4. Prefrontal Cortex

The prefrontal cortex is the anterior part of the frontal lobes of brain, lying in front of the motor and premotor areas (Fig. 8). It undergoes far more changes during adolescence that any other stage of life and is also the last part of the brain to develop. The prefrontal cortex contains the lateral, orbitofrontal and medial prefrontal areas which create complex interconnected network. This brain region has been implicated in planning complex cognitive behaviors, personality expressions and moderating correct social behavior.

The medial cortex serves as an interface between cognitive and emotional systems.

The orbitofrontal cortex is associated with emotional and social processing.

The lateral prefrontal cortex is involved in the executive aspects of working memory.

Fig.7 Prefrontal cortex

5. Developmental Dynamisms of Spontaneous Multilevel Disintegration

We come back to spontaneous multilevel disintegration and its developmental dynamisms. We divided them into three groups:

I. dynamisms responsible for creation of the Self,

II. Self-conscious emotions and

III. Positive Maladjustment.

Creation of the Self

I. Dynamisms responsible for creation of the Self

astonishment with oneself - the authentic observation of oneself, and the beginning of the desire to change (an intellectual dynamism)

disquietude with oneself - growing attitude of self-criticism with emotional tension and "readiness" toward inner psychic transformation (emotional-cognitive dynamism)

dissatisfaction with oneself - an active, critical, condemning attitude toward oneself by states of anxiety and depression

feeling of inferiority toward oneself - the awareness of the possibility of development.

These dynamisms act as a positive feedback to change and self-organize the state of mental structure to the new state of the Self of higher complexity. This is the result of new neural interconnections and the information encoded by these connections. Functional - imaging studies suggest the medial prefrontal cortex and its connection to amygdala is integral to coordinating cognitive representation of state of the Self (Fig.9) (Decety &Sommerville, 2003).
As the medial prefrontal cortex matures, a stimulus that might earlier have initiated an automatic behavioral routine (circular attractor) comes to be treated with more reasoned and deliberated response.

Fig.8. Connections of amygdala with the medial prefrontal cortex - Creation of the Self

Fragment of diary written by sixteen years old girl: "I just finish reading "Contemporary Youth" by Jaworczkowa. Great book. But it makes me depressed I learnt from this book about my peers, that they are so intelligent, so open minded, so full of energy and ides. I don't know if she exaggerated, idealized these young people, or I am so stupid. I don't know how to formulate clearly my thoughts or may be I don't have my own thoughts. My great desire is to able to express myself and deepen my knowledge. I don't know what is going with me, I know that it is not good. I am afraid even to ask librarian for book. I think that I start to stutter…" (Troszkiewicz, 1966)

She is in state of observation of herself - astonishment with herself, growing attitude of self-criticism with emotional tension - disquietude with oneself, desire to change, and sensitivity to the reaction of the external world.

Self-conscious emotions

Self-conscious emotions include embarrassment, shame, guilt, and pride (Beer et al. 2003) They require sophisticated level of intellectual development: self - reflection, self-evaluation, and a sense of self as well as a set of standards. Self-conscious emotions are important for helping individuals recognize and correct their social mistakes, strengthen social bonds, renew commitment to relationship, and motivate positive behavior. Social-conscious emotions provide internal feedback about a specific goal, expectation, or standard that has been violated. Violations of social conventions may result in embarrassment. Violations of character ideals are associated with shame. Violations of rules, related to harm, justice, and rights are related to guilt (Keltner & Buswell, 1997).
Based on imaging techniques, it was found that the orbitofrontal region of the frontal lobes, located behind and above the eye orbits is involved in the regulation of social behavior, in critical human functions, such as social adjustment and control mood, drive and responsibility.
The orbitofrontal cortex is richly connected to areas associated with emotional and social processing, including amygdala (Fig.10) (Adolphs, R. 2003).

Fig.9 Connections of amygdala with the orbitofrontal cortex and medial cortex - Creation of Self-conscious emotions

Fragment from diary of seventeen years old girl " Tears are expression of variety of feelings; enjoyment, sadness, anger, delight, nervousness, doubt in ourselves and fight with ourselves. From yesterday, I experience the fight with myself. I can't get along with my brother. I know that he is not bad, but he is stubborn like me, and very hot tempered… Above all I think about my mom, who knows how much bitterness and nervousness is creating by one stupid quarrel. After each fight I find out how it is low and inhuman. I don't wish anybody to experience these horrible moments." (Troszkiewicz, 1966)

She expresses the critical and condemning attitude toward oneself - dissatisfaction with oneself and feeling of shame and guilt in relation to her mom and herself.

Positive Maladjustment

Positive maladjustment is a conscious and selective rejection, a need for adaptation to higher hierarchy of value, and a lack of adjustment to certain external or internal dynamisms. It expresses the drive toward accelerated development, self-perfection, and realization of the attitude of autonomy and authenticity. The dynamism of positive maladjustment is connected with the understanding of others and their needs (Dabrowski, 1973).
We speculate that positive maladjustment appears when the lateral prefrontal cortex (the last part to mature) matures and connects with the medial and orbital prefrontal cortex and through them with amygdala. Positive maladjustment requires a strong knowledge of the Self, developed social emotions, ability to compare oneself with others, ability for judgment, ability for making decisions, and sensitivity to feedback

Fig.10 Conscious Emotional Experience. Amygdala connections with working memory circuits.

Joseph LeDoux (2002)- neuroscientist explains that conscious experiences of an emotion are made up of a number of ingredients. Although the classic working memory, the lateral prefrontal cortex does not have direct connections with the amygdala, two other regions implicated in working memory do. These are the medial prefrontal cortex and the orbital prefrontal cortex. Working memory is indirectly influenced by outputs of the amygdala to brain stem arousal systems that release modulatory monoamines in all areas of the prefrontal cortex and by feedback from body responses initiated by amygdala activity (Fig.10).

Fragment from diary of seventeen years old girl "I think that I am bad. I am trying to change myself, to be more feminine. I want to be more serious, more thoughtful and have more time for my parents. I love them so much. When I write it I almost cry… I promise here that: I will read more, not only prose but also poetry I will help to mom and be good for dad I will not argue with my brother, and feeling of anger I will control…" (Troszkiewicz, 1966)

She expresses the drive toward positive development and self-perfection. She has the need to higher hierarchy of values, to the ideal, to that which "ought to be." She starts to feel something with others, understand them and want to help them. These are characteristics of developmental dynamism of positive maladjustment.

Conclusion

The process of spontaneous multilevel disintegration corresponds to dramatic changes in brain of adolescent. Young teenagers have well-developed emotional systems but the cognitive systems are still developing. When emotions acting as positive feedback are stronger than cognitive systems acting as negative feedback that the mental structure is in the state of chaotic attractor. What seems to emerge during the adolescent transition is a newly, more balanced integrated systems of cognitive activity, a system that is increasingly under conscious control.
Creation of the Self, social regulation, planning for the future, maturity of judgment, decision making, the ability to integrate cognition and emotion are important skills that rely on numerous interconnecting cognitive components that emerge as the brain develops during adolescence.
A wide variety of studies suggest that the maturation of the prefrontal cortex is a bifurcation for developing these skills.
We can speculate that dynamism - positive maladjustment started to appear when the lateral prefrontal cortex interconnects with the orbital and medial prefrontal cortex and through them with the emotional system.
Using language of Chaos Theory, I can say that positive maladjustment pushes the individual's mental structure from chaotic attractor characterized by spontaneity, non-linearity and unpredictability to more organized, adaptive state of self-awareness and self-control.

References:

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Beer, J.S., Heerey, E.A., Keltner, D., Scabini, D. & Knight, R. (2003). The Regulatory Function of Self-Conscious Emotion: Insights from Patients with Orbitofrontal Damage, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 85, No.4, 594-604.

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Siegel, D.J. & Hartzell, M. (2004). Parenting from the Inside Out, Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin.

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Weinberger, D.R. , Elvevag, B., & Giedd, J.N., (2005). The Adolescent Brain: A Work in Progress, The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy.

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