Chapter 3 - Paranoid Psychology: Searching for the Theory That Explains Everything

Summary

In this chapter, I describe my path from adolescent musing about the dialectical processes in historical materialism to a theoretical framework for understanding human development. I moved from a search for single factors in the individual or the context to an appreciation of the multiple influences that come into play during the course of time. I found a home in the burgeoning field of developmental psychopathology that integrated developmental approaches and the study of mental illness to reveal the complexity of transactional influences from the child and the social environment that produce health or illness. I found that despite an emphasis on fostering resilience in children, environmental risk factors seem to undermine child competence at every age. The burden of multiple risk factors in the family, peer group, schools, and neighborhoods overcome child competencies. Contemporary systems approaches have proven that dialectical processes were the answer all along.