Positive Disintegration
Kazimierz Dabrowski
Maurice Bassett
 <p>Kazimierz
 Dabrowski refers to his view of personality development as the theory 
of positive disintegration. He defines disintegration as disharmony 
within the individual and in his adaptation to the external environment.
 Anxiety, psychoneurosis, and psychosis are symptoms of disintegration. 
In general, disintegration refers to involution, psychopathology, and 
retrogression to a lower level of psychic functioning. Integration is 
the opposite: evolution, psychic health, and adequate adaptation, both 
within the self and to the environment. </p> <p>Dabrowski postulates a 
developmental instinct-that is, a tendency of man to evolve from lower 
to higher levels of personality. He regards personality as primarily 
developing through dissatisfaction with, and fragmentation of, the 
existing psychic structure-a period of disintegration - and finally a 
secondary integration at a higher level. Dabrowski feels that no growth 
takes place without previous disintegration. He regards symptoms of 
anxiety, psychoneurosis, and even some symptoms of psychosis as the 
signs of the disintegration stage of this evolution, and therefore not 
always pathological. </p>  