negative ZPDs

Judy Diamondstone (diamonju who-is-at rci.rutgers.edu)
Thu, 9 Oct 1997 15:51:30 -0400

The notion of counter-development is fascinating to me, too.

>Perhaps most fascinating is the issue of negative ZPDs in the sense of
>counter-developmental interpersonal interactions. 'Teachers' who are bad
>for us. Models of destructive or even of debilitating modes of action. Are
>these merely value judgments of activity types learned, or is there a more
>basic sense of negative learning? I think for example of Bateson's model of
>the genesis of schizophrenia in pathological double-bind interactions.
>Whether this is an adequate model of schizophrenia in general (probably
>not), it is still a fairly believable phenomenon in itself. Interactions
>that drive people crazy, or diminish their capacity to functionally deploy
>mediational means. Various kinds of 'brainwashing' practices?

What about
>prolonged interaction with psychotics by younger developing persons?

My guess is that, however destructive such interaction might be to
a child's self-esteem, there are some developmental "advantages" to
be acknowledged as well, assuming that there are others outside the
interaction who can serve as the community of reference.
What might it mean to be forced by way of a primary attachment
to KNOW the artifactuality of experience when forging one's own primary
identity? to know the fragility and yet inexorability of worlds?
It's hard to even imagine a way to imagine it, but because somehow
the child of a schizophrenic parent MUST imagine that and more, I
would be reluctant to call

>prolonged interaction with psychotics by younger developing persons

negative learning.

On the other hand, I readily accept that some interpersonal interactions are
counter developmental. They would have to be 1. interactions that can't in
some sense be exited, and 2. interactions in which the more able or adult or
powerful other does undermine agency or does model "debilitating modes of
action," and
3. interactions that are construed as normal (GB's model of the
schizophrenogenic relationship).

Is it
>possible to actually reverse the course of socio-intellectual development
>in a negative interpersonal interactive ZPD? I suspect that it is, and
>while knowledge about how to do this systematically is rather horrifying in
>its moral implications, it might certainly tell us alot about how the
>positive ZPD works that our present theories miss (e.g. the role of power
>relationships or emotional bonds, as in Bateson's hypothesis about the
>double-bind).

Yes, I suspect that transference is at the heart of the best
teaching/learning situations and remains undertheorized in CHAT.
What do others think?

Judith

Judith Diamondstone
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