1. a dynamic and complex understanding of healthy development and

2. Answers to the question about the importance of consistency/coherence for a good life.

"The train of the future appears stronger than the thrust of the past."

Leonhard Euler (1707 to 1783; important mathematician)

Based on the findings of chaos and complexity research, we can assume that the human organism, like a complex dynamic system, strives for a (relatively) stable-dynamic state that is coherent and more complex than its current state (see Haken 2004; Cilliers 2013; Hansch & Haken 2016; Schiepek 2004; Sturmberg & Martin 2013; Sturmberg et al 2019). We find this, for example, in growth, healing, and curiosity.

The determining information of this attractive and desired order is called the attractor in the aforementioned sciences and is the subject of mathematical calculations there. For the sake of our healthy human development, I, together with the physicist Bernd Wieneke (who holds numerous international patents), sought a mathematical description of this process in 2013.

Although we had found a promising approach, the effort we put into it revealed how our attention and openness had drifted away from the dynamic and complex reality of life. The focus had shifted to mathematical formulas and away from the complex totality of life. This was our reason for abandoning the search for a mathematical description. However, I have applied to our good life the fundamental insight of chaos theory: that even living processes can be understood as approximations to virtual, entirely abstract information (also: ideals), which can be understood as attractive goals from a space of possibilities.

This new scientific perspective has more relevance and consistency with our subjective experience.

(Experiencing) life as the old way, as an exclusively material-causal way of thinking from the past (see Cilliers 2013; Sturmberg et al. 2019). We humans have our abstract ideals and values as well as concrete goals for the future, which we want to approach. Following our 2019 symposium, we refer to these as attractors, drawing on the concept of attractors in chaos theory.

Download: TD Petzold (2024) Coherence Regulation and Motivation

The following model of coherence regulation as information processing

brings these findings together.

Figure 1: The living organism must constantly solve the difficult and complex task of processing the countless pieces of information that appear every second from both inside and outside in such a meaningful way that it can live as well as possible. Thus, all of life revolves around continually establishing sufficient consistency and approaching maximum consistency. Therefore, coherence is central to the graphic as an overarching attractive factor.

To continually achieve coherence, the cycle begins with the perception of deviations from the currently relevant information and/or long-term coherence. Both the internal image of coherence and the deviations and the resulting actions can relate to different areas of life (su).

If the deviation is significant, the person is motivated to act. After the activity, which always represents an interaction – ideally a constructive cooperation – with the environment, it is reflected upon in light of the attractive factors that prompted the action.

A stable dynamic state of a system implies sufficient internal coherence as well as sufficient compatibility (coherence) with its environment. From a systems perspective, we view the environment as subsystems, cosystems, and supersystems. Their respective coherence is characterized by complex information. In Darwinian terms, living beings live in adaptation to the information of their environment. If they do not fit, if they are not fit enough in the Darwinian sense (their regulatory information processing and energy metabolism do not match their environment), they cannot survive (they are "selected out").

It is therefore appropriate to understand humans as beings that process information and energy. From intuition and thought in the brain to the interplay of genes in the genome, information is constantly being processed. This information processing determines energy expenditure and gene activity, ultimately affecting the entire human being.

His information processing and life dynamics constantly strive for internal and external coherence. His fundamental motivation is the pursuit of consistency between his inner self and his environment. Short-term appetitive and aversional motivations also serve this long-term, overarching coherence motivation (see Petzold & Henke 2023; see also basic motivations: https://gesunde-entwicklung.com/sypsymotivationmehr/).

Based on motivational neuroendocrine attitudes and coherence regulation, stress regulation can also be well understood and salutogenically stimulated (Petzold 2022, 2024; Petzold & Henke 2023).

Healthy development in a multidimensional environment

Healthy Practice

We understand salutogenic practice to encompass everything that promotes a good life and healthy development. This can occur through self-regulation, instinct, intuition, and/or conscious intention, and can affect all dimensions of life (self-care, family, society/culture, humanity/biosphere, etc.). Co-creative communication and cooperation (sa SalKom® training) play a fundamental role today. For this, we particularly need skills to break free from the destructive interaction pattern of the perpetrator-victim-judge/rescuer dynamic, in short: the power-victim triangle (su). This can be achieved through cooperative, constructive communication. Mutual responsiveness to the needs and concerns of potential cooperation partners plays a crucial role in this process.

Co-creative communication and cooperation

Communication for cooperation begins with the partners addressing each other's needs and concerns. In doing so, they discover a shared intentionality. By finding and sharing this common ground, an intentional space of resonance is created. Within this cooperative space, trust and the reciprocity typical of cooperation emerge. Trust is built by extending trust to someone. In this space, the partners can work together synergistically.

This intentional space for resonance can arise spontaneously or be consciously created. In any case, the potential cooperation partners respond to each other, depending on the intended cooperation, taking into account their needs, desires, concerns, and possibly also ways of thinking.

It is helpful to observe the four steps that Tomasello & Hamann (2012) observed and described as fundamental for successful cooperation in children (see Petzold & Henke 2023; Petzold 2022, 2024).

This model helps to moderate co-creative processes in therapy and counselling, teamwork, education as well as (health) policy – ultimately resolving the power-victim dynamic (su).

The victim-perpetrator-judge/rescuer interaction pattern:

Power-Victim Triangle

To understand this widespread, stress-inducing interaction pattern, it is helpful to first reflect on its general origins. In the pursuit of co-creative cooperation towards more complex order/coherence (negentropy) with a feeling of joy, people are repeatedly disturbed by threatening natural events as well as by other people (often associated with a feeling of fear). When this disturbance appears existentially threatening and cannot be averted through one's own action, we speak of it today as trauma.

This can lead to those affected feeling acutely and persistently like victims and seeking a perpetrator. To regain a sense of coherence, the victim strives to neutralize the (potential) perpetrator. In direct confrontation, this occurs when they themselves strive for power (possibly with the support of biased relatives and help from rescuers) and become the perpetrator (avenger). The victim-perpetrator relationship is reversed. This reciprocal dynamic leads to escalation, even to annihilation. The roles can shift rapidly and repeatedly. We have witnessed this time and again in international politics in recent years.

To prevent such escalations among people, revenge/retribution was already limited in the Old Testament to justice, "tit-for-tat," "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth." This has been a foundation for the sense of justice and the administration of law for thousands of years. Courts and the executive branch have the function of preventing the escalation of the victim-perpetrator dynamic and protecting potential victims. This is why vigilantism is prohibited today. The legal system, judges, and the executive branch have become a powerful component of the victim-perpetrator dynamic, so that we speak of a perpetrator-victim-judge/rescuer triangle, or in short, a power-victim triangle.

Rescuers also play a crucial role. Their task is to empower the injured victims, to support them in their striving for wholeness. Initially, they are expected to assess the cause, the perpetrator of the injury: Was it a virus? A person? The employer or capitalist? Or perhaps bacteria? Or genes? Or was it self-inflicted harm? The cause must then (according to the logic of pathogenetic thinking) be combated and eliminated. The role of the rescuer is almost (but not quite) as powerful as that of the judge. It occupies its place in the power-victim triangle alongside the judge.

If a person, perceived as a victim, feels misunderstood by their rescuer in their victim role, and instead feels weakened, criticized, and condemned, they perceive the supposed rescuer as a perpetrator (collaborator) and attempt to fight, ignore, manipulate, and/or criticize them (possibly publicly, nowadays on the internet). This leads to a role reversal. The rescuer may then respond within the dynamics of the power-victim interaction pattern... and then a judge is needed. In relation to therapeutic relationships, the transactional analyst S. Karpman first described parts of this interaction pattern as the Drama Triangle in 1964. Only by understanding this relationship pattern within its bio-cultural context, as well as relationships as co-creative collaborations (see Tomasello 2010), have we been able to establish and deepen communicative solutions from a psycho-sociodynamic perspective.

Breaking free from the power-victim dynamic

The practical solutions lie in the four steps to human cooperation: (1) being responsive to one another (this includes the other person's needs and concerns); (2) finding a common goal, a shared intentionality; (3) clarifying roles; (4) helping someone who is not fulfilling their role. By finding and creating a communicative space of intentional resonance, we can develop co-creative cooperation.