Positive Disintegration

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.

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.