Actual Capabilities

Abstract

The goal of this segment is to specify the capabilities and conflict susceptibilities of people in a concrete way, and to determine the rules that direct our day to day actions. When we have problems with ourselves, our spouse, and our environment, when we don’t know what to do, and when we react to conflicts in mental and psychosomatic ways, we must investigate the nature of the conflicts. I may have been motivated in part by the fact that to a certain degree I live in a transcultural situation. As a Persian (Iranian) I have lived in Europe since 1954. This perspective made me aware of the importance of psychosocial norms in socialization and the development of spiritual and interpersonal conflicts. With American and Europeans patients, as well as ones from the Middle East, I found that behind the symptoms there were usually conflicts that went back to a series of recurring behavioral norms. I tried to collect these norms, assemble them into concepts that relate to each other, and to set up an inventory for describing the central areas of conflict. I called these behavioral norms actual capabilities. I established this term because it includes norms that operate in our everyday interpersonal relationships and thus have a continuing and timely significance. Differentiation analysis starts with the actual capabilities as potentials for both development and conflict.