The "organizations of personal meaning" and the concept of "diachrony / synchrony".

Abstract

At the end of the nineties Guidano has advanced a reformulation of the Personal Meaning Organizations (PMO) –a key construct in his model– in terms of two dimensions: field-dependence/field-independence and inwardness/outwardness. In this paper a third dimension, diachrony/synchrony, is presented and discussed. In particular, a preliminary definition of the dimension is advanced. Then, the position of each PMO with reference to the new dimension is analysed. Finally, the contribution of the new dimension to the understanding of dynamics of the psychopathological unbalancement is discussed. The three-dimensional model, which emerges from the introduction of the new dimension, gives a better basis for an explicative psychopathology and permits a more efficacious and versatile therapy.