Relational Determination in Interpersonal and Intrapsychic Experience

Abstract

The task of this article is to review the principle of relational determination, as described by Solomon Asch (1952) which expands over Karl Duncker’s (1939) critique of ethical relativism. Relational determination has much to offer to the therapeutic community first with regard to interpersonal relations and social relations. My main goal is to extend this relational analysis to intrapsychic life, which may expose new potentialities for internal conflict resolution and personal integration, predicated on the cultivation of relational understanding (i.e., recognition of relational determination in organization of conscious experience). But this approach is best illustrated in its application to value differences and conflict across societies, which are typically viewed from the absolutist or relativist perspective.

Keywords

• relational determination
• interpersonal and intrapersonal conflict
• organization of conscious experience
• gestalt theoretical psychotherapy