Langsian psychology and physics

Abstract

This paper relates the primitives of Robert J. Langs' psychology to those of physics. The off-boundary properties of all known natural processes are decided by their boundary behavior. Langs' formulations add the process of psychotherapy and general interpersonal exchange, that is two or more party dialogues, to this. His theory distinguishes the boundary, as does physics, into a frame and two-sided action site, referred to as a gate here. His ideas develop by moving from data on the boundary as a gate to the nature of the frame. His line of approach contrasts with Freud's direction toward the process interior and to Jung's across it. Placing his boundary ideas into where he enters psychology repeats a line of thought in the history of physics on the relation of a system to its environment. This paper notes that much of Freud's theory is grounded in the first law of thermodynamics and Jung's the second. Langs' theory subsumes both laws with a holistic boundary model.