Transformation means Disintegration

Breakdown & Disintegration

Transformation (L7) specifies a move from one identity state, which means one structured system, to another identity state with a different structure. It only occurs if the original state is manifestly unsatisfactory and on a worsening trajectory.

To transform, the original identity state must break down or be broken down in order to constitute the new. Structural breakdown necessarily entails a loss of function seemingly even more extreme than the malfunctioning which triggers it.

This loss of function persists until the new identity state is installed. The new identity state with its new structure typically represents a massive and often surprising improvement in functioning over the old state. But that was precisely why transformation was required.

The disturbance and distress associated with the loss of capabilities is typically experienced as extreme. That is why transformation is avoided for as long as possible: even when needed and as functioning deteriorates. Nevertheless either due to inner forces of the entity or due to extremes in the external world, transformative change may become unavoidable.

Examples

Personal Growth

The natural maturation of an infant into an adult reflects numerous identity transformations. These changes are driven from within and facilitated from without.

In families, every parent will notice that their infant or toddler appears to be developing so well when suddenly behaviour deteriorates, the child regresses to an earlier state, becomes unexpectedly aggressive, and seems unable to function as the parents have come to expect. This phase lasts only days in the earliest stages, weeks in later childhood, months or years in adolescence. Then suddenly the child recaptures all previous capabilities and shows a spurt in maturity. Something similar can happen in adulthood too.

In psychoanalysis, the patient is enabled to undergo a controlled regression. In my own researches, this eventually leads to primal repression, sensed as a "black hole" in the psyche, at which time the analysand is in a traumatic state and almost unable to function. Given primary relatedness with the analyst, early trauma can be safely reached and reconstructed so that a memory results. There is then a progressive repair of psychic damage that was the basis for the presenting symptoms and life difficulties.

Organizational Re-structuring

Organizations can get into serious trouble due to falling revenues or profitability, which may be due to internal failures, or external forces like market shifts. When organisations want to make a quantum leap forward they re-structure themselves. It may be that the quantum leap involves new markets, new operations, new products or new branding, but in every case re-organization is perceived as essential.

The changes are commonly explicitly described as a transformation. Transformative projects are immensely disruptive for staff due to uncertainty and ambiguity, the overloading of new responsibilities on top of a need to keep the system running, and the pressure from replacing what is familiar with something new and untested. The costs for restructuring are often massive. However, the outlook for benefiting is typically 5-10 years or more.

Change in a State

The most violent forms of transformation occur with the replacement of governing or policy regimes in societies constituted as states. The stages and nature of such changes have been described and confirmed by numerous historians over the centuries.

Since the renaissance, changes enabling growth have occurred approximately every 70-100 years with painful disintegration and dysfunction
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A full analysis of scholarly work is not appropriate but the following writers deserve mention:

Idn Khaldun a polymath of the 14th Century wrote an introduction to history, Muqaddimah, in which he identified cycles of the rise and fall of kingdoms, that last 100-120 years. The cycle starts with social cohesion, simple laws that are obeyed and modest affluence generally shared. It ends with complex laws that are evaded, a thirst for money and a wealthy elite. The 1st generation founds and builds, the 2nd imitates their elders and improves, the 3rd generations has lost contact with the founding values, and the 4th generation are the destroyers who despise the founders' collective spirit and look out for themselves.

Arnold Toynbee in his massive 12 volume A Study of History , now largely discredited by academics, suggested there is a civilizational and war cycle of 95 years with 4 parts. This cycle seen in terms of rising to challenges, applied in ancient times as well as in the last 5 centuries.

W. Strauss & N. Howe identified 4 archetypal generations, labelled Heroes, Artists, Prophets, and Nomads, and viewed the cycle as taking about 80 years. Their cycle starts with a High which represents the resolution of the previous cycle's Crisis and is marked by strong institutions and social collectivism. The 2nd phase is the Awakening typified by the assertion of personal and spiritual autonomy. The 3rd phase is the Unravelling in which institutions weakens and individualism strengthens. The final phase, Crisis, is an era of destruction in which social cohesion disintegrates under the pressure of polarization and distrust of institutions leading to outbreaks of violence and potentially war.

Peter Turchin used quantitative methods to identify regular cycles of growth and disintegration lasting about 100 years. His focus is on a phase of peace and prosperity leading to an over-production of elites who compete for power and impoverish the masses. Eventually there is a social breakdown leading to a new cycle that commences with greater social equality: cf. his latest text.

Philip Bobitt has presented the evolution of the state in terms of cycles of war and peace: see politics section for an account.

Historians, popular and academic, observe that societies move from a stage characterized by community spirit and acceptance of authority, through an awakening of individualism, into a weakening of social bonds and a neglect of institutions, until finally severe socio-economic inequalities develop leading to violence and wars. The driving force appears to be generational differences combined with the emergence of self-interested elites competing for power and impoverishing most in society.

The crisis is inevitably devastating for the population and characterized by violence. Society appears to have broken down. The situation, however, resolves with a collective determination to institute a new governing or policy regime. This new regime resolves previous unresolvable issues and brings balance back to the society, which moves it to a somewhat higher plane of functioning.

Originally posted: 15-July-2025