Opening of the Way

So Michael M. Piechowski was the one who really promoted Dabrowski in the Gifted Movement.

Theory of Positive Disintegration, in Dabrowski's theory, personality is not a fixed, universal attribute; personality must be shaped -- created -- by an individual to reflect his or her own unique character. Positive disintegration, the process by which personality is achieved, is a twofold process of: (1) disintegration of a primitive mental organization aimed at gratifying biological needs and mindlessly conforming to societal norms, and (2) re-integration at a higher level of functioning, in which the individual transcends biological determinism and becomes autonomous. Personality, shaped by positive disintegration, develops primarily as a result of the action of developmental potential, which is a constitutional endowment that includes overexcitability--a high level of reactivity of the central nervous system, and dynamisms--autonomous inner forces, assumed to be normally distributed in the population.

Dabrowski to an interest in Rudolph Steiner's Anthroposophy and in Alice Baily (Theosophy UK). Parasychology and Eastern studies,and he practiced meditation daily.

He saw emotions as directing forces of development.

Got into areas covered by DSM., things he came to call Psychoneurosis. And he said, Psychoneurosis is not an illness.

These serve the transition from lower to higher development by generating the disintegration process.

Reading about Dabrowski here and knowning that his first major English language book was in 1964, I can see that being trained as a psychiatrist what Dabrowski was doing was serving as an anti-psychiatrist, in the same manner and Frantz Fanon, R. D. Laing, and D. G. Cooper.