A threefold method for studying self-pattern dynamics

This chapter focuses on several factors of the self-pattern for purposes of exploring in more detail how those factors are dynamically related, and how they may be affected in various disorders. The chapter outlines a threefold method that allows for an increasingly detailed analysis of how these relations are typically ordered and sometimes differently ordered. Rather than defining relations a priori, the method is empirical. It borrows tools developed in several other areas of research, including, (1) from performance studies, the model of a meshed architecture, (2) the notion of interventionist causality, and (3) dynamical systems analysis, specifically a coordination dynamics approach. The method is then applied to the case of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), with a focus on bodily, experiential, cognitive, affective, intersubjective, and social factors in the self-pattern.