Signature Speakers
Leading voices exploring the depth and future of Dabrowski’s work and its relevance in today’s world
Dexter Amend, PhD
Abstract
Thoughts on Positive Disintegration
Dexter Amend, PhD
These are Dr. Dabrowski’s thoughts voiced in dictations to his secretary from which she produced a typescript “rough draft” of over 100 pages under 20 chapter headings.
In the Author’s Introduction, Dr. Dabrowski describes his thoughts as “a collection of fragments…consisting of short expositions, suggestions, declarations, questions, comments and ideas.” His purpose is “to give a commonplace expression to many difficult problems contained in the Theory of Positive Disintegration.” He states, “most of the problems covered in this book have received more systematic and logical elaboration in previous more scientific publications by the author. However, several topics treated herein, such as Transcendence, Meditation, Sleep and Dreams, the Problem of Death, The Problem of Subjectivity and Objectivity in Science, have not been discussed elsewhere in the author’s writings.”
Dr. Dabrowski “feels that the synthetic, sometimes aphorismic expression presented here may make assessable to some readers many problems and ideas which might not otherwise be conveyed. He completes his introduction to say, “The fact need not be underlined that these ‘thoughts’ stem from many years of intensive research and experience.”
In this session, excerpts from “Thoughts” will be read, reflected upon and discussed, underlining and honoring our Author’s intensive experience and research.
Bio
Dr. Dexter R. Amend studied at the University of Alberta and worked closely with Kazimierz Dąbrowski from 1971–1975 as both a Research and Teaching Assistant.
In 1972, he completed his MSc thesis, Object Permanence and Object Possession: A Comparison of Jean Piaget and Jerome Bruner on Cognitive Development During Infancy, under the supervision of Dr. Dąbrowski. From 1972–1974, he also completed a two-year clinical internship with Dr. Dąbrowski.
Since 1975, Dr. Amend has served as a psychology instructor and counsellor at Spokane Falls Community College, where he has taught across a wide range of educational, clinical, correctional, and community settings. His work has included teaching and counselling with students, mental health professionals, military personnel, and diverse community populations.
From 1983–2010, Dr. Amend developed and directed the Service Learning in England program, through which more than 600 students completed volunteer placements in the British health care system while earning college credit. His longstanding commitment to international and intercultural learning also includes collaboration in developing and teaching The Psychology of Personal and Interpersonal Peace, a cross-cultural course integrating Western and Eastern psychological perspectives, as well as educational and cultural exchange work in Tibet.
Dr. Amend continues to teach and remains active in international dialogue, service learning, and contemplative practice. He currently leads a weekly evening class entitled Meditation for Health, Happiness, Peace and Prosperity.
Michele Kane, EdD
Abstract
Inner Conflict and the Role of “The Other”: TPD and Relationships
Michele Kane, EdD
The core contribution of Kazimierz Dabrowski’s theory of positive disintegration centers on function of inner conflict as a catalyst for personal growth. Shifting the perspective of conflict from one of negativity to one of necessity allows the individual to reframe their unique experiences as pathways for exploring and recognizing the authentic self.
Another key aspect of TPD includes three critical factors; namely, social environment, biological endowment, and the “third factor” or the autonomous inner force and these factors also place the individual at the core. Therefore, TPD, as described, is typically a solitary developmental process.
Yet, each person develops in relationship to the others they encounter on their life’s journey. This presentation will explore the varied roles played by “the other’’ as crucial to both unilevel and multilevel disintegrative processes. Specifically, the roles of the caring witness, the embracing other/soul friend or “anam cara,” the undermining/disrupting other, the mirroring other, and the exemplar will be examined for the contributions they might have to personal experiences of inner conflict as well as the possibility for being catalysts in the positive disintegration process.
Bio
Michele Kane first became acquainted with Kazimierz Dabrowski when she attended an all-day workshop on Counseling the Gifted conducted by Linda Silverman in 1982. She is one of the many who experienced a profound “aha” moment and much of her life became instantly understandable during that intensive presentation. The quest for authenticity within a recognizable framework provided immediate meaning and validation—what a joyful occasion!
Over time she was able to obtain many of the original works through far flung library requests and became a serious student of TPD. The first gathering Michele attended was at Ashland University and presentations there by Michael Piechowski, Linda Silverman, Nancy Miller, Frank Falk, and Sharon Lind fueled her passion. She has attended most of the Dabrowski Congresses, Dabrowski Workshops, and many other important gatherings such as the ones at Keystone and Lake Geneva. Eventually, she became a frequent presenter at these events. Michele continues to find aspects of TPD essential to her personal and professional journey and is eager to share what she uncovers or seeks to clarify. Additionally, Michele remains engaged in the Dabrowski Study Group that meets monthly online.
Subsequently, Michele became active in the field of gifted education and gifted psychology and shared widely the principles of TPD with teacher and parent audiences. Additionally, she found students from pre-school through graduate school to be receptive to the work and willing to engage in lively conversations.
In 2018, Michele was the Conference Co-Planner, along with graduate student colleagues, for The Thirteenth International Dabrowski Congress. The theme, Developmental Potential and the Complexity of Change, centered on important aspects of TPD. Previously, in 2010, Michele and Cheryl Ackerman were Conference Co-Planners for The Ninth International Congress of the Institute for Positive Disintegration in Human Development with the theme of Transformation. Michele is proud to be serving on the planning committee of the 2026 Seventeenth Dabrowski Congress.
Sal Mendaglio, PhD
Abstract
Rethinking Self-Concept in Light of Dabrowskian Development
Sal Mendaglio, PhD
This session examines self-concept through the lens of Dabrowski’s Theory of Positive Disintegration (TPD). In conventional psychological frameworks, a positive self-concept is often treated as an index of well-being, whereas a negative self-concept is frequently linked to psychopathology. From a Dabrowskian perspective, however, self-concept whether positive or negative is best understood as a feature of normal development. This claim follows from contrasting prevailing accounts of self-concept formation with Dabrowskian development: self-concept is typically viewed as socially derived, emerging through early socialization and the internalization of others’ evaluations. TPD, by contrast, defines development as the transcendence of both biological and social determinants through increasing autonomy. Accordingly, reliance on a socially constructed self-concept reflects primary integration, in which identity remains externally regulated. The session concludes by considering implications for parents, teachers, and others engaged in the socialization of children.
Bio
Academic Career and Focus on Dabrowski’s Theory
Salvatore “Sal” Mendaglio, PhD, professor emeritus at the University of Calgary, has maintained a dedicated scholarly interest in Dabrowski’s theory of positive disintegration and in counselling gifted individuals. Throughout his academic career, Sal invested significant time in publishing articles and delivering conference presentations that explored how Dabrowski’s theory is represented within gifted education.
Retirement and Scholarly Endeavours
Retirement provided Sal with the opportunity to deepen his engagement with Dabrowski’s theory. He authored a book entitled Reflection, Refraction, and Resituation of Dabrowski’s Theory of Positive Disintegration, which offers a detailed account of his interpretation of the theory. In this book, Sal addresses two important matters: first, he proposes that personality psychology is the most suitable academic domain for Dabrowski’s theory. Second, he adds refinements to the theory, aligning with Dabrowski’s own assertion that ongoing refinements are essential to keep the theory relevant and alive.
Contributions to Giftedness and Counselling
Alongside his continued interest in Dabrowski’s theory, Sal’s retirement enabled him to consolidate his extensive publications on giftedness, as well as his forty years of experience counselling gifted individuals. This consolidation has led to the development of his model for a psychology of giftedness, which will be presented in a forthcoming book.
William (Bill) Tillier, M.Sc.
Abstract
Two New Books on Dąbrowski and Positive Disintegration
Bill Tillier, M.Sc.
In this 30-minute presentation, Bill Tillier introduces two forthcoming books on Dąbrowski and the Theory of Positive Disintegration.
In the first book, The Theory of Positive Disintegration as Taught by Dąbrowski, Tillier gives a broad overview of the theory as Dąbrowski taught it. In 1978, he was fortunate to attend a one-semester graduate seminar taught by Dr. Kazimierz Dąbrowski, in which Dąbrowski presented the framework of his Theory of Positive Disintegration (TPD). This book offers a snapshot based on Tillier’s notes and recollections of how Dąbrowski presented his ideas. This account should be supplemented by a careful reading of Dąbrowski’s original works and related scholarship. The aim is introductory: to provide an overview that may encourage interested readers to explore the theory in greater depth.
The presentation explores the foundations of TPD in neurology, psychology, psychiatry, and philosophy, as this context helps explain how the theory was developed and why it takes its particular form.
Book 2 is Systems Dynamics, Active Inference, and Positive Disintegration: Toward a Computational Developmental Framework.
Two of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries’ most interesting frameworks for understanding the mind and psychological development—Kazimierz Dąbrowski’s Theory of Positive Disintegration (TPD) and Karl Friston’s Free Energy Principle/Active Inference (FEP/AI)—share deep structural resemblances that have gone largely unexamined in the academic literature. Both offer hierarchical, multilevel accounts of how biological systems organize, disorganize, and reorganize themselves in response to internal conflict and environmental uncertainty, and both place emotion, tension, and surprise at the center of developmental change. Although they arise from strikingly different lineages, there are many overlaps and significant synergies between the two theories.
This book presents a structured literature review and theoretical synthesis that brings TPD and FEP/AI into explicit dialogue. To illustrate this synthesis, Tillard draws on three contemporary frameworks: Lisa Feldman Barrett’s Theory of Constructed Emotion, De Bondt’s Bayesian structural equation modeling of overexcitability, and Krystyna Laycraft’s chaos/complexity interpretation of TPD. A novel geometric analysis maps each TPD developmental level onto a distinct free-energy basin signature, grounding the theory’s developmental arc in the mathematics of loss-landscape geometry. To Tillier’s knowledge, no prior work has systematically integrated these strands, and the book concludes by outlining a research program for empirical and clinical application.
Three authors, Niki De Bondt, Krystyna Laycraft, and Enes Cikir, have been invited to write chapters.
Bio
Bill Tillier is a Canadian psychologist and writer based in Calgary, Alberta. He was trained at the University of Calgary (B.Sc.) and the University of Alberta (M.Sc. in psychology, with a thesis on the concept of family crisis). Meeting Kazimierz Dąbrowski at the start of his studies in Edmonton changed the course of his life, as Dąbrowski influenced him both personally and professionally. He began his career in forensic psychology with the federal government and spent most of it with the Alberta Solicitor General before retiring from formal practice after developing a neuromuscular disease. Drawing on this background, he has devoted his life to knowledge translation in two underserved areas: inclusion body myositis (IBM) and Kazimierz Dąbrowski’s Theory of Positive Disintegration. Bill is the author of Personality Development Through Positive Disintegration: The Work of Kazimierz Dąbrowski (2018). Through this book, together with positivedisintegration.com and related papers, he combines formal psychological training, close reading of the historical literature, and attention to lived experience to make complex theoretical ideas accessible to contemporary scholars and lay readers alike. Bill has organised and presented papers at many Dąbrowski conferences over the years. Now living with IBM, he draws on both professional and personal experience in his patient-focused book Inclusion Body Myositis: A Guide for Patients (2023) and the educational website ibmmyositis.com, which synthesises current IBM research for patients, families, and clinicians. He lives in Calgary with his caregivers, Rene and Nancy, and their families.
Laurie Nixon, PhD
We are sorry to share that Dr. Laurie Nixon is no longer able to participate in the 2026 Congress as a Signature Speaker. We are deeply grateful for his generous support and involvement, and we wish him all the very best.