This work provides an account of the neuropsychosocial genesis and organization of socioaffective dialogue. Socioaffective dialogue is a mutually reciprocated process of interation, between two or more individuals, in which the arousal an regulation of affective states generates a coevolving order of meaning that in-forms (gives shape to action) an behavior. The work is organized in three parts. Part I begins with a description, drawn primarily from Schore`s (1994) work, of the neuropsychosocial origins of all social communication which develops in the socioaffective interatcion between a mother and her new born infant. The interacton is organized along two dimensions: one involving the simulation emotional affects, and the second involgin the regulation of the infant`s aroused afective sates. These interation affect and direct the growth and tranformation of the infant`s brain and, when optmally organized, produce a stable, self-regulating "dialogical self", marked by onset of speech, at around eighteen months. Part II shows that the same two dimensions, -affective arousal and control - continue to be operative in the adult world in comunication in intimate relationships and in social collectives. A review of Sternbergs`s (1986) research on love and Bradley`s (1987) research on communes reveals that stable social organization is generated when interaction along the two dimensions is coupled as a self-retulation communication system. Part III uses Bradley and Pribram`s (1998) theory of communication to explain this result. The theory views the intecation between the two orders as an information processing system. When optimally organized as socioaffective dialogue, the interaction gathers and communticates holographic-like descriptions of edogenous organization throughout a social unit to in-form collective organization. However, there are limits on the combinations of affective arousal and control which are functional. Failure to maintain combinations within the requisite limits may prevent the creation and distribution of meaning and, hence, jeopardize colletive organization

Volume 24

Numbers 7-8