Edwin H. Friedman Quote

In 1970, an experiment was conducted in a French laboratory in which two organisms from the same species that had not developed immune systems were moved closer and closer toward one another. At a certain threshold of proximity, the smaller one began to disintegrate, and within twenty-four hours it had lost all the principles of its organization. The researchers tried to ascertain what the larger one had done to the smaller one, but in the end found that it had done nothing at all except exist; it had not secreted some substance, nor destroyed it in any hostile way. The smaller one simply began to disintegrate in response to the loss of distance; its disintegration was brought about through internal mechanisms triggered by the closeness of the other. The researchers concluded with the simple statement that they had induced auto-destruction in one member of a species by bringing it into proximity with a larger member of the same species. They suggested (with eye-popping consequences for chronic illness in a family) that this could be viewed as an adaptation to their relationship. It