Complex Adaptive Systems: A Response to Luchins

Luchins (2003, Administration and Policy in Mental Health, 31(2), 183–186) distinguishes the mutual strengths and shortcomings of qualitative and quantitative approaches as applied to the complexities of evaluation psychiatric hospital functioning in particular, and behavioral healthcare practice in general. This brief response offers an examination of the complex interplay of factors within non-linear models in a conceptualization of complex adaptive systems for understanding causal factors in mental health administration as well as calling into question the myth of the relationship between measurement and hence control and understanding and prediction.