Polystatic Adjustment
Having completed our appraisal and formulated our anticipations, based on the application of unconscious templates and schemas, we are ready to make some psychosocial changes. We Adjust if the current baseline of desired functioning is no longer appropriate. As Sterling proposes, we identify a new level of functioning. An alternative (“allo”) stasis is based on predictions regarding the probability of success in achieving this baseline (stasis). At the psychosocial level, we adjust our planned actions based on predictions and anticipations regarding the probable success of these actions. Baselines are likely to be adjusted along with the plans.
It should be noted that polystatic adjustments are often needed. While a homeostatic perspective on human operations is based on an assumption that these operations are being conducted in a closed system, the polystatic perspective is founded on the quite different assumption that human operations are being conducted in an open system. When operating in a closed system, one can anticipate that all of the relevant variables are locked in place. These variables include such important matters as the intentions, strength, and activity level of specific living entities (Osgood’s semantic differential), the strength and consistency of nonliving but dynamic entities (such as weather and temperature), and the presence of permanent objects (such as chairs and buildings). We know what the variables are and can usually make an accurate assumption about the magnitude of each variable and its relationship to the other relevant variables.
By contrast, an open system is one in which new variables enter the picture and change their magnitude and relationship to other variables. When operating in an open system, one will frequently experience a shift in their somatic template. Baselines often must be readjusted and anticipations modified. The space in which we operate is thrown even more open given the frequent appearance of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity, turbulence, and contradictions (VUCA-Plus) (Bergquist, 2025) in our contemporary society. Thus, given the inevitable presence of open systems in our mid-21st-century environment, we must acknowledge and embrace the indispensability of polystatic adjustments.
Polystatic Action
We act on behalf of the new baseline of desired outcomes as well as our new predictions regarding the relative effectiveness of potential actions to be taken. Our anticipations produce our new actions. In essence, Polystasis represents a dynamic, highly interactive interweaving of appraisal, adjustment, and action. Clear and accurate feedback is needed to determine appropriate levels of adjustment. Open channels for the flow of information between these three phases are critical.
Like Peter Sterling’s Allostasis, Polystasis contrasts dramatically with the traditional and long-dominant model of Homeostasis. Under homeostasis, daily adjustments are made via what I would identify as first-order change (Argyris, 2001). These adjustments require first-order learning, which is usually based on habitual ways of thinking. Such a model of stasis might effectively operate in a highly stable world. However, our mid-21st century psychosocial world is operating in a rugged and perhaps even moving (dancing) landscape that looks nothing like a flat, stable plain (Miller and Page, 2007).
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