Information metabolism
| Antoni Kępiński | |
|---|---|
Antoni Kępiński
|
|
| Born | November 16, 1918 Dolina near Stanisławów |
| Died |
June 8, 1972 (aged 53) Kraków, Poland |
| Citizenship | Polish |
| Nationality | Polish |
| Fields | Psychology, Psychiatry |
| Known for | information metabolism, axiological psychiatry |
| Influences | Carl Gustav Jung, Ernst Kretschmer, Erich Fromm |
| Influenced | Aušra Augustinavičiūtė |
| Notable awards | Knight's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta Gold Cross of Merit |
Antoni Kępiński (November 16, 1918 – June 8, 1972) was a Polish psychiatrist.
He attended the Bartłomiej Nowodworski High School. In 1936 he entered the Medical Faculty of the Jagiellonian University. In 1939, he interrupted his studies before graduation and volunteered for the Polish Army to defend his country from the German invasion. After the successful invasion of Poland by Germany, Kępiński was captured and imprisoned in Hungary, to where he had fled. In 1940, he managed to escape imprisonment and headed to France, then Spain, where he was imprisoned in Miranda del Ebro.
Later he was freed and moved to the United Kingdom, spending a short time with the Polish aircraft division. In 1944-5, he continued his medical studies in Edinburgh graduating in 1946. Soon he returned to Poland and took up psychiatry at the Psychiatric Clinic in Collegium Medicum of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. Shortly before his death in 1972 he was appointed as Professor of that Faculty.
As a concentration camp inmate himself he took part in a rehabilitation programme for survivors from the Auschwitz concentration camp.
He is known for developing the concept of information metabolism.
Information metabolism is a psychological theory of human social interactions based on information processing, proposed by Kępiński. The most detailed description of information metabolism concept is given in his book "Melancholy". In this model, the living organism is considered as an open system in the sense of Bertalanffy. Living beings are characterized by negentropy as their functioning results in thermodynamically ordered structures. The body itself retains the same basic structure, although its building elements (molecules) are replaced quite frequently. The energy derived from food and oxygen is spent on securing the integrity of the organism. To refer to the exchange of energy between the organism and its surroundings, Kępiński used the term "energy metabolism". Any activity of the body is an informational sign to other beings, and also for our own psyche. The perception of our own activities and those occurring in the external world, may be seen as information input to the psyche. The psyche can be seen as information-processing unit, with its reactions being the information outputs. As emhpasized by Kępiński, psychological structure of an individual remains relatively stable despite an ongoing exchange of information, analogically to the physical structure subject to energy metabolism. In his books, Kępiński explained various mental conditions as disorders and imbalances of the information metabolism.
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