What set the context to systemic theory?
- dissatisfaction with the effectiveness of psychoanalytic
- general systems theory as a model
- research in schizophrenia
- dev of groups of psychotherapies
- critique of intrapsychic work
- change in understanding of resistance
- considerations surrounding costs
Theory that lead to change - early ideas developed along 2 related but different pathways - cybernetics (mechanistic) employed to design various forms on mechanical control systems. The 2nd path was the application of system theory concepts to biological systems.
Early systemic ideas dev into 2 pathways - the start of systems theory and cybernetics
- Cybernetics -
- cybernetics (coined by Norbert Weiner)
- 2 imp concepts emerged - feedback & causation
- feedback (principle idea) - how info could loop back into a system enabling control. A system was seen as able to maintain its stability through a process of self-regulations by using info about past performance and how this was needed to make corrections to the previous system. This helped offer practical applications and philosophical leaps in explaining causation.
- causation - continuous circular process. Dynamic model of the world.
(Cause and effect - how 1 variable influences another variable. When 1 variable effects the other it causes causation).
Weiner - meds only offer a temp solution and the cure is found when we view problems as interpersonal
Refer to alleydog.com - family therapy
Theory that led to change cont…
- The application of systems theory to biological systems
- according to systems theory - essential properties of an organism are whole properties.
Ludwig Von Bertalanaffy - believed that the whole is greater than just the parts and that to understand how an organism works we must study the transactional process that happens between components of the system. Open systems (bertalanaffy) - allows for a continuous flow of info to and from the outside world. The family grows through its interaction with the world it is living in.
Theory that led to change cont…
Homeostasis (tendency to maintain a balanced or constant internal state for functioning) - Don Jackson.
The body has a tendency to maintain balance or equilibrium (sense of balance) and this homeostatic tendency can also be seen in family systems. Our bodies work in ways to establish equilibrium.
Jackson - a symptom in 1 or more of the family members develops as a response to the actions’ of other members of the family. Trying to change the symptom might bring on RESISTANCE. He implied that this resistance is usually an unconscious pattern of emotional responses. Ex: husband urged wife to seek psychotherapy because of her frigidity, months later she is less sexually-inhibited but the husband is now experiencing impotence.
Dysfunctional families have a tendency to resist change.
Early key figures in the development of family therapy:
William Buckley - human rels could be seen as analogous to a ‘system’. Families could be viewed as a set of a network of components which are interrelated.
Gregory Bateson - recognised the importance of applying math, engineering and biological concepts to the social and behavioural sciences. He then introduced the notion that families could be seen as a cybernetic system. He was accredited with providing the intellectual foundation for the field because of his ideas and studies of patterns and communication.
Jay Hayley, John Weakland & Don Jackson - in 52, Hayley and Weakland joined Bateson to study patterns and paradoxes in communication. In 54, Jackson joined them and they studies schizophrenic communication patterns. In 56, they published ‘towards a theory of schizophrenia’ were they came up with the ‘Double Bind Theory’ on communication in schizophrenic families. They discovered that families with a schizophrenic member had poor communication that resulted in problems.
Double bind theory
Double bind - emotionally distressing dilemma in comm were a person or more receive conflicting and contradictory messages
- family communication was highlighted by Bateson etc on the causes of schizophrenia.
Double bind requires:
- victim of double bind takes on contradictory messages
- metacommunication is not possible
- victim cannot leave comm field
- failing to fulfil contradictory messages ends up in punishment
