The systemic approach or is the application of general systems theory in any discipline: education, organizations, psychotherapy, etc.

This approach is presented as a systematic and scientific way of approaching and representing reality seen from a holistic and integrating perspective , where the important thing is the relationships and the components that emerge from them. From this emerges the systemic therapy .

Therefore, its study and practice puts special importance on the relationship and communication in any group that interacts, understood as a system . This approach also extends to individuals, taking into account the different systems that make up their context.

Systemic therapy: another way of doing therapy

The systemic therapy understands problems from a contextual framework and focuses on understanding and changing the dynamics of relationships (family, work, etc.) .

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The roles and behaviours of people in these contexts are understood to be determined by the unspoken rules of that system and the interaction between its members.

Understanding Multicausal Disorders

Until then, in the field of psychotherapy, mental illness was understood in linear terms, with historical and causal explanations of the condition. First, the cause is sought and then treatment is provided. The systemic therapy model (widely used in family therapy), observes the phenomena in a circular and multicausal manner, therefore, it is not possible to establish linear markers . To give an example, within a family, members behave and react in unpredictable ways because every action and reaction continually changes the nature of the context.

Paul Watzlawick was a pioneer in distinguishing between linear and circular causality, thus explaining the various possible repetitive patterns of interaction and marking a before and after in the interpretation of difficulties in personal relationships. The circular view of problems is marked by how the behaviour of one individual influences the actions of another, which in turn also influences the former.

Therefore, systemic therapy offers a circular, interactive vision within the system or group that has its rules of transformation and controls itself through feedback phenomena to maintain a state of balance . The components of the system enter into relationship through communication, one of the keys to this therapy.

The beginnings of systemic therapy

Systemic therapy emerged during the 1930s as a support for professions in various fields: psychiatry, psychology, education and sexology. Although the movement was initiated in Germany by Hirschfeld, Popenoe was the first to apply it in the United States. Later, Emily Mudd developed the first evaluation program in family therapy in Philadelphia.

John Bell, your most popular reference

Many claim that the father of modern family therapy is John Bell , a professor of psychology at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, because in 1951 he conducted joint therapy with the entire family of a very aggressive young man and obtained excellent results. That is why in many bibliographical citations they mark this moment as the beginning of systemic therapy.

Since then, many have applied and disseminated the principles of systemic therapy in different settings. For example Nathan Ackerman, in child psychiatry, Theodore Lidz specialized in working with families of schizophrenic patients and was the first to explore the role of parents in the process of schizophrenia. Bateson, who was an anthropologist and philosopher, studied the family structure of the tribes of the islands of Bali and New Zealand with his wife Margaret Mead.

Brief therapy develops from systemic therapy

Since the early 1970s, it was suggested that the systemic model could be applied to a single individual even if the whole family did not attend , and that it involves a development of the brief therapy of the Palo Alto MRI.

The Brief Systemic Therapy is a set of intervention procedures and techniques that aim to help individuals, couples, families or groups mobilise their resources to achieve their goals in the shortest possible time , and has its origin in systemic therapy.

In the mid-1970s, a group consisting of Paul Watzlawick, Arthur Bodin, John Weakland and Richard Fisch established the “Brief Therapy Center” . This group developed what is now known worldwide as the Palo Alto Model , generating a radical change in psychotherapy, by developing a brief, simple, effective and efficient model to help people produce change.

The practice of systemic therapy

Systemic therapy is characterized by a practical rather than analytical problem-solving approach. It is not so much about diagnosing who is ill or who has the problem (e.g. who has an aggression problem), but rather it focuses on identifying the dysfunctional patterns within the group of people’s behaviour (family, employees, etc.), in order to redirect those behavioural patterns directly.

Systemic therapists help systems find balance. Unlike other forms of therapy, such as psychoanalytic therapy, the goal is to practically address current patterns of relationship, rather than causes, as in this example may be the subconscious impulses of childhood trauma.