Guiding principles • models of systemic psychotherapy • psychotherapeutic attitude • Methods • Setting • key words

Systemic Family Therapy ( english version )

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Systemic family therapy

Guiding principles

Systemic therapy is understood as an independent psychotherapeutic process, and is the umbrella term for a variety of approaches and models that have evolved from the couple and family therapies out. In addition to the first analytically oriented family therapy and later development-oriented direction (Virginia Satir) which derive from the research group of Gregory Bateson systemic schools came to the fore. With the term "systemic" points beyond the family therapy over the reference family and relationships is here for general systems theory. As a further development of family therapy it is also the individual therapeutic work in an interactional context.

In the theoretical discussion models from biology, sociology, bio-cybernetics, communication and epistemology have been included in the last two decades.

"Systems thinking" encompasses diverse approaches from different disciplines whose common feature is the nichtreduktionistische dealing with complexity, as General Systems Theory, Autopoiesetheorie, Cybernetics (2nd order), Synergetics, communication theory, constructivism, social constructionism, the theory of self-reference, self-organization and dynamic systems, chaos theory, etc.

Concepts such as circularity, autonomy and self-organization of systems challenge to rethink. So assuming linear causality is with her research into the causes of systemic approach towards the concept of circularity. After that, no distinction can be made between "cause" and "effect" in complex processes. The question of "how" is more important than the "why" of behaviors. Illustration and changes in communication structures are an essential objective system-oriented psychotherapy.

In the 80 years underwent a further fundamental change. Significant proportion of this was the epistemology of radical constructivism (von Foerster, H., E. von Glasersfeld). The individual is now seen as a "designer" of its social reality. The therapeutic activity aimed at understanding and dealing with the meaning of these constructions. An important impulse delivered the second-order cybernetics, which raises the question of how reality by observers (eg) is coproduced. It includes the situation of the observer in the construction of the observed reality and is primarily concerned with how knowledge is gained. Knowledge is understood as observer-dependent. It's not about targeted change of "objectively observable behavior" and symptoms, but a change in the subjective perceptions of family members and of psychotherapists in terms of the presented state of suffering. The focus of therapeutic attention shifts from the analysis and diagnosis of "pathological" processes towards the consideration of personal and family resources.

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