Looking at Systems as Process

This article proposes that the social systems family therapists are concerned with may usefully be conceived of as interactive processes. It discusses limitations to the organismic view, in which social systems are seen as autonomous entities with boundaries, internal structures, and self-perpetuating behaviors, and argues, from Maturana and Varela, that social systems are qualitatively different from organisms. It develops from chaos theory an alternative view in which social systems are seen as complex nonlinear processes. It proposes that this view can free the therapist from the notions of family dysfunction and the systemic function of symptoms, and from reifications in which the family is seen as having covert rules, keeping secrets, neutralizing the therapist, and the like. This view leads to a redefinition of the therapist's place in the system and to the conclusion that family therapists can only influence systemic process by working with individuals.