Family Systems Therapy in GENERAL:
***(Content on this page including the images is from a course textbook. It is
my study guide and not my words)
Fam systems therapy concepts:
 Homeostasis & Self-Correction – a system’s tendency toward stability
 Stability & Change
 Morphostasis (stable) – in order for a system to remain stable, must be able to
change as appropriate
 Morphogenesis (change) – process necessary for creativity, growth, progress,
change, etc.
 Homeostasis & Self-Correction
 Negative Feedback – information and responses that maintain the status quo
(homeostasis – morphostasis)
 Positive Feedback - system must change to accommodate to the new
information and must find a new homeostasis (information that promotes
morphogenesis)
 Entropy – systems’ tendency toward disorder – little information in or out of the system
to other systems
 Negative Entropy (Negentropy) – systems’ tendency toward state of balance and order
– take in energy/information from outside systems – balance between task functions
and maintenance functions
 Rules Govern the System
 Spoken & Unspoken
 1st & 2nd Order Change
 Boundaries
 Open/Closed System
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Rules that Operate in the Larger Social/Cultural/Political System(s)
For Each Rule:
How does the rule operate and organize the members of the system?
How does it inform the boundaries of the system?
What would have to occur for a 2nd Order Change in the System?
2nd order concepts:
 Autopoiesis – self-generation of a system, ways that parts of the system relate to create
a particular unity that identifies those parts as a system
 Consensual Domains – as participants interact a particular reality is constructed
between them as a function of their interactions (shared meaning and reality)
 Epistemology of Participation – on-going recursive process in which individual and
systems interact and make adjustments to each other as all evolve and change – reality
is co-constructed
 Feedback – both positive and negative feedback must exist to maintain system, which
one you see, depends on where you are looking
 Non-Purposeful Drift – structure emerges as a function of reciprocal interactions –
mutual influence – structure is not inherent within the system, it emerges and evolves
over course of systems life (e.g. new couple)
 Reality as a Multiverse – perception is subjective; not one Truth
 Structural Coupling – the degree to which systems can mutually co-exist; the
compatibility or congruence between a particular organizational unity or system and its
environment
 Structural Determinism – the system determines the range of structural variations which
are possible without loss of identity; if change is to occur, the context or structure must
shift in order that new behaviors become logical
 Wholeness & Self-Reference – whatever we see says just as much about us as it does
what we are observing; emphasizes the internal structure of the system and the mutual
connectedness between all participants
Systemic Fam Therapy is:
 How the therapist thinks about who is in the room
 People in context/interdependence
 Interaction, recursion, mutual influence and perturbation
 Understanding the logic of what appears paradoxical
 Recognizing subjectivity
 Using basic ingredients to create recipes appropriate to each client system
 How the problem is maintained and the solutions desired by the client
 A story about stories
 How we each participate in creating our reality
 Both/and complementarities
 Process
 What is going on/the logic of behavior in context