Systems Theory and Family Therapy

A concise, readable introduction to systems theory (and especially second-order cybernetics) with practical applications to family therapy.
Systems Theory and Family Therapy: A Primer, Fourth Edition, provides a thorough yet concise explication of systems theory (cybernetics), which is the primary paradigm for the practice of systemic individual, marital, and family therapy. This book provides an overview of the essential concepts of a systems theoretical perspective using families and family therapy in context as examples and illustrations of their application in professional practice. Readers are invited to see themselves as parts of the systems with which they are working, consistent with a second-order cybernetics perspective. This book concludes with more than one hundred examples of how the meta-perspective of systems theory can be used in work with families.

By Raphael J. Becvar; Dorothy Stroh Becvar and Lynne V. Reif - Foreword by Sally St. George and Dan Wulff

Acknowledgments
Foreword-Sally St. George and Dan Wulff
Preface-Raphael J. Becvar
Introduction: How to Use This Book
1 About Theories
2 Systems Theory/Cybernetics: A Paradigm Shift
Modernism
Postmodernism
Constructivism
Social Constructionism
First-Order and Second-Order Cybernetics
3 First-Order Cybernetics: Definitions of Concepts
Boundaries
Communication/Information Processing
Context
Entropy and Negative Entropy
Equifinality
Homeostasis, Morphostasis, and Morphogenesis
Open and Closed Systems
Positive and Negative Feedback
Recursion
Relationship
Wholeness
Summary and Conclusion
4 Second-Order Cybernetics: Definition of Concepts
Autopoiesis
Consensual Domains
Epistemology of Participation
Feedback
Nonpurposeful Drift
Openness and Closedness
Reality as a Multiverse
Structural Coupling
Structural Determinism
Wholeness and Self-Reference
Summary and Conclusion
5 Family Interpretive Systems/Stories
6 Family Development Through the Life Cycle
7 The Family as System
8 A Critique and Defense of the Systems Perspective
9 Patterns to Ponder
Double Messages
Patterns and Paradoxes to Ponder
10 Implications for Family Therapy
Stability and Change
General Principles
Engaging the Family, Assessment, and Therapeutic Goals
Pragmatics
Final Thoughts
11 In Conclusion
References
Index
About the Authors