Chaos Theory and Group Psychotherapy 15 Years Later

Abstract

Chaos Theory and Group Psychotherapy 15 Years Later Virginia Brabender1 issn 0362-4021 © 2016 Eastern Group Psychotherapy Society group, Vol. 40, No. 1, Spring 2016 9 1 Professor, Widener University. Correspondence should be addressed to Virginia Brabender, PhD, Institute for Graduate Clinical Psychology, Widener University, One University Place, Chester, PA 19013-5792. E-mail: vmbrabender@gmail.com. 2 I urge the reader to visit or revisit that article, as well as Brabender (1997), to obtain some basics on chaos/complexity theory. In 2000, I wrote an article, “Chaos, Group Psychotherapy, and the Future of Uncertainty and Uniqueness,” for GROUP (Brabender, 2000), in which I forecasted the rise of chaos theory (Prigogine & Stengers, 1984) as a conceptual framework through which we could better understand group phenomena and which would serve as a platform for the formulation of effective interventions.2 Chaos theory examines the dynamics of nonlinear, adaptive systems—systems in which the effects need not be related in linear fashion to the cause, systems that are altered by their interaction with the environment. Whereas chaos theory looks at systems at the edge of disorder, complexity theory, the overarching frame, accounts for the transitions between order and chaos (Arrow, 2005). Chaos/complexity theory seemed a natural fit for understanding the psychotherapy group, and I was convinced that it would be a driver of theory and research into the new millennium for four specific reasons that I believe continue to have relevance to group psychotherapy. First, across the sciences, chaos theory was illuminating phenomena that had not been easily or as neatly explained, and that illumination continues. Chaos/ complexity theory has been used to understand phenomena as diverse as the human aging process (Kyriazis, 2003), individuals’ career trajectories (e.g., Pryor, Amundson , & Bright, 2008), and disaster response management (Koehler, Kress, & Miller, 2014). As different as these areas are from psychotherapy groups, all of them share with the psychotherapy group features that chaos/complexity theory showcases. 10 brabender Psychotherapy groups, like these other systems, are irreversible in that they all entail the presence of feedback loops wherein past experiences feed into and shape the present. Psychotherapy groups, like other systems that have lent themselves to chaos/ complexity analyses, are dissipative in that an ongoing exchange of information with the environment exists. All of these complex adaptive systems are characterized by the previously mentioned feature of nonlinearity. For example, the same stimulus, the therapist’s manifest inattention, in one moment of the group may elicit members’ worry and, in another, their outrage. Finally, the psychotherapy group is similar to other groups examined through the lens of chaos/complexity theory in that they are all self-organizing. Psychotherapy groups can be on the brink of chaos in one segment of the life of the group only to achieve, sometimes quite rapidly, coherence in its organization. For example, a group that seems fragmented, with a variety of issues holding sway, might move into a subgrouping structure that provides a container for members to explore different positions related to dependency. Hence many of the important features of the psychotherapy group are the very features examined by chaos/complexity theory, features that have been successfully explored in other domains of application. Second, chaos theory has an obvious compatibility with one of the dominant theoretical frameworks in understanding psychotherapy groups: general systems theory. For example, chaos/complexity theory’s notion that from disorder comes reorganization (or order; Freeman, 2014) is integral to general systems theory. However , whereas general systems theory focuses on systems moving toward equilibrium, chaos/complexity theory had and still has the promise of adding something beyond what general systems theory could provide in that the former studies systems that are far from equilibrium or at the edge of chaos, with chaos being a state of unpredictability and apparent randomness. Chaotic systems are only apparently random because they operate within circumscribed parameters. It is precisely in their position at the edge of chaos that systems have the greatest potential to reorganize. Chaos/ complexity theory also shares with general systems theory the notion that embedded systems within a hierarchy exhibit a similarity across levels of the system. General systems theory refers to structural and dynamic features that repeat...