Perceiving the pattern of organization in a family system

Abstract

AbstractPhysicist and writer Fritjof Capra states that the crisis of our times is a crisis of perception. I would suggest the crisis stems from our inability to perceive systemic connections. We are conditioned by the seventeenth‐century worldview of Newton and the tool of analysis devised by Descartes to perceive objects and events as separate and non‐related. The only relationship we acknowledge is linear cause and effect. Newton's worldview and Descartes' analysis are insufficient to perceive and comprehend the complex systems problems that plague our daily existence. The systems sciences offer a very different worldview that begins not with separate parts but with a whole that differentiates into parts. The parts are therefore connected through the relationships and interactions that organize the system. To effectively deal with systems you must be able to perceive the systemic connections and recognize their pattern of organization. Pattern recognition at this level requires skills in observation, abstraction and imaging. Families are systems that too often are perceived through the lens of reductionism as aggregates of individuals. Family therapists recognize that the family is a system but they are still hampered in their efforts to comprehend the systemic connections by the cognitive tool of analysis. Analysis breaks the system into its component parts and ignores the relationships and interactions that organize the system. My presentation will offer the theory and techniques of pattern recognition. This tool together with an understanding of systems principles and dynamics provides the framework needed to deal with the complex problems that emerge within family and other complex systems. Changing a system is not simply a matter of changing the individuals within the system. The characteristics of a system do not come from the characteristics of its components but from their organization. Changing systems requires changing their pattern of organization, that is, the pattern of relationships and networks of interaction that organize the system. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.