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Human Systems & Systemic Solutions

Systemic Solutions with Martyn Carruthers

We present interactive seminars and demonstration-rich workshops on systemic coaching, happiness, family chaos and relationship bonds. Email us if you are interested in a seminar or workshop.

Human Systems

Observing human beings as members of systems show that the rules of human interaction are different to rules that portray people as isolated or disconnected. Much behavior that seems irrational can, with systems thinking, become both obvious and predictable.

A systemic perception of life can bring significant change (a paradigm shift) in the way helping professionals can diagnose and change dysfunctional behavior in human systems.

Systemic diagnosis exposes underlying dynamics which, if not resolved, can be expressed as misery, disease, accidents and criminal behavior. Systemic coaching can resolve unhealthy dynamics while maintaining relationship ecology.

What are Human Systems?

A human system is collection of people (or of groups of people) that attempt to accomplish goals. Human systems are complex - often comprised of smaller groups or sub-systems that may strive to accomplish their own goals at the expense of the larger systems.

If human systems are perceived in terms of hierarchies and boundaries - then systemic goals will show similar hierarchies and boundaries. Sub-groups may sacrifice their members in the service of larger goals - and others may fight or ignore larger goals in favor of their more limited perspective.

Changing Systems

Systems thinking can help you look at people in families, teams and communities with a wider perspective than only individual behavior. Systems theory can interpret patterns and predict the consequences to couples, families, teams and communities.

A family, team or community can include wonderful people that operate well by themselves but do not integrate well. Consequently, a family, team or community may suffer from this lack of integration.

If helping professionals recognize the functions of a family, and their interrelations, they can diagnose problems by recognizing the patterns of interaction. Helping professionals can focus on provoking behaviors that determine events -- rather than reacting to past events.

Systems Theory, Systems Analysis and Systems Thinking

Systems theory, systems analysis and systems thinking are major breakthroughs that are often ignored in favor of statistical models. Systems thinking helps people view the world, including its organizations, from a perspective of structures, patterns and events, rather than the events themselves. Systems analysis helps to identify the causes of issues and how to change the issues ecologically.

Systemic Examples

Family behavior depends on its entire structure (not the sum of its parts). A family structure determines member's behavior, which determine family events. Too often, people only see and respond to events. We miss the broader scheme - the systemic scheme offered by relationship diagnosis.

Too often in families (and in training programs), we think we can break up the system and only have to deal with its parts or with various topics apart from other topics.

There seems to be optimum sizes for each type of system, from families to countries. If we try to make a system larger, it may try to break itself up to achieve stability. If we use pre-systemic strategies to fix human systems, we may cause more problems for the people we try to fix.

Some of the systemic principles that apply to families are:

• A system has an optimum size
• A system seeks balance with its environment
• A systems that does not balance with its environment reaches limits
• A system is more than the sum of its parts

A family may experience the same problems repeatedly - the problems seem to recycle over time. Family members typically recognize the patterns of behaviors, rather than the underlying cycle. As children mature and become parents, they recognize the phases their children pass through.

Systemic Family Behavior

Each family has predictable patterns of interactions (family traditions) that are passed and replicated across generations. Family interactions can modify but not end these cross-generational entanglements. External observation and assistance is needed.

Each family member affects all other members of a family. Parental moods and actions affect children and other relatives. Family members respond to each other's issues in predictable ways.

Many solutions create new problems - and often a solution is worse than the problem. Systemic family coaching finds solutions that benefit all members.

Quantum Coaching?

Soulwork incorporates concepts from quantum physics - particularly from Dr Werner Heisenberg (founder of matrix mechanics and the Uncertainty Principle), Dr Erwin Schrödinger (all possibilities exist until a system is observed), Dr Enrico Fermi (the absence of a part describes the part), Dr Albert Einstein (all change is relative to an observer). You cannot know what a system is doing NOW. You can only know what it was doing previously - and then only from well-defined perceptual positions.

Violation of systemic rules can lead to dysfunctional family behavior - and tragedy in subsequent generations. Cross-generational entanglements underlie many problematic personal and professional problems. Restoring balance and harmony to a family system can resolve physical symptoms as well as emotional and mental suffering.

Family systems do not create problems - problems create family systems. And problems do not exist independently of the "observers" who define them. Soulwork systemic family coaching helps people change their family structure, rather than attempting to change individual compensatory behavior.

When a dysfunctional family is recognized, the guilt healed and duties clarified, individual members usually feel enormous relief. They can move forward with a sense of life instead of a burden of guilt.

Plagiarism is theft. Copyright © Martyn Carruthers 2003, 2009 All rights reserved.

Plagiarism is theft. Copyright © Martyn Carruthers 1996-2011 All rights reserved. Soulwork Systemic Coaching was primarily developed by Martyn Carruthers
to help people dissolve emotional blocks, improve relationships and achieve goals. These concepts and strategies are for general knowledge only. Consult a physician about medical conditions and before changing medical treatment. Don't steal intellectual property ... ask for permission to post, publish or teach this work.