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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.
System
|
Survival
|
Critical goals
|
| Humanity |
Human Species |
Provide humanity with genetic diversity |
| Country |
National Traditions |
Provide regions with national
culture |
| Political Party |
Political Power |
Provide communities with leadership
and authority |
| Religion |
Religious Doctrine |
Provide communities with doctrinal
support |
| Region |
Regional character |
Provide communities with
traditions |
| City |
Municipal services |
Provide communities with life support
services |
| Community |
Mutual Support |
Provide families with security and
safety |
| School |
Knowledge & Skills |
Provide children with essential
skills for adulthood |
| Family |
Family traditions |
Provide children with skills for
family harmony |
| Individual |
Physical Body |
Create and protect children |
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.
Soulwork provides effective coaching and
coach training. Do you want to coach people to resolve emotional and relationship challenges?
Copyright © Martyn Carruthers 2003, 2009 All rights reserved. |
