THE SYSTEMS

APPROACH:
BACKGROUND, KEY CONCEPTS AND ASSUMPTIONS:

• The systematic approach stresses the importance of

understanding individuals in the context of the
surroundings that influence them from day to day.
• It emphasizes that the phenomena under
investigation e.g. the child, family, schools, and
society comprise of mutually interrelated components
(systems) rather than single entities and that they
have a direct influence on one another.
• In order to survive in this modern world, the
individual is required to adjust to complex social
systems in his/her environment. 
• Counselling should therefore not only focus on ways
and means to assist people with their problems on an
individual basis, but should also find ways to
understand the principles by which systems in
society operate.
• It should look at possible intervention strategies that
can bring about positive change at the systemic level.
• The systemic approach is mainly associated with
family therapy.
• The basic assumption of family therapy is that human
misery or dysfunctional behavior of individual family
members is often a sign that something is wrong at
the systemic (family) level.
• The key therefore in changing the individual is in
understanding and working with the family.
• The emphasis is on what goes on between people
rather than what takes place inside them.
• According to this perspective, dysfunctional behavior
is passed on to individuals across several
generations.
• For example, certain inappropriate behavior, like
abusive behavior, may be passed on to children who
in turn pass it on to their children.
• The problem that a client (learner) experience might
therefore rather be a symptom of how the family or
system functions and not just a symptom of the
individual’s maladjustment, history or psychological
development.
• According to this approach or perspective to
counselling the problematic behavior of the person
are present because of the following reasons: it may
serve a purpose for the family, the family cannot
operate productively especially during developmental
transitions and the dysfunctional behavior was
passed down across generations.
• Some changes in families or other systems are
predictable and others are unpredictable.
• An example of a predictable change in the family
system is that once children finish school they will
leave the house for further studies or to find a job.
• Individuals in the family can predict that this will
happen, however it will still affect others in the family.
• It may be that one of the younger children, who are
very attached to this specific family member, may
become very distressed due to the absence of this
beloved sibling.
• It often happens that mothers, especially those in
nuclear families, develop loneliness and
worthlessness, once all their children have grown up
and left the house.
• Other changes that take place in family systems are
unpredictable and often lead to severe distress within
the system.
• Examples are divorce, early death, serious illness
including HIV/AIDS, serious injury, unemployment,
moving to another town or village , disaster such as a
house burnt down, etc.
• These situations often disrupt all family members and
bring about several changes in the roles of individual
members and also in relationships among members.
• For example, if the mother of the family becomes very
ill and is not able to do her normal household chores,
other members of the family have to take over her
duties and this will have an effect on the way that
they live.
• The changes in roles may be for a short period of
time but if the mother remains ill for a long period of
time or even die, the changes and disruption that it
brings about in the family system become permanent
and all family members are affected.
• Persons within the system may react differently to
these changes.
• Inter-relationships of the remaining members may
also change and some that were close to one another
may drift apart or vice-versa.
• Some may find it more difficult than others to cope
with the new situation and may need some
counselling.
• Clearly the counsellor will only be able to understand
and assist with the difficulties of a specific individual
if he/she also considers the situation within the larger
framework or picture of the whole family and the
interlinks between members.
• All members need to be involved in the process of
therapy in order to bring about positive change.
TECHNIQUES:

• -In any family or other system, a change in one part of

the system also affects other parts of the system.
• - This is a central principle to this perspective.
• -For this reason treatment of the specific individual
should also comprehensively address all other family
members as well as the larger context in which they
operate and not only the person who was initially
identified with the problem.
• -The family is an interactional unit with its own unique
characteristics.
• -It is therefore not possible to assess and treat an
individual’s problems without observing and
assessing the interaction and behavior of other family
members.
• -Actions by any individual in the family will therefore
affect all members again.
• -Different schools or approaches of family therapy
developed over the years.
• -These are: structural family therapy, the strategic
approach, the Milan group.
• -However in recent years the division between these
major schools of family therapy has gradually
dissolved and therapists started to integrate different
approaches within their practices.
• - Through this integration new forms of system-
oriented therapies emerged of which the most
prominent ones are: narrative therapy and solution-
focused model.
• - The common ground of contemporary family therapy
can be summarized as follows:
• ●Active participation of all or most of the family
members, to allow the observation of patterns of
behavior and to allow change to be shared by all
members.
• ●Interventions are aimed at changing characteristics
of the system rather than at changing aspects
regarding the individual only.
• ●The therapist adopts a detached, neutral stance to
avoid being sucked in by the system or seduced into
forming an alliance with a particular family member of
a sub-group.
• ●Therapists often work as a team to enable them to
observe accurately all subtle interaction patterns that
may occur in the way that the family works together.
• ●They make use of a limited number of high-impact
sessions rather than an extended number of gentler
of more supportive sessions.
• -Four of the most commonly used techniques in
family systems are:
• genograms,
• rituals,
• family or group sculpting,
• and circular question.
Genograms:
• -A genogram is similar to a family tree of family
history.
• -Usually information about the family is gathered over
a period of three generations.
• -The family genogram consists of a pictorial layout of
each partner’s three-generational extended family.
• -There exists a set of symbols that are used in
genograms, for example a man is represented by a
square and a woman by a circle.
• -A close relationship is indicated by a double line
between individuals and a conflictual relationship by
a jagged line.
• -The genogram includes amongst others, information
about births, deaths, marriages, divorces, cultural and
ethnical origins, religion, socio-economic status, type of
contact among members and distance between members.
• -It is a tool for both family members and therapist to
detect and understand critical turning points in the
family’s emotional processes and also to understand each
partner’s relationship with other members and the family
as a whole.
• -It is not only a method of gathering information but also
an intervention technique because in assisting to
construct the genogram members gain insight into their
roles and relationships within the family.
Rituals:

• -The family life cycle is marked by a series of rituals

such as marriages, funerals, birthdays, graduations
etc.
• -Simple family rituals such as meal times can be
employed to understand family values, relationships
and expectations.
• -Families can also devise their own rituals to give
meaning to those events they consider of great
importance.
• -For example parents can burn a candle on their
wedding anniversary for their children to see that this
is considered as a very important event in family life.
• -A ritual can also be devised to signify a transition
period and to make the transition easier for the child.
• -For example a boy who must throw away his bottle
may receive a “medal” to show that he is now a “big
boy”.
Family or group sculpting:
• -Family sculpting may be used to increase members’
awareness of how they function and how they are
perceived by others in the system.
• -This is an exercise through which one family
member arranges the other members in the family to
represent the way in which he/she sees the family.
• -The sculpting will include the position of the member
in the family, their facial expressions and posture,
closeness and distance from others and direction
they look in.
• -All this conveys the sculpture’s view of what the
family is like.
• -The therapist may invite the person to re-sculpt the
family to represent the ideal family or how he would
see the family in future.
• -Other members can also create alternative sculpts.
Circular question:
• -Another technique that can be used is asking
questions that are designed to get clients to think
about the role they play in relating with other
members of their family.
• -The assumption underlying the questions is that
everything causes and is caused by everything else
and therefore the questions are called circular
questions.
• -The focus of change is in relation to others who are
recognized as having an effect on the person’s
functioning.
• -For example instead of asking a person what he
would do in a certain situation one would ask what
his brother would do in a certain situation and how
his sister would react to this.
• -Through this type of questioning the links between
people and the effect that they have on one another
may become clear.
• -The common theme running through systemic
therapy is that the counsellor should move away from
thinking in terms of individual problems and
difficulties and begin to look at problems from a
systemic perspective.
• -The school is also a system and several
dysfunctional behaviors of individuals may occur as a
result of how the interaction of different persons on
different levels in the school is taking place.
• -Bullying, indiscipline, truancy, reluctance to study
and several other school-related problems can often
only be assessed and action taken on a wider scale.
Advantages:

• -Families are empowered and no single person

blamed for dysfunctional behavior.
• -Entirely different perspective on assessment and
treatment since the focus is on interactions taking
place within the systems and not on individual
actions.
• -Many ethnical groups place higher value on the
needs of the extended family and community than on
individual needs.
• -Family rituals and celebrations that mark transitions,
protect against outside interference and connect the
family to their past are considered important aspects
for understanding behavior. 
Limitations:

• -If too much focus is placed on the system the

individual needs may be overlooked.
• -Care should be taken that the values of some
cultures are not ignored and that the values of the
therapist is enforced on the families.