Abstract
For the past 30 years family therapists repeatedly have referred to “systems theory” as a means of explaining and legitimizing the treatment of the whole family. As a consequence of this repeated pairing (in schools, books, and seminars), most mental health professionals have come to assume that “family treatment” and “systems work” are synonymous or interchangeable sets of ideas. But is this really the case? As Bowen (1976) writes,
In the past decade, the term [systems] has become popularized and overused to the point of being meaningless.... It is grossly inaccurate to consider family systems theory as synonymous with general systems, although it is accurate to think of family systems theory as somehow fitting into the broad framework of general systems theory. (p. 62)
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© 1983 Plenum Press, New York
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Segal, L., Bavelas, J.B. (1983). Human Systems and Communication Theory. In: Wolman, B.B., Stricker, G., Framo, J., Newirth, J.W., Rosenbaum, M., Young, H.H. (eds) Handbook of Family and Marital Therapy. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-4442-1_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-4442-1_4
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