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Encyclopedia of Couple and Family Therapy pp 1180–1192Cite as

First Order Cybernetics

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First Order Cybernetics

Introduction

The history and evolution of the conceptual basis and practice of family therapy relies heavily on principles of cybernetics. At the same time, in truly cybernetic fashion, cybernetics itself owes much to contributions from family therapy. This entry explores this mutual process. Gregory Bateson, whose work embodies the mutual relationship between cybernetics and family therapy, famously stated that “cybernetics is the biggest bite out of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge that mankind has taken in the last 2000 years” – a statement that we return to and build on in our entry. We introduce key principles of cybernetics, including ideas of circularity, nonlinearity, recursion, processes of self-correction and processes of deviation amplification. We concern ourselves with key cybernetic questions, such as how might a system, including a family system, or a therapeutic system, organize itself to maintain stability/homeostasis and balance that...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA

    Frederick Steier

  2. Fielding Graduate University, Santa Barbara, CA, USA

    Frederick Steier

  3. Minuchin Center for the Family, Woodbury, NJ, USA

    Jay Lappin

Authors
  1. Frederick Steier
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  2. Jay Lappin
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Frederick Steier .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. The Family Institute at Northwestern University, Center for Applied Psychological and Family Studies, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA

    Jay L. Lebow

  2. The Family Institute at Northwestern University, Center for Applied Psychological and Family Studies, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA

    Anthony L. Chambers

  3. The Family Institute at Northwestern University, Center for Applied Psychological and Family Studies, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA

    Douglas C. Breunlin

Section Editor information

  1. Department of Family Medicine, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA

    David Kearns

  2. The Family Institute at Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA

    Bahareh Sahebi

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Steier, F., Lappin, J. (2019). First Order Cybernetics. In: Lebow, J.L., Chambers, A.L., Breunlin, D.C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Couple and Family Therapy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49425-8_274

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