Complexity theory, also called dynamical self-organizing systems theory, is a new scientific way of viewing the natural world. It is being applied to a vast range of multiply determined systems, as well as to created systems including psychoanalysis, and in this article to analytically informed group therapy. Examples of prominent features of group therapy lend themselves to comparison with outstanding features of complexity systems, including nonlinear determinism, self-organization, coevolution, and disequilibrium conditions for change and growth. Examples are used throughout to illustrate inferred processes called cascading, multisubjectivity, and asynchronous change processes. Therapist role indications are in the direction of implementing the group's own processes of creating change, at close range in the sessions.
A relational/constructivist view incorporates contemporary trends toward viewing countertransference and co-transference as results of mutual intersubjective influence. It moves toward a view of the socially constructed nature of human reality, toward recognizing the therapist's as well as the members' irreducible individuality and initiative taking, and toward therapy as about meaning-making rather than scientific discovery of The Truth. General clinical examples, and examples of working specifically with trauma, are given.
Analytic thought and also group-analytic writers understate or do not comprehend the centrality of human purposiveness. A theory of personal agency in terms of analytic goup therapy is offered to contrast with a prevailing idea that a thinking, feeling, evaluating self oversees reactions. Clinical examples emphasize the usefulness of mobilizing patients' intentions. An example of an active group therapist role is offered that seeks to mobilize members' willingness to explore their enactments of problems in the group. I discuss the rationale and methods involved in this method in terms of my clinical experience and conclusions in line with the theory set forward in the paper.
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