Integrating Self and System: An Empty Intersection?

Abstract

Synthesizing individual and family therapies can founder if the underlying epistemological assumptions concerning "what is self" are not taken into account. Most individual therapies assume self "really" exists as a relatively stable internal entity, the repository of residues of experience where traits, memories, et cetera are organized via internal schemas. Such a view tends to treat self as a thing, and implies that psychological problems are the result of internal deficits or conflicts; this can lead to difficulties in therapy. In contrast, ecosystemic views employ constructivist and contextualist approaches that are more fluid. However, by basing autopoetic self-organization in language, ecosystemic epistemology still separates subject from object. Adopting a perspective in which self has no fixed, distinguishing characteristics can resolve many difficulties and create a dimensionless point where self and system, individual and family, therapist and client can meet without hindrance.

The Integrative Revolution in Couple and Family Therapy

“…Talking about an integration of object relations and structural approaches has meaning only when we describe which parts of these complex theories are in the field of attention, how the included ideas work with one another, and how the presence of each idea affects the others. In this example, there clearly are assumptions of structural family therapy (that only structure matters and internal process is unimportant) that clash with aspects of object relations (that internal processes are at base in all interaction), which leaves a substantial task for theoretical integration (Rosenbaum & Dyckman, 1995). The strength of the theoretical integration depends on the effort to probe and uncover such basic assumptions, make informed choices about which aspects of the constituent approaches are selected, and develop a framework that joins the concepts in a way that has internal consistency: that is, to accept the importance of internal process and of family structure, and then show how they interact.…”

Looking again at the team dimension in systemic psychotherapy: is attending to group process a critical context for practice?

“…Pocock (1997), in the same issue, reminds us of the role that psychoanalysis has played for family therapy as an 'oppositional and disregarded other', while Donovan (2003) has argued that there exists a 'potentially impoverishing effect on the wider therapy field by reducing opportunities for crossfertilization' (p. 117). Rosenbaum and Dyckman (1995) raise a further question in relation to this debate, namely whether systems theory must suppress key aspects of its epistemological assumptions in order to accommodate new theories, or whether it is possible that a true integration of two differing theories could emerge based on a 'double description'. Burck and Cooper (2007) point to the importance of avoiding both the disqualification of either set of ideas and of drawing banal similarities, in the production of a creative dialogue between systemic and psychoanalytic ideas.…”

Approche écosystémique et fondements de l’intervention educative précoce en milieux socio- économiques faibles. Les conditions de la résilience scolaire

“…L'adaptation demeure multiple, contextuelle, et, en conséquence, ne peut être considérée en tant que caractéristique de la structure de l'individu. Dans la même perspective, mais en considérant l'enfant en tant que sujet, son interaction avec chacun des univers contextuels composant le mésosystème mène à une dynamique d'adaptation proactive qui, à son tour, permet l'unification de ces univers au travers du développement d'une personnalité intégrée (Rosenbaum & Dyckman, 1995). Dans les deux cas, le modèle écosystémique permet une lecture utile des interactions de l'enfant avec son environnement.…”