AFTA'S COMMITTEE ON LARGER SYSTEMS

By Pat Romney

What is the relevance of larger systems to our work as family therapists? Few of us recall that by the 1950s, when Gregory Batesons pioneering work on schizophrenic communication in families was beginning to catapult clinicians into a whole new way of thinking and working, Norbert Wiener (1948) had already written his book Cybernetics, the book that set systems theory in motion.

In the 1960s and 1970s, family therapists were busy establishing the field of family systems theory through the development of our practice. Foundational work, such as Watzlawick, P, Beavin, J. and Jackson D. (1967) Pragmatics of human communication patterns, pathologies and paradoxes and Salvador Minuchin's (1974) Families and Family Therapy was being published. In 1968, Ludvig von Bertalanffy published General Systems Theory and followed into the 1970s with several other important works on systems theory.

The "change the system" mentality of the sixties and the birth of the community mental health movement in 1963, with its emphasis on a total community rather than individual patients, both expanded the practice and vision of clinicians. Mental health professionals who focused on larger systems: hospitals, schools, businesses, human service agencies studied general systems theory and were schooled in theories of consultation and education. Clinicians studied family systems theory and their arena was the consulting room on both sides of the one-way mirror.

In our own organization our fellow family therapists consult to family businesses, do organizational assessments, act as clinical consultants to schools, create and develop community programs, and provide diversity training to corporations. Perhaps inspired by these activities and interests, President Celia Falicov's and the AFTA Board recommended in October 1999 that AFTA begin to recognize and communicate about existing larger system work in AFTA. To initiate these activities, the Board voted to create a new Committee on Larger Systems.

The first effort of the new Committee on Larger Systems (Jay Lappin, Janine Roberts, Ramón Rojano, Jo Vanderkloot, Howard Weiss, Mary Whiteside, and myself) is the AFTA Forum on Larger Systems?"Family Therapy Expanding and Evolving," which will take place at the 2000 Annual Meeting in San Diego." The Forum will create an opportunity to dialogue with other AFTA members about work with larger systems and the role these efforts may play in the future of family therapy.

At the Forum, Janine Roberts will describe a school-based consulting program that brings value to the lives of children, provides additional resources for a school system, and is a training opportunity for future family therapists. Ramón Rojano will speak about how the community family therapy approach provides an expanded theoretical and practical framework to work with larger systems, and how this type of work serves as a form of prevention. I will illustrate how systemic practice and reflective conversations can guide and sustain management and diversity consultations.

Mary Whiteside will moderate the Forum and lead us in an exploration of the theoretical and practical connections between family therapy and larger systems work. Do we see work with larger systems as an expansion of family therapy? An expanded aspect of systemic practice? Should we stay close to work that involves families (family businesses, community mental health)? Should we think about systemic practice in a wider sphere (schools, businesses, human service agencies)? We will share our perspectives on these issues.

Perhaps most importantly we will engage in some future thinking. Who do we want to be? What kind of work do we want to do? Where do we want to be in five or ten years as family therapists and as an organization? In what domains will we choose to function?

What links family systems theorists and general systems theorists is the principle of non-summativity - we maintain the conviction that the "whole is more than the sum of its parts." What links family therapists to those who work in the realm of organizational behavior is our interest in understanding and improving the lives of people and groups. What links family therapists to larger systems thinking and practice is our belief in the importance of community and context.

Join us in San Diego. Find out where we're headed and help us to set the course!

Patricia Romney, Ph.D. is President of Romney Associates, Inc., a research and consulting firm specializing in developing the human side of enterprise.