Systemic Therapy

Whereas other therapies focus on the individual's personal beliefs and thoughts, systemic therapy looks at problems in terms of the context in which they developed. For instance, if a person seeks therapy for a relationship conflict of some sort, CBT would seek to get the person to look at their all-or-nothing thinking, or their 'catastrophising' of the problem. Systemic therapy casts the the lens wider and would ask the individual what would be happening in the context leading to this reaction. If the important variables creating reactions and counter-reactions are understood, then the aim is to manipulate the relevant variables to create different responses. This is achieved through a system of questioning that  leads the client to make their own insights about the dynamics at hand and to consider alternative responses to alter elements in the system, thus changing the system as a whole.

Many therapies are derived from systemic therapy including solution-focused therapy, narrative therapy, strategic structural therapy, and systemic therapy had a big influence on NLP.

Useful For: all kinds of conditions, but especially for relationship conflicts and couples counselling.

Therapists trained in Systemic Therapy:
Felix Economakis
Adrianna Penalosa-Clarke