a. What is Systems Therapy?

I started out doing traditional family therapy. I continue to believe that this particular approach to therapy is one of the most important discoveries in the field of psychology. The “founding parents” of systems theory discovered that human groups follow the same natural rules as biological systems. One of these natural rules is that all behaviors have a function within the system. If we try to change a behavior separately from the group of people who form our “system,” it is natural for that system to try and change us back (even if they are the ones who asked us to go to therapy in the first place). One reason for this is that there are usually hidden underlying reasons why the negative behavior benefits the group. For these and other reasons, systems trained therapists usually prefer to do family therapy rather than individual or couples work. That is what I felt in the beginning too.

But I continually saw the same dynamics that were happening within the family, externally, happening within each person, internally. It was like we all have little families within ourselves. I started looking for some explanation of what I was seeing. A therapist friend gave me a book by Richard Schwartz, Ph.D. called “Internal Family Systems.” Every sentence in this book described what I had seeing in my clients and what to do about it. Eventually, I had the opportunity to train with Dr. Schwartz and now rarely have a need to use any other therapeutic technique. I find this work to be deeper, faster and have more lasting outcomes than anything else I have seen. And yet, the pace is completely controlled by the need of the client. It also makes it much less necessary to see the whole family in sessions, which can be very difficult for people to schedule.