Abstract

Systems-centered therapy is theory driven, therefore every intervention is in fact an hypothesis that tests both the validity of the theory and the reliability of its practice as it applies to short and long-term therapy with individuals, families, couples and groups.
This book is built around the transcript of an inpatient therapy session, giving the reader the opportunity to follow verbatim how systems-centered therapy actually works. The script tracks the initial techniques that introduce systems-centered norms to a group. These include encouraging patients to explore their experience instead of explaining it, and to join together in subgroups around the common human resistances that interfere with being able to do therapeutic work. Wherever appropriate, the author annotates the script with the rational behind a particular method.
Other chapters give an overview of the systems-centered ideas, their formulation as a theory of living human systems, and the systems-centered methods of boundarying, vectoring, contextualizing and functional subgrouping that put the theory into practice.
Agazarian's book is an important text for all those who are interested in applying systems thinking to therapy, and, with its many practical examples, particularly useful to those who are interested in using systems-centered techniques.

Yvonne M. Agazarian, EdD is a consulting affiliate to the Friends Hospital, Philadelphia and the Director of the Systems-Centered Training Institute She teaches, trains and supervises systems-centred therapists internationally, and practises in Philadelphia, USA. She has developed the theory of living human systems and its systems-centred practice. She co-authored The Visible and Invisible Group in 1981 and wrote Systems-centered Therapy for Groups, published in 1997. Also in 1997 she received the Group Psychologist of the Year award from the American Psychological Association `for her involvement in research, publication, teaching and training. She exemplifies the finest in scholarship in the discipline of psychology. As a group psychologist she has contributed to expanding our knowledge of the boundaries between clinical and social psychology with the investigation of living human systems and systems-centered group and individual therapy. Her considerable body of work illustrates the highest blend of creativity and learning'.