Observing systems and psychotherapy what I owe to Heinz von Foerster
Identifieur interne : 000007 ( Istex/Corpus ); précédent : 000006; suivant : 000008Observing systems and psychotherapy what I owe to Heinz von Foerster
Auteurs : Mony ElkamSource :
- Kybernetes [ 0368-492X ] ; 2005-03-01.
Abstract
Purpose To consider how the approach and work of Heinz von Foerster, among others, can aid psychotherapists. Designmethodologyapproach A family therapist, as every therapist, is caught in the dilemma that she cannot separate what she sees from who she is. One possibility to understand what happens in a therapeutic system is by means of the model of resonance. The therapist observes himself or herself and regards these thoughts and emotions as part of the therapeutic system. She takes part in the reciprocal double binds, i.e. the strategy how each member of a human system she is part of is protecting the worldview of the others by acting in a way, which is reinforcing their worldviews. Thus, a homeostasis is maintained. Findings Proposes a new systemic approach closer to Ilya Prigogine's work on systems far from equilibrium where chance plays a role helping members of human systems to leave a world of predictability and to enter a universe of freedom and responsibility. Also uses the teachings of Heinz von Foerster about being part of the world and not separated observers. The viewpoint of constructed realities entails freedom and responsibility and is a highly ethical position. Originalityvalue Provides help in understanding how the teachings of Heinz von Foerster, among others, can aid psychotherapists.
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DOI: 10.1108/03684920510581567
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Designmethodologyapproach A family therapist, as every therapist, is caught in the dilemma that she cannot separate what she sees from who she is. One possibility to understand what happens in a therapeutic system is by means of the model of resonance. The therapist observes himself or herself and regards these thoughts and emotions as part of the therapeutic system. She takes part in the reciprocal double binds, i.e. the strategy how each member of a human system she is part of is protecting the worldview of the others by acting in a way, which is reinforcing their worldviews. Thus, a homeostasis is maintained. Findings Proposes a new systemic approach closer to Ilya Prigogine's work on systems far from equilibrium where chance plays a role helping members of human systems to leave a world of predictability and to enter a universe of freedom and responsibility. Also uses the teachings of Heinz von Foerster about being part of the world and not separated observers. 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The viewpoint of constructed realities entails freedom and responsibility and is a highly ethical position. 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Designmethodologyapproach A family therapist, as every therapist, is caught in the dilemma that she cannot separate what she sees from who she is. One possibility to understand what happens in a therapeutic system is by means of the model of resonance. The therapist observes himself or herself and regards these thoughts and emotions as part of the therapeutic system. She takes part in the reciprocal double binds, i.e. the strategy how each member of a human system she is part of is protecting the worldview of the others by acting in a way, which is reinforcing their worldviews. Thus, a homeostasis is maintained. Findings Proposes a new systemic approach closer to Ilya Prigogine's work on systems far from equilibrium where chance plays a role helping members of human systems to leave a world of predictability and to enter a universe of freedom and responsibility. Also uses the teachings of Heinz von Foerster about being part of the world and not separated observers. The viewpoint of constructed realities entails freedom and responsibility and is a highly ethical position. 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Do Not Edit! --><article dtd-version="1.0" xml:lang="en" article-type="e-conceptual-paper"><front><journal-meta><journal-id journal-id-type="publisher-id">k</journal-id><journal-id journal-id-type="doi">10.1108/k</journal-id><journal-title-group><journal-title>Kybernetes</journal-title></journal-title-group><issn pub-type="ppub">0368-492X</issn><publisher><publisher-name>Emerald Group Publishing Limited</publisher-name></publisher></journal-meta><article-meta><article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.1108/03684920510581567</article-id><article-id pub-id-type="original-pdf">0670340309.pdf</article-id><article-id pub-id-type="filename">0670340309</article-id><article-categories><subj-group subj-group-type="type-of-publication"><compound-subject><compound-subject-part content-type="code">e-conceptual-paper</compound-subject-part><compound-subject-part content-type="label">Conceptual paper</compound-subject-part></compound-subject></subj-group><subj-group subj-group-type="subject"><compound-subject><compound-subject-part content-type="code">cat-ENGG</compound-subject-part><compound-subject-part content-type="label">Engineering</compound-subject-part></compound-subject><subj-group><compound-subject><compound-subject-part content-type="code">cat-EEE</compound-subject-part><compound-subject-part content-type="label">Electrical & electronic engineering</compound-subject-part></compound-subject><subj-group><compound-subject><compound-subject-part content-type="code">cat-CSE</compound-subject-part><compound-subject-part content-type="label">Computer & software engineering</compound-subject-part></compound-subject><compound-subject><compound-subject-part content-type="code">cat-SYSC</compound-subject-part><compound-subject-part content-type="label">Systems & control</compound-subject-part></compound-subject></subj-group></subj-group></subj-group><subj-group subj-group-type="subject"><compound-subject><compound-subject-part content-type="code">cat-IKM</compound-subject-part><compound-subject-part content-type="label">Information & knowledge management</compound-subject-part></compound-subject><subj-group><compound-subject><compound-subject-part content-type="code">cat-ISYS</compound-subject-part><compound-subject-part content-type="label">Information systems</compound-subject-part></compound-subject><subj-group><compound-subject><compound-subject-part content-type="code">cat-SMC</compound-subject-part><compound-subject-part content-type="label">Systems modelling & cybernetics</compound-subject-part></compound-subject></subj-group></subj-group></subj-group></article-categories><title-group><article-title>Observing systems and psychotherapy: what I owe to Heinz von Foerster</article-title></title-group><contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author"><string-name><given-names>Mony</given-names> <surname>Elkaïm</surname></string-name><aff>Institute for Family and Human Studies and Free University of Brussels, Brussels, Belgium</aff></contrib></contrib-group><pub-date pub-type="ppub"><day>01</day><month>03</month><year>2005</year></pub-date><volume>34</volume><issue>3/4</issue><fpage>385</fpage><lpage>392</lpage><permissions><copyright-statement>© Emerald Group Publishing Limited</copyright-statement><copyright-year>2005</copyright-year><license license-type="publisher"><license-p></license-p></license></permissions><self-uri content-type="pdf" xlink:href="03684920510581567.pdf"></self-uri><abstract><sec><title content-type="abstract-heading">Purpose</title><x> – </x><p>To consider how the approach and work of Heinz von Foerster, among others, can aid psychotherapists.</p></sec><sec><title content-type="abstract-heading">Design/methodology/approach</title><x> – </x><p>A family therapist, as every therapist, is caught in the dilemma that (s)he cannot separate what (s)he sees from who (s)he is. One possibility to understand what happens in a therapeutic system is by means of the model of resonance. The therapist observes himself or herself and regards these thoughts and emotions as part of the therapeutic system. (S)he takes part in the reciprocal double binds, i.e. the strategy how each member of a human system s(he) is part of is protecting the worldview of the others by acting in a way, which is reinforcing their worldviews. Thus, a homeostasis is maintained.</p></sec><sec><title content-type="abstract-heading">Findings</title><x> – </x><p>Proposes a new systemic approach closer to Ilya Prigogine's work on systems far from equilibrium where chance plays a role helping members of human systems to leave a world of predictability and to enter a universe of freedom and responsibility. Also uses the teachings of Heinz von Foerster about being part of the world and not separated observers. The viewpoint of constructed realities entails freedom and responsibility and is a highly ethical position.</p></sec><sec><title content-type="abstract-heading">Originality/value</title><x> – </x><p>Provides help in understanding how the teachings of Heinz von Foerster, among others, can aid psychotherapists.</p></sec></abstract><kwd-group><kwd>Cybernetics</kwd><x>, </x><kwd>Therapists</kwd><x>, </x><kwd>Ethics</kwd></kwd-group><custom-meta-group><custom-meta><meta-name>peer-reviewed</meta-name><meta-value>no</meta-value></custom-meta><custom-meta><meta-name>academic-content</meta-name><meta-value>yes</meta-value></custom-meta><custom-meta><meta-name>rightslink</meta-name><meta-value>included</meta-value></custom-meta></custom-meta-group></article-meta></front><body><sec><title>From first‐order cybernetics to second‐order cybernetics</title><p>Family therapists have always been interested in the link between the therapist and members of the family.</p><p>But we were thinking more in terms of first‐order cybernetics. We were trying to understand the rules of the family system, how these rules could play a role in the appearing and the maintaining of the symptoms and how we could participate in changing these rules to free human systems, the families, from their predicament. So we were quite aware of the importance of the position of the therapist, but we did not really integrate the fact that we cannot separate what we see from who we are.</p><p>It is with the work of Heinz von Foerster, which became known in the field of family therapy due to Paul Watzlawick in the beginning of 1980s that we got introduced to the field of second‐order cybernetics and to an approach where one cannot separate the observer from the observed system, the subject from the object (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b11">Watzlawick, 1984</xref>).</p><p>But then, a very important problem appeared for the psychotherapist, because if she is someone who cannot separate what she sees, what she feels, her hypotheses from the system she is part of, then how can she do rigorous work? How can she make hypotheses? How can she check these hypotheses?</p><p>So, most of my work these last years was about showing that it is very possible that we cannot separate subject from object, that it is very possible to renounce to the concept of objectivity, but that that does not mean that we cannot make hypotheses. It does not mean that we cannot check them; it does not mean that we do not have tools, which will help us to analyze our feelings, our thinking and our hypotheses in light of a system we are part of.</p><p>I created the concept of resonance to give a tool to the psychotherapist to be able to do a rigorous work as part of a human system while renouncing to objectivity.</p><p>But before I will speak about this concept of resonance I would like first to speak about Heinz von Foerster, about his generosity, about how he helped me to rename some of the concepts I had created.</p><p>One of the first times I met Heinz I had a special issue of my journal “Cahiers Critiques de thérapie familiale et de pratiques de réseaux” on “reconstruction of reality and psychotherapy”. Heinz told me: “Mony, why reconstruction? Are you so sure reality is reconstructed or are we constructing it?” It appeared to me so clear and it made perfect sense for me.</p></sec><sec><title>From worldmap to worldview</title><p>Then I had created couple therapy tools, which were called, “The official program and the world map”. Basically for me each individual goes through his childhood or her childhood through repetitive experiences and each individual is creating some kind of rule, which helps him to protect himself from pain, for example, if the people I loved abandoned me, I can create some kind of general rule, which will be “If I am loved I will be abandoned”. It is, as you say in English, “once bitten twice shy”. So it is like someone who suffered so much of this abandonment that she does not want to put herself anymore in that dramatic situation, and then the person grows wanting on the conscious level what I am calling “the official program” to be loved but the worldmap he or she constructed through his or her childhood is a worldmap, which says “if you are loved you will be abandoned”. And not only is that person in a double‐bind because she wants something she does not believe possible, but at the same time there is a situation where her partner is also caught in a double‐bind because she is asking from him something she does not believe is possible. And when the other one will give to her what she asks for, she gets scared because she would have to open her armor and then to expose herself to the possible pain of disillusion.</p><p>So I had called that “official program” and “worldmap” and Heinz told me: “My dear Mony, do you really believe that there is such a thing as a world that you can make a map of?” And again he was so right, so I changed that name “worldmap” for “worldview” because worldview means that we are constructing reality. We constructed for example, that people who loved us abandoned us or we constructed that people close to us did not give us tenderness; we constructed a lot of things. It does not mean it happened. It just means we constructed that. What is important is the construction not if it happened or not.</p><p>When I created my model of couple therapy about reciprocal double‐binds, how each member of a couple is protecting the worldview of the other one by acting in a way, which is reinforcing his or her worldview and maintaining in that way a new homeostasis where each one helps the other one keep his armor, Heinz was instrumental in helping me change this “map of the world” into “worldview”.</p></sec><sec><title>From intersection to resonance</title><p>I also had created a concept I had called in the beginning “intersection”. That concept of “intersection” was linked to the fact that it seemed that when different persons or different systems get together there is some kind of isomorphic rule, which gets amplified in each one of the systems. An example could be a situation in a hospital where the same isomorphic rule seemed to rule different sub‐systems. There was a coalition between a patient and her father against the rest of her family, a coalition between the therapist and that patient against the staff, a possible coalition between the therapist and the lecturer against the hospital, and a coalition between the mother of the therapist and him against the rest of his own family when he was young.</p><p>So I was calling that in the beginning “intersection” because it is as if isomorphic rules were intersecting around – or as if worldviews were intersecting around the same rule; in the case described: coalition of two persons belonging to two different hierarchical levels against a third person or a third group.</p><p>I would say for example, the worldview of the patient could intersect with the worldview of the therapist as well as with one of the worldviews of the institution. I was acting as if different systems were intersecting around the same rule.</p><p>For example, in that case that I described there was a lady who was in a coalition with her father against the rest of the family. By coalition we mean someone who is allied with someone else against others. She arrived in the hospital where generally the staff has to decide whether that patient will be seen in individual therapy or in family therapy and who the person who will see that patient will be. In that case what happened is that the patient, a very pretty lady, and this handsome therapist decided to do individual psychotherapy together, creating a coalition again consisting of two persons from different hierarchical level against the rest of the staff.</p><p>This gentleman asked me in a conference that took place at that hospital to ally with him against the rest of the staff because he had trouble with the staff. Then I asked him a question: “Please answer to me by ‘yes’ or ‘no’ ”: “In your family was there a coalition between a parent and a child against the rest of the family?” He said right away: “Yes!” So you see it is as if you had the same rule in the family of origin of a patient, in the family of origin of the therapist as well as in the institution and it is as if these systems are getting together, as if they begin to intersect around the same isomorphic rule. The isomorphic rule would have the function of maintaining the homeostasis, maintaining these worldviews of the therapist, of the patient and of the institution.</p><p>Heinz then told me: “Mony, this concept ‘intersection’ is too static. Use the word ‘resonance’. Resonance is more dynamic. The system of the therapist, the system of the patient and the system of the institution are resonating together around the same topic, around the same rule. It is more dynamic”. So thanks to Heinz I did not call that anymore intersection but resonance.</p><p>So Heinz was very important for me not only because of his friendship and generosity but also because he stressed the importance of not separating subject and object, which is something that today appears very important for the postmodern way of thinking. Heinz also gave me concrete help. He helped me to change the names of concepts I had created, he even made drawings for me to help me show better the reciprocal double‐binds in couple therapy and to illustrate my model to show how each one will ask two contradictory things from the other one.</p></sec><sec><title>The function of resonance</title><p>Now, what is the importance of resonance? The therapist is in a situation where she has to be able to make a hypothesis. But how can she make a hypothesis if she is part of what she is describing. So my idea was to say this: what I feel in a system, what I think in a system has a function for that system or I will not feel it or think it. Then if it has a function if I feel something repetitively in that system, perhaps that thing that I am feeling repetitively or thinking repetitively was created partly by that system and maintained by that system. So then the question can be: What is the usefulness for the system I am part of to feel what I feel? For example, if a therapist is upset against a patient she can ask herself (and this is the old psychodynamic approach) what the link between her own history and this patient, which is making her feel upset, is. This is called counter‐transference. But for me the most important step is to ask oneself what the usefulness for the patient of making the therapist upset is. And if you then make the hypothesis that the patient is someone who is used to getting rejected and that the patient created an armor to protect himself or herself and then is asking to be accepted while at the same time acting in a way where he or she is rejected, you understand better that your feeling is linked to you but not reducible to you. Your feeling is something, which is describing to you the usefulness of your feeling that way for the other one. This usefulness generally has to do with maintaining the worldview of the other one, maintaining his beliefs and not exposing him to possible pain or possible difficulty. So it becomes very interesting because the fact that I am part of the system is not something, which is disempowering me. On the contrary, it is empowering me. Why? Because then what I feel, what I think, what my theory is, is emerging in a system I am part of. I can make a hypothesis about the function of my resonance and check it. If the hypothesis is confirmed it does not mean that I am right. It means there is an adequateness of my construction of reality and the construction of reality of other members of the system. And then we can work on this kind of alliance to try to open new avenues. This is very important. This tool goes a lot beyond counter‐transference or transference because transference and counter‐transference have to do with the usefulness of what I feel for <italic>me</italic>. What is the meaning of what I feel for <italic>me</italic>? In resonance the question is: What the usefulness or the meaning of what I feel for <italic>you</italic>? How am I in danger of reinforcing your worldview? Then what I feel is a tool to help me analyze what is happening with you.</p></sec><sec><title>Structuralists, systemicists and the subject</title><p>This concept of resonance also has a very important ethical aspect. There is a common aspect for me in the structuralist and the systemic approach.</p><p>Structuralism was very important in France and influential in a lot of countries. As a movement, it grew out of the work of the linguist <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b10">Saussure (1974)</xref>, whose “Course in General Linguistics” was published in 1916, 3 years after his death. According to this approach, elements of a language can be studied only in relation to other elements in a language. Terms in a language are interdependent and derive value from the presence of other terms. Language, therefore, is described as structure, a system of relationships. There is no reference to the history of the system; rather, the focus remains on circular relationships that hold among the different elements.</p><p>Saussure insisted on the study of an element as part of a structure where that element existed in the here and now.</p><p>This work was taken up in 1947 by the Anthropologist Claude Levi‐Strauss, who in “The Elementary Structures of Kinship” (published in English in 1949), applied this method to ethnology (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b12">Levi‐Strauss, 1969</xref>).</p><p>According to the structuralist approach, elements have no meaning in and of themselves. Rather, their meaning is derived from their relationship to the other elements composing the same system. In an article devoted to structuralism, the French Philosopher <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b2">Deleuze (1981)</xref> explained that the structure is all‐important with respect to the actual elements that come to occupy the places in the structure; as a result, the places take precedence over the entities that fill them.</p><p>The Marxist Philosopher Althusser might say that the real subjects in an economic structure are the spaces that are defined by relations of productions (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b1">Althusser, 1970</xref>). For structuralists, “father” and “mother” are slots in a structure: The subject becomes simply an object defined by its place in the structure, and the structure itself becomes the true subject. This led Deleuze to say that structuralism is not separable from a new antihumanism. Antihumanistic because we are acted upon by structures (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b2">Deleuze, 1981</xref>).</p><p>In the same way that, for Levi‐Strauss, myths operate in individuals without their being aware of it, for the French Psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, there are no speakers or interlocutors; rather, language speaks through us. Lacan affirmed that everything Freud wrote was aimed at re‐establishing the exact perspective of the eccentricity of the subject in relation to the ego. In Book 2 of the “Seminar”, which took place in the 1950s but was not published until 1978 (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b6">Lacan, 1988</xref>, in English), Lacan stressed that “with Freud a new perspective suddenly appears”, revolutionizing the study of subjectivity and showing precisely that the subject cannot be confused with the individual (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b5">Lacan, 1978, p. 8</xref>). This decentration of the subject with respect to the individual led him to quote the famous phrase of the French Poet Rimbaud “I is an other” – “Je est un autre” (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b5">Lacan, 1978, p. 16</xref>).</p><p>Lacan's interpretation of Edgar Allan Poe's famous story, “The Purloined Letter”, published in 1844 gives a very interesting example of how the structure is acting upon us (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b7">Poe, 1966</xref>).</p><p>In this story, which starts with the narrator daydreaming about two very similar situations, Poe told the following tale: A prefect of police comes to ask Dupin, a person known for his insight, to help him find a compromising letter addressed to the queen. It appears that a minister spirited the letter away in front of the queen and in the presence of the king without the latter recognizing it. The queen caught off guard by the king while she was reading the letter, quickly set it down, folded, on her table, without her husband noticing. The letter, however, did not escape the attention of the minister, who walked in on the scene. The minister produced a letter from his pocket, which he pretended to read before setting it down next to the other letter. On departing, he took the letter meant for the queen, leaving his own in its place. Despite the best efforts of the prefect of police and his men, the stolen letter seemed impossible to find even though it was known that the letter was somewhere inside the minister's house. Dupin went to his house and discovered the apparently unrecognizable letter, left in an obvious place so as to better conceal it. He then seized the letter, leaving another one in its place.</p><p>The structure of this story highlights two identical series of events, but in which the places are occupied by different objects. In the first series, the king does not see the letter, the queen leaves it out in the open so as to better conceal it, and the minister replaces this letter by another. In the second series, the police does not see anything at the minister's home; the minister leaves the letter in a prominent place as to better hide it, and Dupin replaces the letter with another.</p><p><xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b5">Lacan (1978, p. 201)</xref> commented that the minister had no choice but to have this letter stolen from him because the outcome of the story “it is not due to the ingenuity of Dupin but to the structure of things”.</p><p>In the systemic approach, the system could also be seen as the subject. Lacan's statement, uttered during his seminar in the 1950s, is very similar to the thoughts expressed by my dear friend whom I loved very much, Albert Scheflen.</p><p>Scheflen was a very keen specialist of non‐verbal language and one day asked me: “Mony, why in this play of Shakespeare Hamlet stabs Polonius?” I said: “Because of this?” “No.” “Because of that?” “No.” “So why?” He said to me: “Because it was written in the script.” When Al Scheflen was studying a videotape of a psychotherapy session, he was able to show to you how the non‐verbal dance, the non‐verbal ballet of a family is creating repetitive moves which in fact can help you to have predictability. So for me the problem is predictability. I got close to family therapy because I refused to consider the patient as the source and the place where the sickness is. I could not see the patient as the only source of his or her predicament. So I got interested in families through antipsychiatry because I was interested in a humanistic approach. I was trying to give back to the patient his or her dignity, and for me it was important to analyze the thematique, the meaning of the delirium of a patient and due to antipsychiatry I could find that the delirium which apparently seemed just Gibberish in fact was not. It had a meaning in a context, which was crazy. So the craziness of what was said had a meaning in a crazy context. I came to family therapy because of a humanistic approach, to give back dignity to people and there I found myself in a context where I was afraid that the systemic approach insisting on how we are acted upon by systems will raise the same problems as the structuralist approach. And then my fear was a fear of predictability, because if we are in a predictable system, if we are acted upon, then where is freedom? Where is responsibility? Where is ethics? It is why I got so much interested in the work of Ilya Prigogine (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b8">Prigogine, 1997</xref>; <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b9">Prigogine and Stengers, 1984</xref>), Nobel prize winner in chemistry. Ilya Prigogine who was also an excellent friend, and who also had the same generosity with me as Heinz, died recently.</p></sec><sec><title>Systems far from equilibrium and chance</title><p>Prigogine did not study systems at equilibrium, systems in homeostatic situations, as von Bertalanffy did and which was the approach that we used in family therapy.</p><p>Ilya Prigogine studied systems that change, which he called “systems away from equilibrium” (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b9">Prigogine and Stengers, 1984</xref>). In this type of system, irreversible processes play a pivotal role, thus introducing the notion of time. However, time is not simply a case of linear causality. The role played by chance produces an evolution over time in these systems and cannot be reduced to causal terms. We live in a universe where general laws no longer predict the future. According to <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b8">Prigogine (1997, p. 189)</xref>, “The new laws of nature deal with the possibility of events, but do not reduce these events to deducible, predictable consequences”. This research allowed systemic thinkers to reintroduce the notions of time and chance into psychotherapy. In doing so, they endowed therapeutic systems with the freedom inherent in all nonpredictable systems.</p><p>What Prigogine is showing is that when a system gets away from equilibrium a bifurcation can appear through chance. Then as soon as you introduce chance in a system there is no more predictibility, there is again freedom, responsibility and ethics. So due to Prigogine I could see systems as partly being in homeostasis with the predictibility aspects of homeostatic systems but also as systems where freedom can play a role. And I introduced the work of Prigogine in family therapy at the end of the 1970s because for me it was crucial to introduce a systemic approach with a place for ethics in systemic therapy. The American journal “Family Process” published a discussion between Ilya Prigogine, Isabelle Stengers, Jean Louis Deneubourg, Felix Guattari and myself (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b4">Elkaïm <italic>et al.</italic>, 1982</xref>) where we showed the richness of the link between Prigogine's approach and psychotherapy.</p><p>Then, due to Ilya Prigogine we were able to avoid the predicament where the structuralists were struck and to go beyond structuralism and open systems at equilibrium towards post‐structuralism and dynamic systems.</p></sec><sec><title>Being part of the world and ethics</title><p>Heinz and I both shared our interest in ethics. Because as soon as we are participating in creating the world we are part of, we can no more say that we are only acted upon. We are also acting. Then we are also responsible for of the world we are part of because we are emerging in a world that we are constructing. For Heinz as for me ethics could not appear if there is no responsibility, responsibility cannot appear if there is no freedom and freedom cannot appear in a context of closed systems or closed structures. So it is why also the approach of Heinz about the emergence of the observer in the observed system but where the observer plays a part in that system he is emerging in gives also a space to freedom and then ethics. You are part of a world, but you are part of the world you are participating to create. Then you are no more acted upon by your world, you are part of the world that you are creating while being created by it.</p><p>So that are some of the elements that Heinz in his generosity, in his kindness, in his affection gave to me, and which through me and others nourished the field of family therapy. And I will say that today for example, in the world of constructivist therapy, which is close to the approach of Heinz, my work is a work where I try to maintain a link between systems and constructivism. Why systems? Because my concept of resonance has to do with the function of resonance in a context. As soon as you say function you say system. So for me I am linking systems to constructivism and the creation of resonance is a tool for constructivist psychotherapy. And so due to Heinz I was able to create tools that I gave to the field in that specific domain. Today other approaches are existing that I respect completely like social constructionism or other approaches, which are a lot more distant from systems, some are even critics of constructivism. For me they are constructions that I respect completely as long as they are opening new avenues for people. Heinz helped me essentially to develop that specific aspect in family therapy that we call constructivist psychotherapy or constructivist systemic therapy or systemic therapy from a constructivist point of view. Heinz is gone but he still lives in our hearts and our work.</p></sec></body><back><fn-group><title>Notes</title><fn id="afn1"><p>This paper is the result of an interview of Mony Elkaïm by Monika Broecker, which was tape‐recorded in Arezzo in November 2003. The interview was transcribed and edited by Monika Broecker. Additions to the transcripts were taken from <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b3">Elkaïm (2002)</xref>.</p></fn></fn-group><ref-list><title>References</title><ref id="b1"><mixed-citation><person-group person-group-type="author"><string-name><surname>Althusser</surname>, <given-names>L.</given-names></string-name></person-group> (<year>1970</year>), <source><italic>For Marx</italic></source>, <publisher-name>Vintage Books</publisher-name>, <publisher-loc>New York, NY</publisher-loc>.</mixed-citation></ref><ref id="b2"><mixed-citation><person-group person-group-type="author"><string-name><surname>Deleuze</surname>, <given-names>G.</given-names></string-name></person-group> (<year>1981</year>), “<article-title><italic>A quoi reconnait‐on le structuralisme? [The Hallmarks of structuralism?]</italic></article-title>”, in <person-group person-group-type="editor"><string-name>Chatelet</string-name></person-group> (Ed.), <source><italic>La philosophie au XX<sup>eme</sup> siècle</italic></source>, <publisher-name>Marabout Université</publisher-name>, <publisher-loc>Paris</publisher-loc>, pp. <fpage>293</fpage><x>‐</x><lpage>329</lpage>.</mixed-citation></ref><ref id="b3"><mixed-citation><person-group person-group-type="author"><string-name><surname>Elkaïm</surname>, <given-names>M.</given-names></string-name></person-group> (<year>2002</year>), “<article-title><italic>Therapists, ethics, and systems: a European perspective</italic></article-title>”, in <person-group person-group-type="editor"><string-name><surname>Massey</surname>, <given-names>R.F.</given-names></string-name></person-group> (Ed.), <source><italic>Comprehensive Handbook of Psychotherapy. Volume 3. Interpersonal/Humanistic, Existential</italic></source>, Editor‐in‐chief Florence W. Kaslow, Volume Editions: Robert F. Massey and Sharon Davis Massey, <publisher-name>Wiley</publisher-name>, <publisher-loc>New York, NY</publisher-loc>.</mixed-citation></ref><ref id="b4"><mixed-citation><person-group person-group-type="author"><string-name><surname>Elkaïm</surname>, <given-names>M.</given-names></string-name></person-group>, <person-group person-group-type="author"><string-name><surname>Prigogine</surname>, <given-names>I.</given-names></string-name></person-group>, <person-group person-group-type="author"><string-name><surname>Guattari</surname>, <given-names>F.</given-names></string-name></person-group>, <person-group person-group-type="author"><string-name><surname>Stengers</surname>, <given-names>I.</given-names></string-name></person-group> and <person-group person-group-type="author"><string-name><surname>Deneubourg</surname>, <given-names>J.L.</given-names></string-name></person-group> (<year>1982</year>), “<article-title><italic>Openness: a round table discussion</italic></article-title>”, <source><italic>Family Process</italic></source>, Vol. <volume>21</volume> No. <issue>1</issue>, pp. <fpage>57</fpage><x>‐</x><lpage>70</lpage>, Translation of Elkaïm, M., Prigogine, I., Guattari, F., Stengers, I., Deneubourg, J.L. (1980).</mixed-citation></ref><ref id="b5"><mixed-citation><person-group person-group-type="author"><string-name><surname>Lacan</surname>, <given-names>J.</given-names></string-name></person-group> (<year>1978</year>), <source><italic>Le seminaire: Livre II (The Seminar of Jacques Lacan)</italic></source>, <publisher-name>Le Seuil</publisher-name>, <publisher-loc>Paris</publisher-loc>.</mixed-citation></ref><ref id="b6"><mixed-citation><person-group person-group-type="author"><string-name><surname>Lacan</surname>, <given-names>J.</given-names></string-name></person-group> (<year>1988</year>), <source><italic>The Seminar of Jacques Lacan</italic></source>, Book I and Book II, <publisher-name>Cambridge University Press</publisher-name>, <publisher-loc>Cambridge, MA</publisher-loc>.</mixed-citation></ref><ref id="b12"><mixed-citation><person-group person-group-type="author"><string-name><surname>Levi‐Strauss</surname>, <given-names>C.</given-names></string-name></person-group> (<year>1969</year>), <source><italic>The Elementary Structures of Kinship</italic></source>, <publisher-name>Beacon Press</publisher-name>, <publisher-loc>Boston, MA</publisher-loc>.</mixed-citation></ref><ref id="b7"><mixed-citation><person-group person-group-type="author"><string-name><surname>Poe</surname>, <given-names>E.A.</given-names></string-name></person-group> (<year>1966</year>), <source><italic>Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe</italic></source>, <publisher-name>Doubleday</publisher-name>, <publisher-loc>New York, NY</publisher-loc>.</mixed-citation></ref><ref id="b8"><mixed-citation><person-group person-group-type="author"><string-name><surname>Prigogine</surname>, <given-names>I.</given-names></string-name></person-group> (<year>1997</year>), <source><italic>The End of Certainty: Time, Chaos, and the New Laws of Nature</italic></source>, <publisher-name>Free Press</publisher-name>, <publisher-loc>New York, NY</publisher-loc>.</mixed-citation></ref><ref id="b9"><mixed-citation><person-group person-group-type="author"><string-name><surname>Prigogine</surname>, <given-names>I.</given-names></string-name></person-group> and <person-group person-group-type="author"><string-name><surname>Stengers</surname>, <given-names>I.</given-names></string-name></person-group> (<year>1984</year>), <source><italic>Order and Chaos</italic></source>, <publisher-name>Bantam Books</publisher-name>, <publisher-loc>New York, NY</publisher-loc>.</mixed-citation></ref><ref id="b10"><mixed-citation><person-group person-group-type="author"><string-name><surname>Saussure</surname>, <given-names>F. de</given-names></string-name></person-group> (<year>1974</year>), <source><italic>Course in General Linguistics</italic></source>, (Original work published 1916), <publisher-name>Fontana/Collins</publisher-name>, <publisher-loc>London</publisher-loc>.</mixed-citation></ref><ref id="b11"><mixed-citation><person-group person-group-type="editor"><string-name><surname>Watzlawick</surname>, <given-names>P.</given-names></string-name></person-group> (Ed.) (<year>1984</year>), <source><italic>The Invented Reality</italic></source>, <publisher-name>W.W. Norton</publisher-name>, <publisher-loc>New York, NY</publisher-loc>.</mixed-citation></ref></ref-list><ref-list><title>Further Reading</title><ref id="frd1"><mixed-citation><person-group person-group-type="author"><string-name><surname>Elkaïm</surname>, <given-names>M.</given-names></string-name></person-group> (<year>1990</year>), <source><italic>If You Love Me, Don't Love Me. Constructions of Reality and Change in Family Therapy</italic></source>, <publisher-name>Basic Books</publisher-name>, <publisher-loc>New York, NY</publisher-loc>.</mixed-citation></ref></ref-list></back></article></istex:document></istex:metadataXml><mods version="3.6"><titleInfo lang="en"><title>Observing systems and psychotherapy what I owe to Heinz von Foerster</title></titleInfo><titleInfo type="alternative" lang="en" contentType="CDATA"><title>Observing systems and psychotherapy what I owe to Heinz von Foerster</title></titleInfo><name type="personal"><namePart type="given">Mony</namePart><namePart type="family">Elkam</namePart><affiliation>Institute for Family and Human Studies and Free University of Brussels, Brussels, Belgium</affiliation></name><typeOfResource>text</typeOfResource><genre type="other" displayLabel="e-conceptual-paper"></genre><originInfo><publisher>Emerald Group Publishing Limited</publisher><dateIssued encoding="w3cdtf">2005-03-01</dateIssued><copyrightDate encoding="w3cdtf">2005</copyrightDate></originInfo><language><languageTerm type="code" authority="iso639-2b">eng</languageTerm><languageTerm type="code" authority="rfc3066">en</languageTerm></language><physicalDescription><internetMediaType>text/html</internetMediaType></physicalDescription><abstract>Purpose To consider how the approach and work of Heinz von Foerster, among others, can aid psychotherapists. Designmethodologyapproach A family therapist, as every therapist, is caught in the dilemma that she cannot separate what she sees from who she is. One possibility to understand what happens in a therapeutic system is by means of the model of resonance. The therapist observes himself or herself and regards these thoughts and emotions as part of the therapeutic system. She takes part in the reciprocal double binds, i.e. the strategy how each member of a human system she is part of is protecting the worldview of the others by acting in a way, which is reinforcing their worldviews. Thus, a homeostasis is maintained. Findings Proposes a new systemic approach closer to Ilya Prigogine's work on systems far from equilibrium where chance plays a role helping members of human systems to leave a world of predictability and to enter a universe of freedom and responsibility. Also uses the teachings of Heinz von Foerster about being part of the world and not separated observers. The viewpoint of constructed realities entails freedom and responsibility and is a highly ethical position. Originalityvalue Provides help in understanding how the teachings of Heinz von Foerster, among others, can aid psychotherapists.</abstract><subject><genre>keywords</genre><topic>Cybernetics</topic><topic>Therapists</topic><topic>Ethics</topic></subject><relatedItem type="host"><titleInfo><title>Kybernetes</title></titleInfo><genre type="journal">journal</genre><subject><genre>Emerald Subject Group</genre><topic authority="SubjectCodesPrimary" authorityURI="cat-ENGG">Engineering</topic><topic authority="SubjectCodesSecondary" authorityURI="cat-EEE">Electrical & electronic engineering</topic><topic authority="SubjectCodesSecondary" authorityURI="cat-CSE">Computer & software engineering</topic><topic authority="SubjectCodesSecondary" authorityURI="cat-SYSC">Systems & control</topic></subject><subject><genre>Emerald Subject Group</genre><topic authority="SubjectCodesPrimary" authorityURI="cat-IKM">Information & knowledge management</topic><topic authority="SubjectCodesSecondary" authorityURI="cat-ISYS">Information systems</topic><topic authority="SubjectCodesSecondary" authorityURI="cat-SMC">Systems modelling & cybernetics</topic></subject><identifier type="ISSN">0368-492X</identifier><identifier type="PublisherID">k</identifier><identifier type="DOI">10.1108/k</identifier><part><date>2005</date><detail type="volume"><caption>vol.</caption><number>34</number></detail><detail type="issue"><caption>no.</caption><number>3/4</number></detail><extent unit="pages"><start>385</start><end>392</end></extent></part></relatedItem><identifier type="istex">872865F1F3E7CE36B875D9BCF347EA4F22A707A2</identifier><identifier type="DOI">10.1108/03684920510581567</identifier><identifier type="filenameID">0670340309</identifier><identifier type="original-pdf">0670340309.pdf</identifier><identifier type="href">03684920510581567.pdf</identifier><accessCondition type="use and reproduction" contentType="copyright">© Emerald Group Publishing Limited</accessCondition><recordInfo><recordContentSource>EMERALD</recordContentSource></recordInfo></mods></metadata><serie></serie></istex></record>Pour manipuler ce document sous Unix (Dilib)
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