Autobiography of a Theory: Developing the Theory of Living Human Systems and Its Systems-Centered Practice (International Library of Group Analysis)

277 Pages·2000·3.23 MB·English

by  Yvonne Agazarian, Susan Porter Gantt

1.A utobiography of a Theory
2.C ontents
3.A cknowledgements
4.I ntroduction:Curiosity and Early Musings
5.1 Trying to Make it Make Sense:Change as a
Function of Discrimination and Integration
6.2 The First Try at Theory
7.3 Second Theory:Theory of the Invisible Group
Bridge Construct of Role between the Individual
and the Group
8.4 Theory of the Group-As-A-Whole
9.5 Thinking Systems
10.6 Systems-Centered Practice
11.7 A Theory of Living Human Systems and its
Systems-Centered Practice
12.R eferences
13.S ubject Index
14.N ame Index
Autobiography of a Theory
Circular Reflections
Selected Papers on Group Analysis and Psychoanalysis Malcolm Pines
ISBN 1 85302 492 9 pb ISBN 1 85302 493 7 hb International
Library of Group Analysis 1
Group Psychotherapy of the Psychoses
Edited by Victor L. Schermer and Malcolm Pines ISBN 1 85302 584 4 pb ISBN 1 85302 583
6 hb International Library of Group Analysis 2
Attachment and Interaction
Mario Marrone
ISBN 1 85302 586 0 pb ISBN 1 85302 587 9 hb International
Library of Group Analysis 3
Self Experiences in Groups
Intersubjective and Self Psychological Pathways to Human Understanding Edited by Irene N.H.
Harwood and Malcolm Pines ISBN 1 85302 597 6 pb ISBN 1 85302 596 8 hb International
Library of Group Analysis 4
Taking the Group Seriously
Towards a Post-Foulkesian Group Analytic Theory Farhad Dalal
ISBN 1 85302 642 5 pb
International Library of Group Analysis 5
Active Analytic Group Therapy for Adolescents
John Evans
ISBN 1 85302 586 0 pb ISBN 1 85302 587 9 hb International
Library of Group Analysis 6
The Group Context
Sheila Thompson
ISBN 1 85302 657 3
International Library of Group Analysis 7
Group
Claudio Neri
ISBN 1 85302 416 3
International Library of Group Analysis 8
Autobiography of a Theory Developing
the Theory of Living Human Systems and its
Systems-Centered Practice
Yvonne M. Agazarian and Susan P.
Gantt
Jessica Kingsley Publishers London and New York
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form (including
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reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the publisher. Warning: The doing
of an unauthorised act in relation to a copyright work may result in both a civil claim for damages
and criminal prosecution.
The right of Yvonne M. Agazarian and Susan P. Gantt to be identified as authors of this work has
been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in the United Kingdom in 2000 by Jessica Kingsley Publishers Ltd 116 Pentonville
Road London N1 9JB, England and 400 Market Street, Suite 400
Philadelphia, PA 19106, USA www.jkp.com
Copyright ©2000 Yvonne M. Agazarian and Susan P. Gantt
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Agazarian, Yvonne.
Autobiography of a theory : developing systems-centered theory / Yvonne M.
Agazarian and Susan P. Gantt.
p. cm. --(International library of group analysis ; 11) Includes index. ISBN 1 85302
847 9 (pbk. : alk paper) 1. Group psychotherapy--Philosophy. 2. Group psychoanalysis--
Philosophy. 3. social systems. I. Gantt, Susan Porter, 1951-II. Title. III. Series.
RC488. A6224 2000 616.89’152’01-dc21 99--056717
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Agazarian, Yvonne Autobiography of a theory : developing systems-centered theory 1.
Agazarian, Yvonne 2. Social psychology -Philosophy 3. Group psychotherapy 4. Group
psychoanalysis I. Title II. Gantt, Susan P.
616.8’9152 ISBN 1 85302 847 9
Printed and Bound in Great Britain by Athenaeum Press, Gateshead, Tyne and Wear
Contents
acknowledgements 6
Introduction: Curiosity and Early Musings 7 1 Trying to Make it Make
Sense: Change as a Function of Discrimination and Integration 23 2 The
First Try at Theory 43 3 Second Theory: Theory of the Invisible Group
Bridge Construct of Role between the Individual and the Group 70 4
Theory of the Group-As-A-Whole 102 5 Thinking Systems 142 6
Systems-Centered Practice 173 7 A Theory of Living Human Systems
and its Systems-Centered Practice 221
references 255 subject index 263 name index 269
Acknowledgements
For my son Jack for his appreciation of theory.
For my mentors David Jenkins, Jay Fidler, Len Horwitz; for the members
of the theory seminars who have lived through many versions of the
theory chart; for Ken Eisold for understanding; for my friends Anita,
Claudia and Fran; and particularly for Berj.
From me, Susan, enormous gratitude for all the support I received, most
especially from Kirk. Much thanks to my mother in her generosity,
especially in using Lake Burton as our writing site; and for the support
from my family (Betsy, Marty, Joel, Jessica, Julian), and from Jan, Vicki,
Carol, Robin; and for all the training and mentoring from Fran. Thank you
all.
Two more important dedications – to all our systems-centered
colleagues, and to Jessica Kingsley and Helen Parry with our gratitude
and affection for their warmth, the quite wonderful experience of working
with them, and for their support that helped us bring this book into reality.
Introduction Curiosity and Early Musings
Curiosity Killed the Cat – Information Brought it Back!
When Nanny answered my ‘whys’ with ‘because the sky is so high’, I’d
ask, ‘How high is the sky?’ When she cautioned me that ‘Curiosity killed
the cat’, I would say, ‘Information brought it back’, and sometimes, when I
was feeling very uppity, ‘Well, I must have nine lives then.’ It was not that
I asked different questions from the questions that every child asks, it
was that I asked them all the time whenever I could. When Nanny would
say that I must not ask any more questions for ten minutes, I would
explain that they filled me up inside and I’d burst if I couldn’t let them out.
And that indeed, was how I felt.
As I was a child of the early 1930s (I was born in 1929), I was brought
up to be seen and not heard. All the questions that built up inside me
would burst out as soon as I was with Nanny. Nanny, somewhat
understandably, often took refuge in the kitchen with Cook and Edith and
Maisy (why was I not allowed in the kitchen?) bringing me up my meals
and going back down again, while I made mountains and rivers and
forests out of my food. It never seemed strange to me that, although I
had a Nanny, I often played alone.
When the weather was good enough I was let out to play in the garden,
watching the shadow of the house travel slowly back over the lawn (why
do shadows move when nobody is moving them?). When the weather
was bad, I would play in the nursery. There was a gate at the nursery
door and I spent much time leaning over the gate listening to the house. I
became very good at knowing what was going on by the noises and
voices that drifted up the stairwell.
There was a difference in the voice tone of the servants when ‘we’ were
in and when ‘we’ were out. Later I was to recognize what a difference the
environment makes in who one is. Then I simply knew that if I called out
when the servants had their ‘out’ voices, they would come to visit me,
and 7
sometimes to play with me for a while. When I asked about the different
voices they used, Nanny said ‘Little pitchers have long ears.’
Recognizing people by their voices was easy. I also knew who was who
by their footsteps. In the winter, my father came home after the
lamplighter had walked down the street, lighting the lamps with his long
pole. In summer, the lamplighter didn’t come until long after I heard my
father come home. (Why does it get dark before teatime in winter?) I
could never guess when my mother would come and go. Sometimes she
would come up to the nursery to blow me a kiss before she went out,
sometimes I didn’t know she was going until I heard Whitney (our
chauffeur) banging the door of the Daimler. When I asked Nanny where
my Mother went, she would tell me it was none of my business. When I
asked her why Mummy told Grey (our butler) to tell people she was out
when she was in, Nanny said, ‘When you grow up, you’ll understand.’
As for the ‘boys’ (my brothers, who were respectively 12, 13, 14 and 15
years older than me) – they came clattering in anytime – calling out ‘hello
darling’ as they ran up to the floor above the nursery. When I asked
Nanny why I was never allowed to go up to my brothers’ rooms, she
would say ‘just because!’
My sister (10 years older) was nearly always away at boarding school.
When she was home on holidays, we would share my nursery and she
would sing me songs when she came to bed, sit up with me when there
was a thunderstorm, and dry my bottom sheet by the fire when I wet my
bed. When I asked my sister questions, she always tried to answer, but
the answers often didn’t make much sense: ‘Why do you go to boarding
school?’ ‘Because everybody does.’
In the nursery I had a mix of toys – ‘mine’ that came at Christmas and
my birthday and ‘theirs’ that came from my brothers. My toys consisted of
dolls and doll’s clothes and a doll’s house (clearly girls’ toys). My ‘real’
toys were an elephant on wheels and a horse on a rocker that I could
ride. My constant companion was my teddy bear, called Teddy. (It is clear
that I was a literal child.) ‘Theirs’ were an enormous set of building blocks
that would not fit in the box, a large farm of animals, buildings and fences
(my brother Buddy’s) and armies of different generations of soldiers. The
oldest soldiers were missing arms and muskets and paint and sometimes
heads (they were my brother Levon’s (who was the eldest). The newer
ones were divided into the guards, splendid in paint and plumes and
horses, and the infantry in drab khaki with cannons and rifles and officers
to lead them over the ridge.
At home I played a lot with my soldiers. They came together in different
formations, climbed the ridges of the carpet and slipped quietly through
the valleys. It was by organizing my soldiers that I first acquired an
understanding of the group-as-a-whole – in which the fate of the
individual depended not so much on their own heroism (of which my
individual soldiers had plenty) but on being part of a successful group. I
always put my favorite soldiers into the successful group. On red-letter
days one or other of ‘the boys’ would climb over my nursery gate and
give me lessons on strategy, ‘Look – send a small army of soldiers over
there to distract the enemy while your main army is creeping up behind
them where they can’t see.’ I was caught between the mixture of
excitement that one of my brothers would be teaching me how to play,
and distress at how unfair it was to pretend one thing and to do another.
Asking about it did not help – the answer was either, ‘That’s the way life
is’ or ‘That’s because you’re a girl!’
I kept my dolls for playing with girls. We undressed them, put them to
bed, got them up and then dressed them again. Sometimes we had a tea
party. Later, I understood that my dolls had helped me ‘fit into the norms’
and behave like the other little girls in the group. Then, I only knew that I
had a better time when I climbed trees with the boys, where I learned that
the little boys would let me play with them until the bigger boys came out,
and then they told me to go away because I was only a girl. I wondered
what made the difference – whether, if I cut my hair and wore shorts, I
would not be sent away. Girls and boys were a great mystery to me. If
girls were meant to stay clean and neat and pretty, it was quite clear that
I should have been a boy who could run and be rowdy and get dirty. I
thought it was a compliment when my brothers said I was a tomboy.
I looked forward to Sundays all week. Sunday was Nanny’s half-day off,
and I had lunch with my family. On Sundays I was a good little girl who
was seen and not heard. Indeed, I dared not speak unless I was spoken
to in case I was sent back to the nursery to wait and wait and wait until
the next Sunday, but I could watch. It was at Sunday lunches that I
learned all about the nonverbal communication which goes on between
people, and how often it does not match the verbal. Later I was to
understand how often people’s words don’t match their music. Then,
Nanny simply said that I had ‘an overactive imagination’.
In the garden I was a different person. Rather than watching and
listening, Teddy and I ran to the back garden away from the house where
we could whoop and holler as much as we liked. I was a leader of a band
that had its headquarters underground; I was a Red Indian brave who