Systems-Centered Training: An Illustrated Guide for Applying a Theory of Living Human Systems

259 Pages·2020·18.815 MB·English

by  Yvonne M. Agazarian, Susan P. Gantt, Frances B. Carter

Systems-Centered Training
This illustrated book shows how “thinking” systems ofer new ways of seeing
people which can help us see and do things diferently. The authors describe
how a theory of living human systems was developed and even recently
revised. This major revision led to a theory of the person-as-a-system and its
role-systems map that helps us see which system in us and in others is running
the show.
The authors illustrate how life force energy fuels the hierarchy of living
human systems and how theory and practice with role-systems can be useful in
everyday life. They begin with describing how we can use the new illustrations
as a map to locate the contexts of our roles. Using this map helps us to identify
the role-systems and explore the territory of ourselves and our groups in new
ways that deepen our understanding of roles and role locks.
This book illustrates systems-centered therapy and training (SCT) theory
by ofering a practical theory to guide group psychotherapists, leaders and
c onsultants in working with group dynamics.
Yvonne M. Agazarian, Ed.D., developed a theory of living human sys-
tems and SCT. She loved theorizing and authored six books and many articles
about SCT.
Susan P. Gantt, Ph.D., taught group psychotherapy for Emory University
School of Medicine, chairs the Systems-Centered Training and Research
I nstitute (SCTRI) and leads ongoing SCT training groups in Atlanta, San
Francisco and the Netherlands. She has published widely in SCT.
Frances B. Carter, MSW, is a founding member of SCTRI, co-directs the
SCTRI Training and Resource Center and leads SCT training in the US and
Europe. She brings her early background as an artist to all her work.
“A must read for all group therapists and anyone working with groups. Building on
decades of scholarship and experience, this book is a triumph in theory and practice. It
provides a penetrating guide and practical insights with extraordinary clarity and unparal-
leled depth into understanding and working with all dimensions of group life.”
– Francis Kaklauskas, Psy.D., CGP, FAGPA,
Naropa University, University of Colorado, &
Saybrook University
“Reading this book was a deeply personal experience for me: opening to their idea of
‘seeing one’s role in context rather than taking it just personally’ and its useful ramifca-
tions for all of us who work with individuals, couples, families, groups or organizations.
Helpful for both journeyman and senior practitioners, this compelling book discusses their
wide range of system ideas integrating contemporary neuroscience, social science, psychol-
ogy and medicine.”
– Joshua M. Gross, Ph.D., ABPP, CGP, FAGPA, FAAGP,
Director of Group Programs, Florida State University
“Yvonne never tired of trying to clarify and simplify her theory in order to make it as
widely accessible as it deserves to be. Here is her fnal efort, aided and abetted by two of
her closest collaborators. A great resource!”
– Ken Eisold, Ph.D., President, The William Alanson
White Institute
“The authors have illustrated their work with creative images (perhaps inspired by Kurt
Lewin’s infuence) so that theory comes alive and is a true pleasure to read. Their new
concept of the ‘person-as-a-system’ completes a theory of living human systems (TLHS)
and widens its applications. Beyond the theory, this is a handbook which can be used by
practitioners for many years to come.”
– Christer Sandahl, Professor of Social and Behavioural
Sciences, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden;
Past President of the International Association for
Group Psychotherapy and Group Processes (IAGP)
Systems-Centered Training
An Illustrated Guide for Applying a
Theory of Living Human Systems
Yvonne M. Agazarian
Susan P. Gantt
Frances B. Carter
First published 2021
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2021 Susan P. Gantt and Frances B. Carter
The right of Yvonne M. Agazarian, Susan P. Gantt and Frances B.
Carter to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted
by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
SCT® and Systems-Centered® are registered trademarks of the Systems-
Centered Training and Research Institute, Inc., a non-profit organization.
SAVI® is a registered trademark of Claudia Byram & Frances Carter.
Unless indicated otherwise, all illustrations are copyrighted and
owned by the Systems-Centered Training and Research Institute, Inc.
(SCTRI) and are included here with permission of SCTRI.
Excerpt on page 189–191: Copyright © 2012. From Small, large and
median groups: The work of Patrick de Maré by Lenn, R. & Stefano, K.
Reproduced by permission of Taylor and Francis, a division of Informa plc.
Figures 8.2, 8.3 and 8.4 reproduced with permission of Jessica
Kingsley Publishers Limited through PLSclear.
Figure 8.8 reproduced by kind permission of Phoenix Publishing
House and originally appeared as Figure 3 in Gantt, S. P., & Agazarian,
Y. M. (2007). Phases of system development in organizational work
groups: The systems-centered approach for intervening in context.
Organisational & Social Dynamics 7(2), 253–291.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978-0-367-64925-8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-64924-1 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-12696-6 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
This book is dedicated to
anyone who is curious about living human systems,
all of us who care about how to work with differences differently,
the thousands of people who have learned together with us in our
SCT trainings and groups
and most especially our licensed SCT practitioners who have done
the work required to learn and practice SCT well enough to take
it into the world

Contents
Foreword viii
Preface xi
Introduction 1
1 Illustrating the nuts and bolts of a theory of living
human systems 12
2 Energy, information and communication 44
3 Transitions in SCT theory and practice 2013–2016 73
4 Role-systems: theory and implications 96
5 Role-systems in systems-centered practice 124
6 Exploring our inner-person system roles 147
7 Implications for practice from our role-systems map 171
8 Theorizing about phases of system development 186
9 Putting the phases of system development into practice 207
Epilogue 230
Appendix 231
Index 241
Foreword
This book tells an engaging story about how models of complex phenomena
are built, a story that nicely illuminates the reciprocal, iterative and ongoing
process between careful observation and theory construction. It also reveals
what those who undertake such an arduous task require in terms of courage in
approaching what is not yet known, in remaining open to new experience, in
a willingness to critique one’s ideas and in persevering in eforts to understand
and explain complicated relations among variables and constructs that form
human living systems. Trying to fathom what happens in human groups, why
it happens and what can be done to change what happens are tasks not for the
faint of heart.
I’ve been a fan of Yvonne Agazarian and her lifelong team of colleagues
ever since picking up her frst book in 1981 precisely because of its intrigu-
ing title, The Visible and Invisible Group. This title, and, as it turned out, the
novel ideas presented in this pioneering volume, spoke to my own intellectual
struggles to make sense of group life and, more particularly, to bring together
a depth view of the individual with a depth view of group psychology, an
interest of mine that was borne of my graduate school experiences at Yale in
the late 1960s. In that era, Yale Psychology and Psychiatry were at the fore-
front of studying and articulating the complex relations between the individual
and the group, guided primarily by ego psychological (Edelson, 1970) and
Kleinian object relations theoretical frameworks (Gibbard, Hartman, & Mann,
1974; Newton & Levinson, 1973). These classic writings, as well as the experi-
ences generated from participating in the numerous Tavistock and Lewinian
group relations conferences conducted at Yale in those days, have served as an
important impetus in the awakening of my own curiosity about individual-in-
the-group theory (Greene, 1982, 1983), a curiosity that has imbued my entire
professional career and that has made reading this present volume so rewarding.
One can see the infuences of these early theoretical eforts in the present
volume: ideas about roles and role locks, about driving and restraining forces
that, respectively, promote and inhibit goal attainment, about explicit and
implicit goals and about the universal and ubiquitous dilemmas in group life in
relating to authority and in developing peer relations. But this current work,
Foreword ix
the most recent in a long chain of theoretical and empirical contributions from
the Agazarian team, has gone way beyond these foundational works, entering
new territory by conceptualizing group life from a systems perspective. Their
unique contributions, well summarized in Chapter 1 and elaborated in detail
in the subsequent chapters, reveal the ever deepening and articulating of their
thinking. I found their conceptual focus on the individual-becoming-a-group
member, represented by their person-as-a-system model, particularly compel-
ling precisely because it captures the ever-present dilemma of maintaining a
sense of safety, familiarity and viability by attending exclusively to one’s familiar
self from the past versus the risking of this security to explore and discover, as
Turquet (1975) so aptly put it, the skin of one’s neighbor.
As substantive a contribution to building theoretical models as this volume
is, this book is not just about theory. What helps to make theory robust are its
links to empirical investigation and (in the case of psychological theories) to
clinical practice. And this book well demonstrates vital connections to both of
these enterprises. With regard to research, the singular accomplishment here is
the construction of a classifcation system, dubbed SAVI, for analyzing com-
munications in the group, not the content of the messages, but importantly
what the messages serve in the way of furthering or obscuring information
fow. Now I have no illusion that empirical research will answer all of the
big questions about any complex phenomena of interest. One has only to
look at the amassed empirical fndings about the relationship of cohesion to
outcome in group psychotherapy to understand the limitations of research.
Despite decades of research on this relationship, most of what we can say is
that generally a more cohesive group yields better outcomes. But the operative
word in this rather tepid conclusion is “generally.” We know little about the
circumstances and conditions under which this relationship is maximized and
when it can actually lead to negative results. And further, sadly, we still don’t
have a universal or shared defnition of the cohesion construct.
Despite this not-so-optimistic view, empirical research such as the develop-
ment and application of sophisticated process measures like SAVI does have
heuristic value. Those studies (Agazarian & Simon, 1989; Simon & Agazarian,
2000) where its application serves to identify important patterns and relational
dynamics can help both theorist and therapist in generating new hypotheses
and new understandings of group life.
With regard to practice, I agree with the authors’ assertion that the creation
of the concept of functional subgrouping and its implementation in therapy
and work groups is a vital procedure for helping these systems progress. In con-
trast to the natural regressive tendency in group life to form dysfunctional sub-
groups, either-or splits that serve to keep uncomfortable feelings and thoughts
at arm’s length, the conscious, intentional and proactive structuring of func-
tional subgroups – where like-minded members can join together to explore (to
apply one of the authors’ engaging mantras) diferences in the apparently simi-
lar and then also to discover similarities in the apparently diferent – potentiates