CYBERNETIC SYMPHONY : PATTERNS OF ORGANIZATION

IN INTERPERSONAL SYSTEMS

FJA Snyders
Department of Psychology, University of South Africa

E du Preez
Department of Psychology, University of Pretoria

Abstract. The cybernetic metaphor has inspired family therapists to devise novel
ways of observing, describing and managing patterns of organization in human
systems. An overview of the history of cybernetics in family therapy is presented, and
the various movements in first as well as second order cybernetics in this discipline
are described and illustrated. The possibility of a third order paradigm is envisaged,
and this level of cybernetic thinking is described as a movement in process.

INTRODUCTION

During the third and fourth decades of the previous century a number of pioneers
interested in the mental health field and human communication initiated a
countermovement to the prevailing treatment culture of the time. One of the products
of this new paradigm was to be the family therapy movement. Until then the
individual patient was viewed as the locus of psychopathology, and the context of
mental health endeavours was defined by an intrapsychic frame of reference which
was informed by the medical model and psychoanalysis. This new movement
represented an attempt to view problematic behaviour of individuals within the
context of relational patterns and processes in family and hospital systems; research
into deviant behaviour shifted from a “why” to a “how” focus.

Since this shift constituted a novel way of observing and interpreting individual
behaviour in context, these less explicable and rather ambiguous phenomena in
families with an identified patient needed to be modelled in some way. A model may
be described as the product of the projection of less understood substance onto the
structure of a more defined frame of reference. The systemic/cybernetic paradigm
served as a readily available structure, and this modelling process heralded the birth of
a new epistemology in the mental health domain.

SETTING THE STAGE

Auerswald (1985, p.2) formulated an operational definition of epistemology as “ a set

of immanent rules used in thought by large groups of people to define reality”.
Family therapy pioneers re-focussed from a Newtonian to a Cybernetic epistemology
to observe and manage patters of organization in family systems. This new focus co-
occurred with events of World War I, and the accompanying technological advances
in weapon systems and communication networks. The new epistemology was
informed by, among others, the work of the mathematicians Wiener and von
Neumann, the physician Bigelow, the physiologist McCulloch, the psychologist
Lewin, and anthropologists Bateson and Mead ( Becvar & Becvar, 2003).
If the concept “theory” is defined as sets of principles serving to explain a group of
phenomena of interest to the researcher, or as a statement of relations believed to
prevail in a body of observations, ready made theories were available to serve as a
structure of the less understood multilateral and mutual causal patterns of behaviour in
human systems. Bertalanffy (1968) provided General Systems Theory, and Wiener
(1949) formulated his version of Cybernetics. Theorists and therapists like Haley
(1963), Ackerman (1958), Bowen (1978), Whitaker (1975 ) and Wynne and Singer
(1963) developed a number of important family therapy and psychotherapy models
which were informed by cybernetic epistemology and systems thinking of the time.

The observation of individual difficulties in the context of relational redundancies was

a novel endeavour, and attempts were made to project such vaguely understood
interpersonal dynamics onto cybernetic and systems models. This development led to
Structural, Strategic, Milan, Bowenian, Symbolic-experiential and Communication
(MRI) models of family functioning. An era of intense experimentation, research and
therapeutic novelty was introduced by these developments. An example of levels of
thinking and observation in family therapy follows (Levels of epistemology) :

EPISTEMOLOGY
Objectivist Cybernetic
Newtonian Ecological
THEORY
Psychodynamic Systems
Behaviourist
MODEL
Jung, Klein Structural
Skinner Strategic
Milan
Bowen
Symbolic-Experiential
Communication

CYBERNETICS : OVERTURE
The field of cybernetics originated in 1942, with the mathematician Norbert Wiener
(1949) as a main founder member of this science. “Kybernetes” means “steersman”,
and was defined as the “science of pattern, organization, and feedback/feedforward”.
The original processes of interest were feedback mechanisms, information processing,
and patterns of communication ( as necessitated by the events of World Wars I and
II). The focus was on principles and patterns of organization in complex systems, and
how systems use information and control actions to steer towards and maintain their
goals.

FIRST-ORDER CYBERNETICS

First-order cybernetics was also labelled “ the cybernetics of observed systems”, and
the first movement of this development was a depiction of a focus on deviation-
counteracting processes (negative feedback).
 F
(
Figure 2. First-order cybernetics : First movement

First-order cybernetics, or 1°C, was driven by assumptions of realism, and 1°C family
therapy models were functionalist and normative, ignored systems of meaning, saw
families as objectively observable systems (“how families work”), and therapists were
schooled in power and control tactics. Views of anamnesis and catamnesis were just
re-imposed on the family rather than on the individual, and the family therefore
became the locus of pathology. Examples of these early models were the Mental
Research Institute in Palo Alto, and the work of Bateson (1972), Haley (1963), and
Minuchin (1974). These were the communication and strategic approaches to family
functioning.

The second movement of 1°C was still characterized by the “cybernetics of observed
systems”, but the leitmotiv here was deviation-amplifying processes (positive
feedback). The new attempt was to push the family away from equilibrium by
introducing challenges to the status quo, and by orchestrating therapeutic crises.
Figure 3. First-order cybernetics : Second movement.

Examples of this movement were Haley’s Ordeal Therapy (1984), Minuchin’s

restructuring techniques (1974), and the provocative and paradoxical models of
Farrelly and Brandsma (1974) and Dell (1982). The main principles of 1°C, also
named “simple cybernetics” are listed in Table 1.

Table 1. Principles of first-order cybernetics

(

S
The observer or therapist was viewed as apart from the family of observation, as
depicted in Figure 4 below.

Figure 4. Position of the observer in 1°C.

SECOND-ORDER CYBERNETICS (2°C)

In 1981 Von Foerster published his influential “Observing Systems”, and the
discourse about the position of the observer was introduced. It was implied that the
operations of distinction of the observer/family therapist brought forth the described
family system, and that such distinctions were always informed by the observer’s
epistemology (“how observers construct reality”). Observations were relative to the
S
observer’s point of view. The first and second movements of 2°C explicitly addressed
a theory of the observer, and introduced a shift from “what” was seen, to “how”
observers see. Examples of first movement models in 2°C are : Early Milan, later
Watzlawick (“The invented reality”), Virginia Goldner, and Tom Andersen (“The
reflecting team”). The second movement in 2°C included Lyn Hoffman, Monica
McGoldrick and later Milan developments. In this movement the assumption was
that problems originate in the observer’s ways of punctuating events.

O
 Se
(C
S
Figure 5. Second-order cybernetics : The three movements

The third movement was characterized by the following themes:

“Human systems as linguistic systems”
“Narrative means to therapeutic ends”
“Improvisational therapy”
(Anderson & Goolishian,1988);
(White & Epston, 1990);
(Keeney, 1990);
“Conversation, language and possibilities” (Andersen, 1997).
(C
The therapeutic reconstruction of world views were seen as based on collaborative
explorations of different ways of viewing family contexts, stories, and circumstances.
Second-order approaches, however, still focussed on a type of realist privileging
position from which the therapist occupied a metaposition. The “observer” was seen
as the source of reality and intentionality, and “objectivity-in-parentheses” was still a
neglected concept. The main principles underlying second-order cybernetics are
summarized in Table 2.

Table 2. Principles of 2°C.

CYB
In Figure 6 the position of the observer, according to 2°C, is depicted:

CYBER
Observe
Observ
Figure 6. The position of the observer in 2°C.
THIRD-ORDER CYBERNETICS

The necessity for a 3°C paradigm arises in response to the realist privileging process
of the 2°C movements. In addition to this consideration, first and second order
movements may be viewed as attending to systems at or near equilibrium, without
considering the potentialities inherent in systems away from equilibrium. The 2°C
views still present with a staccato image of discrete observers and their invented
realities. A different class of description may be invented to depict the dynamic and
emergent processes generated by family systems in constant transition. The question
of how humans create and maintain social systems through ideas and language had to
be addressed in some way.

Umpleby (2001) described two phases in the development of cybernetics : 1°C from
the late 1940’s until 1975, and 2°C from the 1970’s until the present. Second-order
cybernetics may be viewed as congruent with the philosophy of Constructivism, and
while this paradigm is useful in the explanation of how individuals construe and
communicate, the depiction of resultant changes in social systems remains unclear.
There is a need for an understanding of the mutually influencing relationships
between theories and models of social systems on the one hand, and the dynamics of
the systems these blueprints address ((Umpleby,2001). Emergence of changes and
jumps in and of social systems need to be charted, and in this respect, Umpleby
(2001) advocates the introduction of “social cybernetics”, also labelled the
“cybernetics of conceptual systems”, as a potential direction for 3°C thinking.

A language for describing the dance of family systems in context may exist in Edgar
Auerswald’s ( 1990) ecological approach to presenting problems and complaints in
human affairs. This model which assists in the description of ecological event-shapes
and ecosystemic scenarios represents a first movement in 3°C, as can be seen from
Figure 7 :
 Third Orde
(Cybernetics
Figure 7. Third-order cybernetics : The first movement

First movement (C
Following from the introduction above, 3°C may also be defined as the “cybernetics
of emergence”, and the first movement as the “cybernetics of relational events”. A
number of principles underlying Auerswald’s (1990) ecological approach are listed
below, and adherence to these guidelines clearly informs how interpersonal systems
are viewed (theory and model). These different views lead to different classes of

events)
interventions, and the resultant different operations of the target systems then again
inform theory and model:

Multiple evolving realities

Relativism
Heuristic truth
Intersubjectivity, rather than objectivity
Understanding by contextualization
Distance/closeness (rather than hierarchy)
Multilateral mutual causality

Ecological event-sha
Both/and position
Probability rather than certainty
Name as shorthand presentation
Fourdimensional timespace
Event as information
Pattern as related events, and as emergence
Monistic connectedness
Eventshape as ecosystem
Human participation.

Ecosystemic models
The second movement in 3°C is depicted in Figure 8, and introduces the “cybernetics
of knowledge”. Here theories of change and the design of intellectual movements are
of interest.

Third Orde
(Cybernetics

Figure 8. Third-order cybernetics : The second movement

(Kan ons hierbo, onder “Theories of change”, die woorde “Design of intellectual

Second movemen
movements” invoeg?).

An example of a theory of change is depicted in Figures 9 and 10, where Prigogine’s

(1977) Theory of Dissipative Structures is applied to the description of family systems
as permanent instabilities.

knowledge)

Theories of change
 Theory of Dis
(Prigo
Families, as open systems, ar
Figure 9. The family as a dissipative structure.

Figure 10 serves as an example of the description of change of a therapeutic system as

Variables in the family system

a result of the intensification of resonating themes in and between clients and
therapist. The amplification of control parameters such as “resonance” may lead to
bifurcations, systemic jumps, and new solutions and system characteristics.

By chance or design any of th

Amplifications serve as positiv

Discontinuous, non-linear tran

Figure 10. Change in the therapeutic system.
According to Umpleby (2001), an important goal of 3°C should be a study of the
design of intellectual movements, how these movements may transform societies, and
how these transformations feed back into epistemological blueprints. Umpleby (2001)
refers to the theories of Karl Marx and Milton Freedman as examples of incisive
influences on large social systems. In the work of Auerswald (1990) as well as
Umpleby (2001) observers are viewed as social participants who construe knowledge
in the service of human aims, and the challenge for a 3°C exists in “transforming
conceptual systems (through persuasion, not coercion), to change society”
(Umpleby,2001,p.4).

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