Systems Thinking and an Analogy

– There have been a lot of questions about this thing we call, systems thinking. What is systems thinking? I would say all systems thinking is a broad way of thinking. It gets you out of the here and now, and gets you to thinking broadly. Families absolutely love that. When the therapist can do that, and the family can do it. I was always intrigued by the families that can pick this up in And I’d bet you as far as I’m concerned, it was the ability of the therapist to see this family as far as the total amalgam which is society. That people get terribly intrigued with a broad way of thinking. It is much better than therapists just all up in I’m to change you to be what I think you ought to be. And the average person don’t sue you, thinking I’ve been a failure. What was the right way? And I think people don’t buy that. Leave it up to them to decide what they want to change. Once they get the message they can do some wonderful things. When you apply it to your children too. A child is watching the parents, taking notes on the parents long before the child learns to talk and been reading, and you will be amazed how accurate they are, if you give them their due. I know you don’t get in a position, of telling kids what to do. If they ask ya for it, give them a little information. But don’t tell them what to do. Because they know what to do. They can figure it out by themselves. And that’s in line with keep your own life out of the way of your kids, if your kids mean anything to you. You would like them to succeed. Well for God’s sake, get out of their lives and let ’em go. They can surprise you. Don’t get ’em going off into the old school drive way of things. Let ’em figure it out for themselves. The more you get into telling a kid what to do the more you’re gonna screw it up for ’em. And that has to do with letting the kids be themselves. They will find some remarkable things. That has to do with every damn family you see. In the past year I’ve had, I suppose two families, in which the husband has become a house-husband to the working wife. And how the hell do they get out of that? I’m interested in how the hell they got into it. And if their thinking is good thinking I don’t give a damn who’s been the house husband or the house wife. Makes no difference to me if they like it. But it obviously he didn’t like it worth hell. Well how did he end up here? So I would be in favor of asking for solutions and not giving solutions. But those of you who give a solution, you tie the hands of the people you work for. Their hands have already been tied too many times. I would say forty-five years at least, and this would have to do with a, the formation of hurricanes. And I’d say a hurricane is formed by the presence of five or six atmospheric conditions at the same time. When all five or six are there, Bimbo a hurricane results. Well you keep hold of all five or six of ’em, but you’ve got a pretty good way of controlling the psychological part of it. We know a hell of lot about that. And I’ve seen family situations that have been, and let’s use that as an example. If you know that a hurricane is caused by psychology plus a few other things, and you can control psychology, it’s worth a try. And if you can control psychology, the hurricane doesn’t develop. Is it worth a chance or not? You always run into things like this. You’ll have a situation in which things are getting worse in a family. And it will be a pretty good indication that another family member, they’re gonna run into problems. And somebody is gonna die. It happens all the time. It happens with all kinds of things like, severe physical problems, cancers from one end, and if work with them can cut off some of these things it’s time well spent. You don’t guarantee that it’s gonna help, but, you can believe that you can find another reason for it. Don’t get yourself into the position of being an expert and directing another life. You know what I’m done with things like, I’m here to learn and if there’s any way that I can help you, I’ll be glad to if I can, and move on to somebody else. And you’d be surprised there’s a number who stay around, and, I’ve seen people, who’ve been able to avoid a death in the family, and I’ve got sort of brave about things that all of you message as a severe problem. You don’t have a problem that the death of one or two people won’t fix it. I’m sure the family anxiety will settle down after two more dying. Well you better be un-uptight if you say that one. But anyway this is all based on a notion, that the family symptom goes down when a family member is externalized. And that would be a way of saying, I think she’ll be better off to deal with it, then not deal with it. But uh, that also goes with the side of things saying, that as family anxiety builds up symptoms develop. Anybody can influence it, by working on self. If you work on self, just on self, the hell with working on anyone else they know their way. they know what they’re trying to do. They will find a way. And you don’t get into a position trying to direct ’em. So this has to do with, doing the best you can, with whatever you have to work with.