What is Systemic Psychotherapy?

The systemic approach is based on systems theory and focuses on how we relate to and interact with others, within the multiple systems in which the individual participates. The family in which each of us grows up is a code of communication between its members and of established patterns of interaction. The problem, then, and its solution is sought in relationships with others and in the patient’s resources as well.

Through open dialogue, new perspectives emerge and new narratives of self are created. The therapist creates an appropriate communication framework in which the client can observe himself/herself, his/her thoughts and feelings and explore his/her opportunities and possible solutions to his/her request. During the psychotherapeutic process, we seek together with the client his/her own constructions of reality in order to disrupt his/her already established communication patterns that lead him/her to a dead end or cause mental pain.

But what is a system? A system is a set of organized elements/parts that are in close interaction with each other and interdependent. A system can be the family, a couple of partners or parents, the employees of a company, all the students of a school, but also an individual who consists of different parts, versions and voices.

Systemic psychotherapy is therefore aimed at individuals, couples, families and groups.

The patient is treated by the psychologist-systemic psychotherapist as part of a system, within the wider grid of his/her relationships and not as an isolated individual. Clint’s relationships are explored as they have been formed in the past but also in how they continue to be co-formed, his/her roles and patterns of behavior in order to better understand himself /herself in relation to others.

Types of systemic psychotherapy:
A. Systemic individual psychotherapy
B. Systemic couple psychotherapy
C. Systemic family psychotherapy
D. Systemic group psychotherapy