MFT Exam - Bateson and General Systems Theory

Gregory Bateson, influenced by Cybernetics (Norbert Wiener) and General Systems Theory (Ludwig von Bertalanffy), laid the foundation for modern Family Therapy through his study of communication and systems. He viewed the family as a system where members interact in continuous feedback loops—positive (amplifying) ones promote change, while negative (attenuating) ones maintain stability or homeostasis. Families operate within boundaries that define roles and regulate information flow through boundary interfaces. Circular causality explains how behaviors influence each other in ongoing patterns rather than linear cause-and-effect. Healthy families are open systems, exchanging energy and information to prevent entropy (disorganization), and can achieve similar outcomes through equifinality. Morphogenesis supports change, while morphostasis preserves stability. Bateson’s systemic thinking emphasizes patterns, processes, and relationships over individual pathology.

Bateson (Cybernetics) /General Systems Theory: A unit bounded by a set of interrelated elements and which exhibits coherent behaviors.

Bateson (Cybernetics) /General Systems Theory: Describes a system’s tendency toward growth, creativity, change, and innovation.

Bateson (Cybernetics) /General Systems Theory: A systemic state that emerges when a system is balanced between openness and closeness.

Bateson (Cybernetics) /General Systems Theory: This is a symbolic representation that captures the basic and essential features of an object or event by using a description of a different category of objects or events

Bateson (Cybernetics) /General Systems Theory: This is a phenomenon in which two or more systems or subsystems exhibit similar or parallel structures. For example, a therapist seeing a family that starts showing up late to sessions will similarly begin showing up late to supervision to discuss the case.

Bateson (Cybernetics) /General Systems Theory: This describes a system’s tendency towards stability and staying the same.

Bateson (Cybernetics) /General Systems Theory: Interact regularly with the environment with relatively no inhibition.

Bateson (Cybernetics) /General Systems Theory: This refers to the tendency of a system to resist change and maintain dynamic equilibrium or a steady state. This is maintained by negative feedback and input loops.

Bateson (Cybernetics) /General Systems Theory: This refers to dynamic aspects that are changing within the system. Often, family therapists make the distinction between process (how something is said) and content (what is being said).

Bateson (Cybernetics) /General Systems Theory: This refers to reciprocal or circular causality. Rather than viewing an element in a vacuum devoid of interactions between its environment and its own system’s levels or subsystems, recursiveness speaks to the mutual interaction and influence that occur between people, vents, and their ecosystem.

Bateson (Cybernetics) /General Systems Theory: These are at the core of the cybernetics model. They are the self-correcting mechanisms which serve to govern families attempt to adjust variation from customary patterns and maintain its organizational sameness (homeostasis).

Bateson (Cybernetics) /General Systems Theory: Individuals and the system at large will consciously or unconsciously use models or maps meant to manage their boundaries and make sense of their individual and shared realities.

Bateson (Cybernetics) /General Systems Theory: This refers to how a change that occurs at one level of a system will result in changes across other levels of the system.

Bateson (Cybernetics) /General Systems Theory: These are aspects of a system that are universal across systems, in that all systems have a structure to them. Structures can be adapted, changed, and influenced by a variety of events as well as intentionally through therapeutic intervention. Although all systems will have a structure, there is no one universal structure or set or measure of objective quality of structure. Structure is defined subjectively by the observers.

Bateson (Cybernetics) /General Systems Theory: The term used to represent the concept of Boundary Interface mentioned above within the literature of family therapies.

Bateson (Cybernetics) /General Systems Theory: This refers to the notion that different end states can occur from the same initial conditions. Similar events (e.g. natural disaster) can turn into depression or trauma as well as growth or happiness.

Bateson (Cybernetics) /General Systems Theory: This is the idea that an organism or system can reach a certain end state from a variety of different sources, conditions, and means or from different initial states. For example, Generalized Anxiety Disorder may stem from a biological imbalance, trauma, or free-will.

Bateson (Cybernetics) /General Systems Theory: This refers to a system’s tendency to break down which, over time, threatens the survival of the system.

Bateson (Cybernetics) /General Systems Theory: Are more isolated and resistant to interactions with the environment.

Bateson (Cybernetics) /General Systems Theory: Regions between each subsystem of the family and between the family and the suprasystem.

Bateson (Cybernetics) /General Systems Theory: In determining the origins of problems, General Systems Theory departs radically from traditional, linear causality. This is different than linear causality and acknowledged that two things do, say, or feel mutually influence one another in a recursive, circular relationship.

Bateson (Cybernetics) /General Systems Theory: These are theoretical lines of demarcation in a family that define a system as an entity and separate the subsystems from one another and the system from its environment.

Bateson (Cybernetics) /General Systems Theory: These reduce change in an existing homeostasis.

Bateson (Cybernetics) /General Systems Theory: These increase change in a family’s homeostasis (morphogenesis). They attempt to change these systems from its steady state to a new steady state or balance.