MAPPING SOCIAL CAPITAL November 6, 2009

Therapeutic work with families demands an analysis of contextual factors such as race, ethnicity, gender, and social class in relationship to societal systems of power, privilege, and oppression.  A broad understanding of these dynamics, however, is inadequate to inform our work with families whose social capital in certain domains limit available life choices, social influence, and material resources.  In this paper, we describe a critical contextual perspective to consider how families gain and/or lose social capital through participation in multiple contexts.  We introduce a technique for mapping social capital within and across multiple systems as well as suggestions for interventions aimed at increasing the social well being of families. These include considering the dynamics of boundary crossing, recognizing and optimizing resistance to oppressive dynamics, finding ways to limit constraints and optimize opportunities, and developing webs of allies to support family functioning and access to resources.

This article will be published in January in Journal of Marital and Family Therapy.

Garcia, M. & McDowell, T. (In Press).  The Mapping of Social Capital:  Contextual approach.  Journal of Marital and Family Therapy.

FREE WILL: Does It Make Sense? November 6, 2009

When the term “I” is used, it does not represent the single unit of the body which writes these words, but rather a conglomerate of “I’s” within this body which compel this body to write.  There is no “I” as it is understood habitually; this body cannot say that it has a choice in writing these words, or that it can determine what will be written. What this body writes belongs to the numerous people and ideas which live and engage within and with this body. 

It is important that I start with this disclaimer, not to confuse, frustrate, or mock the reader, but because it represents the basic premises of this post:  (a) humans belong to an organic system (the earth) whose existence is determined by the interactions among the life which it contains (in this dissertation I discuss human life), (b) any one human cannot exist, in its precise composition, at an exact point in time, without the existence of all other life forms, in their exact composition, at the same precise time, (c) every human is contained within the other, and each human is merely a representation of the earth and a vehicle for the earth’s expression. 

It follows, from these premises (which I discuss in more detail subsequently), that it is impossible for human beings to have free-will or determinable actions. I am not proposing that humans cannot change the earth’s trajectory or existence, but rather that they cannot decide to change it. To illustrate this point, we can think of our bodies as organisms, much like the earth, dependent on the make-up of our individual parts. If I am born with a bad heart, for example, this heart will determine my body’s existence, but the heart cannot choose to be any other way, and it actually exists exactly as it should given its context (the external elements to the body such as historical time, geographical placement, diet, environmental conditions, etc.). Humans may think that they are freer than hearts because they can choose to change or to change their circumstances, and hearts cannot, given their inability, as far as we know, to think as humans do. But, because humans can think does not mean that they have more relative choice than hearts because choosing requires knowledge and knowledge is relative and tenuous.

In other words, we understand that humans have more consciousness than other life forms, but consciousness is relative, and we have to ask whether humans have enough consciousness about all issues that might pertain to the world around them (and inside them) to decide to effect change. Do humans know relatively more about their outer structures (earth) than what hearts know about their outer structure (the body, to give one example) in order to make their choice any more viable than the heart’s inability to choose? What I am suggesting is that choice is dependent on knowledge and knowledge is dependent on context. And, hence, if context determines choice, then choice, or free-will, is not possible for the individual, because the choice is made by context.

I am not saying we should stop recycling, for example, because we cannot determine that the earth will be better off if we recycle. What I am saying is that those who recycle have no choice in recycling; they have to do it if they do it, because their context (which includes knowledge regarding the earth’s existence) drives them to recycle. Humans, similar to hearts, cannot help but to do what they do in this earth because they are born into a particular body, in a particular context, which imprints upon them the limits of their existence. The point is, human actions are limited by what they know and what other resources they have available. It may appear as though humans have a choice within that framework, but when one starts to isolate every contextual factor that determines choice, we are left with the tenuousness of free-will and with the conclusion that there is only one choice a person can make at an exact time and place.

The point to challenging the concept of free-will is that it has individualized responsibility and hence contributes to marginality and oppression. The fact is that the individual unit and the whole exist because of each other and hence cannot be separated by order of responsibility or fault. Instead of separating, for example, one action (or person) from that action which is different or opposite, I understand that the opposing action is part of what makes the original action possible. As Butler, 2002 states, “Any opposition to the norm is already contained within the norm, and is crucial to its own functioning.” In conclusion, if we question and challenge the concept of free will, we may get closer to understanding that humans belong to each other and that whatever one person does is not based on free-will and that one human cannot be described as better than the other because we are all one in the same and we as a whole (context) are the ones that make the choice of action.

I find that most theories or philosophical approaches are deficient in explaining the relationship between human behavior and the world in which we live. Many theories remain either at the individual, inter-individual, or inter-group level, and not many address the relationship between life on earth and the earth itself and how this influences behavior. Additionally, theoretical approaches fail to give a long term (in earth years) explanation for behavior. For example, I initially found the idea of resistance quite appealing and inspiring because it reframed what is labeled as dysfunctional and constructed it into something functional, and even, empowering. However, with time, the notion of resistance began to unsettle me as it increasingly resembled the same essentializing and marginalizing discourse I was so opposed to. In other words, the notion of resistance is presently seen as something positive and strong, but, unfortunately, it also preserves the person resisting as one who is different and in opposition to those performing the acts that cause resistance. Rather than getting closer to de-stratification of human beings, using the term “resistance” creates another way of differentiating the oppressed from the oppressor, and worse yet, it is done, although unintentionally,  under the guise of  celebrating  diversity and empowerment.

The ideas I propose regarding marginality, although validated by many scholars (Spivak, 1988; Said, 2002; Ghandi, 1998; Butler, 1990; Fannon, 1967; Corber, 2003), are rooted in very personal experiences of resistance. In the past, I reveled in my resistance; I understood it to be my power and my right. However, with time and much deliberation, I began to understand that my resistance was again, a manner in which to differentiate me from others at the center; I was once again the person who was different and in opposition. I became angry with my blind contribution marginalization. I understood that by resisting, or by always resisting, although definitely needed and functional, or even detrimental, in some circumstances, I was alienating myself from my oppressor. 

I see danger in constructing differences (when coupled with judgment), or in continuing to hold on to established differences, whether it be with the intention of celebrating diversity or with the intention of maintaining current power hierarchies. Instead of understanding resistance as separate or causal from oppression, I understand it as one in the same. As I stated previously, I am not saying that understanding resistance as uniquely positive is, or was, not important. It is/was very important for me to understand this, but it is equally important that I, at the same time, understand the marginalizing processes of resistance. 

I realized that I had to find a way to navigate these contradictions. As a result, I found myself developing a model, which I will call, Post-structuralist Organism. This model allows me to stay away from essentializing or marginalizing people and their behaviors. This model allows me to emphasize that there cannot be an alternate way of doing things, at a particular point in time and that there is no “I” in doing, and hence, responsibility cannot belong to the individual, community, or country. 

I was inspired to create this model by the Post-structuralist’s work of Judith Butler and Jacques Derrida as well as from Complexity Theory. Post-structuralist Organism proposes that humans belong to an organic system (the earth) whose existence is determined by multiple and complex interactions among the earth’s internal and external forces[1]. Following the attributes of an organism, the earth develops different characteristics with each interaction among the forces it contains, and hence, renders the earth’s precise composition or trajectory nearly impossible to define[2] because each interaction catalyzes another creating a multiplicity of reactions and change, much like the exponentiation of numbers (Lerner, 2002; Barberis, 2003; Gilbert & Sarkar, 2001; Gribbin, 2005). This model proposes that, due to the impossibility of predicting the results of interactions, human action is constricted by lack of knowledge (as explained in previous section). Human action is also limited because, following Post-structuralist’s approaches, humans are one with their context or one with other life forms on earth. If can accept that the individual cannot be separated from the whole, then we can venture to say that human is action taken by the whole and not by the individual. Hence, this model proposes, free-will is unattainable. Furthermore, if we refute the existence of free-will and the inability of humans to have will to choose an action, we declare that humans cannot be responsible for their actions and that human bodies are merely vehicles for the expression of context (or the whole). Overall, the main point of this model is that humans can only act in accordance to how their environment (the whole) allows them to act and that they cannot determine which action they will take.

The Post-structuralist Organism model understands that our world was propelled to life by some unknown force and is continuously changing and evolving. As the “billiard ball” hypothesis (Newtonian physics) describes, once the universe was established, the rest has to follow. Newtonian physics argues that one can determine the events that will transpire after the “billiard ball” is launched (if all other circumstances are known). But, unlike Newtonian explanations, and like Complexity Theory[3], this model proposes that the organism (the world in this case) will continue (or change) randomly and undeterminably, due to the autocatalytic nature of an organism, meaning that each interaction catalyzes new interactions which then changes the earth’s composition[4], which then creates new interactions, and so forth (Lerner, 2002;  Gilbert & Sarkar, 2000). In a similar vein, Gribbin, 2005 explains how life on earth constructs the earth as the earth constructs life and how “sensitive the seemingly stable physical environment of our planet is to the presence (or absence) of life, p. Gribbin, 2005.”[5]   This model concurs with Cultural Determinism which states that “culture changes and develops in accordance to laws of its own, not in obedience to man’s desire or will, p. 136, Hatch, 1973.” Hatch, 1973 discusses White’s approach as one which understands that human results from

countless antecedent and concomitant…causes – both cultural and biological. When the causal forces for and against a particular act are equally balanced we refer to the individual’s plight as one of indecision, and when one causal force predominates over another we think of him as choosing between alternatives. Free will and choice is merely the way in which we experience this preponderance of one factor or set of factors over another, p.176

Although the Post-structural Organism approach concurs with White’s representation of free will (while expanding systemic boundaries from culture to earth), it disagrees with White’s belief that the function and purpose of culture is to make life secure and enduring for the human species, or that culture and individuals are sometimes in opposition to each other, or that culture must manipulate the individual to act in accordance to its own needs.  White’s belief shows mechanistic approaches and, hence, does not coincide with this model’s more holistic or systemic understandings.[6] Post-structural Organism challenges the concept of free-will based on the fact that we are one with our context, not because we are separate from it.

If we accept that the composition of the earth is a subtle balance of all elements contributing to its existence, then it follows that each human is in subtle balance or existence with all other humans. As Gilbert & Sarkar, 2000 state, “it is required that the parts bind themselves mutually into the unity of a whole in such a way that they are mutually cause and effect of one another,” (p. 30). Likewise, it is impossible to do away with any one part of the earth without it affecting another part. We cannot simply state that we want to abolish injustice, for example, without understanding the function of injustice, its balance with justice, or even its inscription within justice. This model proposes that there is no division between people or things; that we are merely incidents of a greater unit. Hence, the existence of identities as individual units is questioned. The Post-structural Organism model incorporates Post-structuralist’s approaches which negate the existence of being as separate from others and state that actions cannot be separated into categories of difference as any action is dependent on its counter or opposite action (Butler, 1990, Lucy, 2004). Many feel that Post-structuralist approaches are dangerous to society as they can justify individual acts that are hurtful to others. Although this model does not individualize accountability, it believes that individual actions that are hurtful will be corrected. The fact that we have laws that punish individuals is part of our context and we cannot abolish them without unbalancing the system[7]. This model is not advocating that we get rid of punishment because individuals cannot be held accountable, but rather that punishment is part of the delicate balance inherent in this world.  This model provides an alternative option, one in which we continue to have our laws and corrective measures, but we refrain from judging individual actions as they don’t belong to the individual.  In other words, the individual will still endure the punishment but will not be judged for it.  This model proposes that creating differences and dichotomous categories (good vs. evil), which is most often coupled with judgment, may be the vehicle utilized to preserve the current hierarchy of power which support the reality that individuals who do not belong to the more powerful, are penalized (Sullivan 2003; Epstein, 1988; Butler, 1990).  “If actions, gestures, and desires are seen as the expression of an innate self, it becomes possible not only to interpret others, but also to evaluate, and categorize them, p. 83 Epstein, 1988.”  As Epstein, 1988 states,

Dichotomous systems of thought serve the existing power structures and organization of society by reinforcing the notion of the ‘we’ and the ‘not-we’, the deserving and the undeserving.  Gatekeepers of ideas and of resources have always affixed values to distinctions and, in their absence, create inequalities conceptually, p. 234.

This model follows Post-structuralist’s propositions which propose the non-existence of a division between the signifier and the signified (Butler, 1990) and state that one action cannot exist without its opposing action[8].  In addition, this model assumes that there is no individual, no “I,” involved in any action; there is no “doer behind the deed,” (Butler, 1990, p. 8).  Furthermore, “without an agent, it is argued, there can be no agency and hence no potential to initiate a transformation of relations of domination within society,” (Butler, 1990, p. 34).  For Post-structuralists, there is no individual that exists prior to its absorption in context (Warner, 1999, Butler, 1990).   As Butler, 2004 states,

And so when we speak about my sexuality or my gender, as we do (and as we must) we mean something complicated by it.  Neither of these is precisely a possession, but both are to be understood as modes of being dispossessed, ways of being for another or, indeed, by virtue of another.. although we struggle for rights over our own bodies, the very bodies for which we struggle are not quite ever only our own, pp.19 -21.

Prevalent in the majority of human behavior is the notion of “being different.” Finding difference between groups (women vs. men or Latinas vs. White women) is important and widespread.  The literature explains that this phenomenon is important in the development of identity (Dean, 2000; Lacan), as well as in the existential development where, as Derrida from Lucy, 2004 states,

nothing exists outside of difference…this means that what a thing ‘is’ must include its difference or differences from what it is not; its difference belongs to ‘it’, inhabiting its identity.  Everything differs, which is to say that everything defers.  A thing differs because what it ‘is’ cannot be what anything else is, but also because what it is has to do with the fact that it differs from other things.  To say that something is to say that it differs, p. 27.

Theorists state that a person cannot be without reference to another, or as Spivak labels, “identity-in-differential.”  Identity development is a logical approach to understanding the need for individuals and groups to differentiate from each other.  I would add that we have become consumed with the belief in the existence of individual identities, in the belief that an “I” lives within a body.  The belief in individual identity has been upheld with such reverence, that our lives are driven by the quest for, and the security in, such an identity.  However, securing individualized identity requires separation from the other, which in turn is most often done with judgment, and judgment secures marginalization and oppression.  I am not advocating for humans to stop differentiating themselves from other humans, as this is functional, but rather I advocate for the displacement of judgment.   I would like judgment to stay in the domain of being functional so that one is protected from things that are hurtful, but to be removed for the domain in which it creates a difference which carries value, and hence, is hierarchical in power.  A wise colleague stated that when we create difference with judgment it is most often in reaction to fear.  The powerful fear the loss of resources, hence they separate from the less powerful and create judgment; the less powerful fear oppression, so they separate from the more powerful with the same amount of judgment.  As I write this section, I realize that fear is not a feeling that we can attribute to the individual.  We cannot say that root to behavior is fear, but rather access to resources.  If we all had equal access to resources, or if we were all assured the same quality and quantity of resources, the need for oppressive judgment may indeed be displaced.  Acts of creating difference and making judgments, as well as feelings of fear, are all driven by our context.  In other words, change the context, and the behavior will change.

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[1] I refer to the earth as the ultimate organism in order to be able to visualize the ideas presented, but I do understand that I am isolating the earth when in fact it cannot be isolated from what lies outside the earth.

[2] The validity of this notion will be questioned once we find life in the universe similar to the one on earth.  If we find other organisms similar to our own, we can probably determine with more accuracy (but not exactness) our development or trajectory.

[3] Complexity Theory or Chaos Theory state that we cannot predict outcomes within a complex system because the whole (the earth) and its elements (life on earth) are in interaction and that this interaction takes on a life of its own that is different from the elements interacting.  Due to time limitations, I will not provide a detail account of complexity theory.  Ideas for this are taken from Gilbert & Sarkar, 2001; Gribbin, 2005; Mainzer, 2004

[4] Mainzer, 2004  discusses the autocatalytic processes in reference to technology.  Mainzer states that technology drives evolution and that each technological advance catalyzes the next.

[5] The notion of earth as a self organizing system where there is a co-dependence between itself and the life it contains is called Gaia.  The author illustrates this when he explains that without the intervention of life, all the oxygen in the atmosphere would get locked away in less than ten million years. Gribbin, 2005”

[6] Once again I feel the need to stress that individualistic approaches have their importance and function, and that the model I propose is not any better or more functional.  And, if I am to truly follow the tenets of this model, I must say that my ideas are one in the same as White’s ideas.  I reconcile that I write a small piece of the whole, and hence I am the same as White, but it is the only thing I can do at this moment.

[7]Although not stated explicitly, the state of imbalance is necessary and inscribed with the state of balance.  We often find that the reality of life is not one of harmony but of waves of balance and imbalance.

[8] I got this idea from Gribbins discussion on the interdependence of life and landscape and how the fate of humans at any moment in time depends on the interaction between humans and the earth.

ADVOCACY November 5, 2009

In the Western world—and by that I mean the U.S. and northwestern Europe—advocacy has become modus operandi and modus vivendi for those who aspire toward cultural competence. In the mental health field, broadly defined, advocacy has gained the status of an essential ingredient of culturally competent practice. American Psychological Association programs in counseling psychology, for instance, promote the Scientist-Practitioner-Advocate paradigm. The Advocate piece refers to the recognition of just how important advocacy is to being a culturally competent practitioner and, by extension, just how important cultural competence is for counselors’ general competence in working with clients.

Similarly, in scholarly work concerned with social issues (and especially the issues of immigration, culture, human rights, and international relations), advocacy plays an important role. It is deemed a vital component of efforts to promote the rights of the oppressed and to prevent future abuses and violations of human rights and dignity. And, of course, human rights organizations are entirely built around the idea of advocacy, the idea that it is necessary to advocate for the voiceless, to speak on their behalf, to promote their rights, to prove their humanity to those in power and to do good for them.

In this fervor to advocate for the oppressed, there has been little reflexivity about advocacy itself.  In pointing out this lack of reflexivity, I do not intend to argue that advocacy is a bad thing . We all are weak at times and we all benefit from someone advocating for us at those times. Rather, my argument is that we cannot assume that advocacy is always a good thing. We need to think critically about advocacy just as we think critically about abuse, violence, power, and oppression.

For example, advocacy is nested in a story that includes victims, oppressors, saviors, and advocates. In this story, the roles of an advocate and a savior may become blurred, which is not surprising given the common goal of saving the victims from oppressors. What never becomes blurred is the distinction between the good guys (i.e., advocates and saviors) and the bad guys (i.e., the oppressors), for this is an archetypal fight between good and evil. This is to say, the two opposing sides are not to be confused under any circumstances. The victims, of course, are marginal to the dynamic of this story. They exist to give meaning to the fight between good and evil and that’s all—beyond the function of justifying the story, there is no place for them in it. So, here is something to think about: are we, as advocates, there for the fight against the evil, are we there for the vicitms, or are we there because we are trying to do the right thing? Why are we there?

Related to this, there is a tendency for the roles of advocate, victim, oppressor, and savior to become calcified. And when this happens, there is little opportunity for change. The victims remain victimized, which is to say powerless and oppressed; the oppressors continue to oppress; the advocates continue to advocate, that is, to be loud in their calls for saving the victims and admonishing the oppressors; and the saviors continue to play the role of a beloved hero who ends up saving the day. And, the question to ponder: when we engage in advocacy, are we expecting to always remain in the role of an advocate or do we think that we might shift to the role of a victim? And, do we ever think that we may also be playing the role of an oppressor, perhaps as we are trying to do the right thing and advocate for the victims?

Another thing to consider is an essentialization of the role of an advocate. This essentialization provides a temptation for people to build an identity around this role–in fact, in the mental health field, clinicians are often encouraged to do so. This is particularly true in the US where we are told that being an advocate is always and forever a good thing. Coupled with the dualistic thinking that permeates all segments of social functioning in the US, from the playground to the US Congress, the identity of an advocate is likely to become inextricably bound with the idea that an advocate is (1) a good guy by definition and (2) a savior of the oppressed.

One of the problems with the “good guy by definition” thinking is that it prohibits reflexive examination of one’s actions. An example of this is the 1992 Human Rights Watch/NCHRCR report on the Dominican batey. The report indicated that international concern regarding the living and working conditions on the bateyes, as illuminated by human rights organizations (i.e., HRW and NCHR), prompted the Dominican authorities to repatriate a large number of Haitians in the Dominican. Per 1992 HRW/NCHR report, these expulsions were cause of great suffering. And, by their own admission, the HRW/NCHR efforts to bring the issue of the Dominican batey to the attention of the international community—their efforts to paint the Dominican sugar industry and the Dominican government as the bad guys, the Haitian sugar cane workers and their families as the victims, and their appeals to the US government as the savior—were instrumental in the actions the Dominican authorities took in response to the international expressions of concern and outrage. Yet, when asked about their role in what happened to the Haitians, the HRW/NCHR took (at least officially) the stance that they only did their job, which is advocating, and that the oppressors did what you’d expect from them—continue to oppress. There was no reflection in their report about the nature of their work and about whether the goal of improving people’s lives could have been approached differently.

A problem with the savior aspect of the advocate identity, is the potential damages to the identity- holder and to those on whose behalf an advocate acts. The potential damages to the identity-holder are as follows:

• A prohibition of weakness, vulnerability, and badness, at least in relation to their role as an advocate.  That is, advocates are supposed to be strong for the victims and, if they are to be effective in their work, they shouldn’t be weak and vulnerable. Also, advocates are supposed to be good if they are to truly help the oppressed. (And, let’s be honest for a second, is there any human being who is always strong and good?)
• A deflection of the advocate’s attention away from his or her own needs and always towards the needs of others.  (As advocates, are we taught to always think about our own needs? And we do have some needs, don’t we?)

The most prominent damage to the intended beneficiaries of advocacy is a tendency to construct the victims as weak and in need for help. Such construction renders them disempowered despite the intended goal of advocacy–the empowerment. So a question for thought is how are we, as advocates, contributing to the disempowerment and marginalization of the oppressed?

CRITICAL GENOGRAM: A Tool to Understand Global Systems November 5, 2009

The CritG is a visual tool that maps family relations and larger social forces. It is used to (a) explore identities within sociopolitical and historical contexts, and (b) identify how systems of oppression shape our lives and experiences.

Unlike the traditional genogram, the CritG facilitates examination of power relations surrounding social locations.

The purpose of the CritG is to raise critical consciousness.  Critical consciousness is defined as an ability to recognize and understand systems of oppression and privilege and to take action to resist oppression.  The development of critical consciousness is important in family therapy training because it contributes to therapist competence in clinical assessment, treatment, and ethics.  That is, in the process of developing critical consciousness, therapists are challenged to explore power dynamics involved in defining and maintaining particular social locations, be it their own or their clients’.  This enables therapists to incorporate into case conceptualizations an understanding of how sociopolitical and economic systems create and maintain human experiences. In turn, conceptualizations informed by such understanding increase therapists’ ability to validate human experiences and establish therapeutic alliance.

The traditional genogram format forms a basis for the CritG. It should be noted, however, that other social mapping tools, such as the African American genogram, may serve as a basis for the CritG, as well. 

We found the use of transparencies to be helpful in depicting each layer of oppression and/or privilege. A family map (e.g., the traditional genogram) is drawn on a piece of paper and systems of privilege and oppression are drawn on transparencies. Positioned on top of each other, transparencies create a visual of intersections of various forms of oppression/privilege.

Geometric shapes such as squares, circles, and arrows may be used to depict relationships among different social forces that operate within particular families. For example, rectangles may be used to denote each of the larger social structures (i.e., communities, social groups, and nations) that play an important role in family members’ social identities, whereas symbols for closeness and conflict and arrows may be used to depict relational dynamics among these countries. Symbols for closeness and conflict, which are traditionally used to represent relationships among individual human beings, may also be used to represent relationships among communities, social groups, or nations or relationships between individuals and larger social entities.

Similarly, arrows may be used to represent access to resources and power larger social entities, as well as among individuals; thicker arrows may be used to indicate more power and/or greater access to resources, whereas thinner arrows may be used to indicate less power.

Published article: 

Kosutic, I., Garcia, M., et al.  (2009). The Critical Genogram: A Tool for Promoting Critical Consciousness. Journal of Feminist Family Therapy, 21 (3), 151-176.

WORLD SYSTEM: RESPONSE November 5, 2009

I remember my first class on systems theory; it convinced me that I wanted to be a family therapist. I was blown away, not to say healed, by the idea that I was not entirely to be blamed for the way my life had evolved. Up to that point, I had been educated to think that I was responsible, that it was my fault if things went badly, that I had all the power to make my life shine, that I could have everything if I just put my mind to it. Of course, life handed me blow after blow exemplifying the exact opposite and it stripped me of any belief or regard for myself. So, for a day, I was liberated when I listened to the professor explain systems theory. Unfortunately, the liberation did not last long. Ludwig von Bertalanffy’s thoughts were soon forgotten by my professors, supervisors, and the MFT field in general. The MFT field is as near sighted as the rest of the therapeutic field, the only difference being that the individual has been replaced by the family as the identified culprit. The MFT field, although it advocates for systemic thinking, remains constrained within a particular entity and fails to be truly systemic.

I am disappointed in the end, and hurt, because I feel I have to fight a never ending battle against the notion that we should individualize and compartmentalize so that we can lay blame and fault. Although we believe in the effect of systems we continue to hold on to the belief that the individual or the family is separate from the system because they can decide to act, think, or feel differently. My question is how can the individual or family act, think, or feel differently if the system stays the same? If we truly understand what Ludwig von Bertalanffy was providing, we must wonder how behavior can change if the system stays the same? When Bertalanffy talked about systems, he was referring to more than just the family or community. We have failed to move beyond the family and the community to more global systems such as economic structures, political thought and processes, global inequalities, etc. Furthermore, we have failed to understand the notion that we cannot separate entities as they are part of the whole, we cannot look at a family without looking at how it is determined by its external world and vice-versa.

I was feeling sorry for myself, or defeated, as I felt I was battling the ever so powerful system experts. But I have had a moment of enlightenment. My thought is that I cannot be if I am part of that system, or rather, my perception of a battle is simply my contribution to the system. I am left to contemplate that maybe I am not crazy or a fool for writing these words, because if I am truly part of the whole, my thoughts belong to the system, they do not belong to me and my thoughts are needed in some way. So, for today, my disappointment is dissipated and I gain some strength in continuing to interchange with what feels like the Berlin wall.