As I described more fully in the Chapter on Cause, Effect And Nurture, mostly, in our technological world, we are so used to breaking down (reducing) problems to solve them that the entirety, or the whole of the problem, i.e. its systemic dimension is often not treated as being all that important – if it’s thought about at all.
Systems theory challenges this, implying that the whole is indeed important – particularly in entities that are growing.
If we break a growing entity down into smaller bits, our understanding of its complicated-ness might be enhanced, but our understanding of its processes and even its nature, and indeed its complexity might be diminished.
Everything that is living and/or growing, from the smallest bacteria to the entire planet is a whole and therefore is a living system. Since it is living, it is constantly changing. These changes can be subtle and barely noticeable but are changes nonetheless. When we think systemically we think in terms of process, our interactions with each other, the (above-mentioned) cause and effect, growth, and universal solutions (which will be explored in the next Chapter).
Just a quick little word of warning!
As we embrace the principles of systems theory (and holism, which will be described in the Chapter on Modalities of Helping) it is important that we don’t forget the great strides that the world has made by reducing problems to their component parts. (That is, when we look in the bathwater before throwing it out – we may find some babies)!
The babies that we find in the reductionist bathwater are the brilliant minds of the many scientists and mathematicians that brought us the great technological advances in the world over the past 400 years or so.
I believe that reductionism [1] and its attendant scientific rigour greatly complements systems theory, and, of course, vice versa.
Simply put, it might be helpful to think that reductionism helps us to understand the
minutiae and the detail etc. of life, and systems
theory gives us an appreciation of how life has potential and purpose.
[1]. This will be expanded once again in Sub-Chapter on Complexity.