The difference between family systems therapy and systemic work

What is family systems therapy?

Family systems therapy is a recognized form of psychotherapy, also known as relationship and family therapy. An important characteristic is that significant others, such as a partner, parents, or children, are involved in the therapy process. The focus lies on relationships and interaction patterns: how people influence one another, limit one another, or create space for one another.

Family systems therapy is embedded within healthcare and has an explicit therapeutic purpose. It is aimed at treatment, change, and the reduction of symptoms. It starts from a request for help or a problem that someone wants to resolve.

In family systems therapy, a problem is not seen as belonging to one individual alone, but as something that arises and continues within a relational system. For example, in a relationship, partners may lean too heavily on one another emotionally. One partner may feel responsible for the other person’s mood. Family systems therapy helps restore the boundary between “I” and “we,” allowing both partners to experience more space and autonomy.

The central question in family systems therapy is often:
“What happens between people that keeps this problem in place?”

What is systemic work?

Systemic work is not a (recognized) form of therapy, and certainly not a treatment, but rather a way of looking. It incorporates systemic principles such as belonging, order, exchange, and destiny. It can be part of therapy, but it extends beyond the healthcare context. It is also applied within organizations, education, and societal issues.

In addition, systemic work begins with not wanting to solve problems. Instead, it focuses on understanding what these problems reveal about unconscious loyalties. From that understanding and insight, movement can emerge through systemic work.

This is done by looking at systems phenomenologically. In this way, the whole system can be perceived. Rather than focusing on the details of cause and effect, you first allow all information to present itself without immediately interpreting it. Systemic principles such as belonging, order, exchange, and destiny are included in this process. Attention is also given to how events from the past, both from the client’s own life and from the lives of parents and ancestors, continue to play a role in the current issue.

Unlike family systems therapy, family members or significant others are usually not physically present in systemic work. The focus is less on direct interaction between people and more on perceiving underlying recurring dynamics, structures, and relationships. Systemic work helps create insight into unconscious loyalties, making it possible to act differently afterward.

The central question in systemic work is:
“Which unconscious loyalties keep this problem in place?”

And one small nuance

The word “systemic” is currently used in different ways. The founder of the Bert Hellinger Instituut, Jan Jacob Stam, introduced the term “systemic” to distinguish this approach, following Gunthard Weber, from already existing systems approaches.

By “systemic” we refer specifically to the interpretation of Bert Hellinger: an approach that includes the workings of systemic principles and the understanding that the past – intergenerationally – continues to influence the present.