Systemic Thought in Psychology and Family Therapy: Interdisciplinary Origins, Flexibility, And African Relational Perspectives

Vollständiger Abstract

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Objective : To reconstruct selected interdisciplinary origins of systemic thought in psychology and family therapy, clarify the movement from first- to second-order systems thinking, and examine how African relational scholarship and critiques of power revise contemporary systemic practice. Method: A critical narrative review was conducted using purposive searches of PsycINFO, Scopus, Google Scholar, Crossref, PubMed where clinically relevant, and publisher databases for foundational and interpretive literature on general system theory, cybernetics, family therapy, feminist systemic critique, coercive control, Ubuntu, and African psychology. Sources were synthesised through historical-genealogical, conceptual, and critical-ethical analysis rather than effect estimation. Results: Systemic thought emerged through overlapping exchanges among physiology, biology, cybernetics, anthropology, communication research, psychiatry, and clinical innovation. The second-order turn relocated the observer and therapist within the systems they describe, but reflexivity alone did not resolve questions of gendered power, violence, or cultural authority. The review develops a three-level rigidity–flexibility framework covering family organisation, explanatory models, and disciplinary-cultural boundaries. African relational scholarship contributes conceptions of personhood, moral community, spirituality, and agency while also cautioning against romanticised communalism. Conclusion: Systemic flexibility is defensible only when it is conceptually bounded, reflexive, culturally accountable, and safety-sensitive. Contemporary systemic psychology should integrate relational context without equalising responsibility for coercion or dissolving individual dignity and agency.