Autobiography of a Theory

Yvonne M. Agazarian, EdD, is a consulting affiliate to the Friends Hospital, Philadelphia and the Director of the Systems-Centered Training Institute. She teaches, trains and supervises systems-centred therapists internationally, and practises in Philadelphia, USA. She has developed the theory of living human systems and its systems-centred practice. She co-authored The Visible and Invisible Group in 1981 and wrote Systems-centered Therapy for Groups, published in 1997. Also in 1997 she received the Group Psychologist of the Year award from the American Psychological Association for her involvement in research, publication, teaching and training. She exemplifies the finest in scholarship in the discipline of psychology. As a group psychologist she has contributed to expanding our knowledge of the boundaries between clinical and social psychology with the investigation of living human systems and systems-centered group and individual therapy. Her considerable body of work illustrates the highest blend of creativity and learning'. Susan P. Gantt, PhD, is a psychologist and Assistant Professor in Psychiatry at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, USA, where she co-ordinates group psychotherapy training. She is Board Certified in Group Psychology through the American Board of Professional Psychology. In private practice she works as a licensed practitioner in systems-centred group, couples and individual therapy and as a trainer and conference director in systems-centred training in the US and Britain.

• 1. Curiosity: Early musings. 2. Trying to make it make sense: Discrimination and integration. 3. First theory: Group as a function of interdependence of parts. 4. Second theory: Group-as-a-whole. 5. Third theory: Bridge construct of role between individual and group. 6. Thinking systems: The gap between theory and practice. 7. A theory of living human systems: A meta-theory. Index.

She traces in this book the history of the development of her ideas including her system for analysing verbal interactions (SAVI), the concept of the invisible group, system-centred therapy for groups and, most inclusively, a meta theory of living human systems. The book commences with a very personal introduction and seeks to trace the development of her ideas by following a chronological pathway through her life. It probably provides the best overview of her work currently available as well as a "blow by blow" account of how it evolved.