ABSTRACT

This chapter deals with consideration of the properties of such living systems. Differentiation and coordination of a “whole” into subordinate partial systems, while still retaining the “wholeness,” imply an increase in the complexity of the system. This increased complexity requires a corresponding increase in the effectiveness of the coordination of the parts. Increasing complexity also involves increasingly specialized parts. The rigidity that can come with the specialization of components that accompanies increased complexity is compensated for by the increased flexibility that comes from the greater diversity of possible component combinations which result from increasing degrees of centralized coordination. Psychotherapists, perhaps more than any others, have sought to observe, understand, and intervene in some aspects of a person as a functioning unit, and thus have struggled to develop conceptual frameworks to encompass that complexity. The concept of system is used to represent one kind of organization, and its properties are summarized.