ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the external subsystems: important life events, culture, family and other social systems. Cultural naivety can lead to fatal errors in understanding and treating a case. A therapist can learn from the clients themselves those aspects of their culture that are relevant to the therapy. A central conceptual distinction is offered between an intra-culture dysfunction and an inter-culture dysfunction. The former refers to culturally prescribed cybernetic mechanisms. Culture allows for the release of pressures by deviating from norms, but also provides the tools for healing and restoring homeostasis, using traditional methods. The latter refers to dysfunctions caused by the loss of the simplicity of previous cultural programs in times of cultural change. Expert professional interventions are required only to treat inter-culture dysfunction. A typology of cultural programs is proposed. The family and other social systems can be formalized as sets of goal-oriented information processing programs. Each member has proximity and control goals with respect to each of the other members and a plan on how to reach his or her goals. The goals and plans of all the members can be in a state of equilibrium, which enables the system to maintain maximum simplicity. In times of change and crisis, the programs become bugged. The bugs cause irreversible deviations from homeostasis by feed-forward.
