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What is systems theory in social work? Systems theory posits that behavior is influenced by a variety of factors that work together and form a system. These can include an individual’s familial and social relationships, their environment, economic status, or sexual orientation.
Family therapy and systemic practice as a form of intervention and the systems theory underpinning it offer an attractive, accessible and flexible approach to social work practice in a...
Systems theory seeks to explain and develop hypotheses around characteristics that arise within complex systems that seemingly could not arise in any single system within the whole. This is referred to as emergent behavior.
Systems theory in social work is a holistic approach that views individuals within their social contexts, considering the interconnectedness and dynamics of relationships, environments, and larger societal systems.
Within social work, systems thinking has been heavily influenced by the work of the biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy and later adaptations by the social psychologist Uri Bronfenbrenner, who examined human biological systems within an ecological environment.
As a profession, social work has struggled to identify an organizing framework for practice that captures the nature of what we do. Many have iden-tified systems theory as that organizing framework (Goldstein, 1990; Hearn, 1958; Meyer, 1976, 1983; Siporin, 1980).
This chapter discusses the theorising of social work in the field of systems theory. In particular, it takes Niklas Luhmann’s biopsychosocial systems theory as the starting point. Luhmann’s transdisciplinary theory has been widely received in the...