Cybernetics and Social Construction
LeeAnne Valentine
Coum5220
June 14, 2015
Dr. Everson

Cybernetics and Social Construction
In Marriage and Family Therapy field, cybernetics and social construction play an important aspect in how a therapist works with his or her clients. However, there are some aspects of cybernetics that may not be important in today’s society because of the evolution in humankind from the early 1920’s to today. In this time and age, cybernetics continues to be in tandem with social construction, and continues to affect psychology, especially in marriage and family therapy. This paper will present critical review of cybernetic and social construction.
Cybernetics
Cybernetics is defined as a “transdisciplnary
This led to many theorists of today to argue that the “idea of homeostasis underestimates the flexibility of individuals and families (Francois, 1999). In a way, it became the “defining metaphor of family therapy for the first three decades” (Nichols and Schwartz, p. 39). Now with the emergence of second-order cybernetics, in which “maintained pathology of systems as a whole versus singular with an outlook similar to the interwoven universe” (Becvar and Becvar, 1994). Influences in therapy, in many ways, redirected approaches that recognized by language, family and culture versus the diagramma tic opinion (Hoffman, 1990). Ernst Von Glaserfield, Heinz von Foerester, Maturana and Varela begin the exploration in dynamics of intercommunications (Guise, 2015). Social construction began with Lynn Hoffman who was interested in social interpretation had rejected the idea off systemic approach. He felt that social constructivism was influenced by the five models that were created in 1970 to late 1980’s. During that time, Dr. Steve De Shazer had started a solution-based concept, in which solution focused on reframing the context of therapy in the belief that the client themselves could solve their problems with minute changes behaviorally or perceptively (Guise, 2015). It was De Shazer, Berg, Lipchik, Nunally, Molnar, Gingerich, and Weiner-Davis who were associated with the redirected thought process (Guise, 2015), in which, the goal objectives were heightened by the use