The journal article available from this site is:  

The full article is available, free of cost, in two forms:

• a web page   , an html file, size 70 KB
• a 17 page file for printing   , a pdf file, size 200 KB

Additional content of this web site         menu

• An introduction to the article (see menu in left column)
• Additional, occasionally-updated information,
  e.g. I am discovering more about how the Framework links with other bodies of knowledge, like
  Family Therapy
  Systems Dynamics with its Causal Loops
• A brief introduction to psychodrama role theory
   
• Training for professional counsellors offered

The Framework is generally applicable         menu

The integrative framework for understanding human functioning is generally applicable,
despite having evolved from my specialised work as a problem-gambling counsellor.

Recognition of the Framework           menu

The Victorian Government's Gambling Research Panel report
Best Practice in Problem Gambling Services (Jackson, Thomas and Blaszczynski, 2003)
identified an earlier version of the framework (Gunner, 2002) as
a "possible best practice development" in problem gambling counselling.

The report describes the framework (p 87-88) and
recommends priority for research to assess the effectiveness of the framework (p 9).

View the Jackson Thomas and Blaszczynski report: a 120 page pdf file

The article is practical           menu

The Framework offers practical concepts and interventions for counsellors and their clients.

One central point is:
Counsellors can productively use the concept of amplifying feedback in one-to-one counselling.
One way of doing this is for the counsellor and client together to tailor a diagram of an amplifying feedback loop underlying the client's presenting problem.

Particularly in family therapy (Nichols & Schwartz 2006)
and systems dynamics (Sterman 2000),
feedback is a fundamental concept and the key to understanding any system, including human systems.

Strangely, I have not seen any substantial reference to feedback and its use in individual counselling,
apart from the use of symmetrical and complementary relationships (Bateson 1971).
This is certainly true of problem gambling counselling literature,
including authoritative summaries of this literature, e.g. Ferris, Wynne & Single (1999).

There seems to be a critical gap between accepted theory and presented practice.

The article presents how I:
. use feedback in one-to-one counselling, and
. link feedback with other theories and practices of therapy.

The article offers:

• A novel understanding of human functioning in general
• Practical interventions for counsellors to use with their clients.
• Example interventions concerning one addiction: problem gambling. One example follows. Gamblers often say they have no money and that they gamble because they are bored. A counsellor can then discuss with the client how gambling tends to leave them without money to do other things and so leaves them more bored. Here boredom tends to increase gambling which tends to increase boredom which tends to increase gambling. This is an amplifying feedback loop (positive feedback). The same sort of circular logic can apply to gambling together with states like isolation and depression.
• The suggestion that amplifying feedback is a convincing explanation of out-of-control phenomena, e.g. problem gambling.
• Support for counsellors who work with clients on underlying issues, e.g. isolation.
• A way of making sense of strange statements, e.g. "the solution is the cause".

The article is theoretical           menu

The article offers an integrative theoretical framework for understanding human functioning based on:

• The systems theory / cybernetic concept of feedback (Maruyama, 1968; Capra, 1997)
• Psychodynamic theory (David Malan, 1979)
• Cognitive behavioural therapy / cognitive challenges
• Ideas on human pliancy (George Weinberg, 1969, 1981, 1995),
• Role theory (Moreno, 1964)
• Chaos theory / complexity theory (Gleick, 1988)
• Network theory (Capra, 1997; Duncan Watts, 2003)
• Systems thinking / causal loop diagrams (Forrester, 1961; Senge, 1990)

The Framework suggests that human functioning emerges from
the interaction of innumerable intrapersonal and interpersonal feedback loops.
The feedback loops organise:
. a network of actions, ideas and feelings, and
. a network of roles.

Further work will link other theories and therapies:

• Self-organisation theory (Capra, 1997)
• Gaia theory (James Lovelock, 2006)
• Solution focused therapy
• Narrative therapy (Michael White)
• The focal conflict model (Whitaker & Lieberman 1964).

Origin of the article           menu

For ten years, I worked as a problem gambling counsellor
and gradually developed this Framework for understanding problem gambling.

I wanted to understand the madness of problem gambling
- and was surprised when I realised that the ideas applied generally.

I found the Framework useful and used it daily in my work.

The evolution of my ideas has been an exciting and somewhat circular experience.
I worked as an operations researcher in industry for 20 years,
using mathematics and computers to assist company planners.
Once I presented at an International Federation of Operations Research Societies conference in Canada.
Now I have worked and published as a counsellor - and this has pointed me back towards my origins.
After all these years, I am curious about feedback and systems dynamics
- and many of these articles are in operations research journals.

Hypotheses underlying the article           menu

I am interested to hear from readers about the hypotheses that underlie the article:

• What they think about these hypotheses, and
• What literature supports or challenges these hypotheses.

Here I state the hypotheses, more boldly than in the article. They are:

1. Amplifying feedback can offer a useful understanding of the problems that clients present in counselling.

2. Amplifying feedback offers a convincing understanding of out-of-control phenomena including:

• Pathological gambling
• Drug and alcohol addiction
• Anxiety, depression, phobias, paranoia and compulsions

3. Feedback loops tend to organise human functioning. They organise:

• All activities and the associated rewards
• All activities and the associated damage
• All psychodynamic defences, i.e. dread, anxiety and defensive activity
• All symmetrical behaviours and complementary behaviours (Bateson, 1971)
• The component elements of all roles: action, idea and feeling
• The intra-personal and inter-personal interaction of roles

4. Any system that is partly organised by amplifying feedback can be described by chaos theory.

5. Hypotheses 3 and 4 lead to the conclusion that human functioning can be described by chaos theory.

6. Cognition influences and is influenced by actions and emotions. Cyclic relationships, i.e. feedback loops, organise: (1) cognition & action, (2) cognition & emotion and (3) action & emotion. Cognition is not the controller.

7. Cyclic analysis can provide cognitive challenges. For example, gamblers often say that their boredom leads them to gamble. A counsellor can challenge this incomplete view by exploring how the gambling also tends to increase the gambler's boredom.

8. A person's network of actions, feeling and ideas group into roles. The internal aspects of a role (action, feeling and idea) are organised by feedback. Also the interaction of roles is organised by feedback. The personality is the emergent feature of this network of roles.

9. When a counsellor discusses with a client a feedback loop linking dread, anxiety and defensive activity, this can be seen as psychodynamic interpretation.

Causal loop diagrams and Systems Dynamics           menu

The concept of feedback is central to the Feedback Framework.
Feedback is also central to systems dynamics with its causal loop diagrams.
I only became aware of causal loop diagrams and their similarity to the diagrams I discuss in October 2007.

Causal loop diagrams show the feedback loops of a system.
These diagrams display the circular way in which aspects of a system influence one another and influence themselves.
The diagrams are also known as system diagrams or system maps.

My article could be seen, in part, as
a practical application of causal loop diagrams to the psychological system of an individual or group.
It uses different terms for the same concepts:
. amplifying feedback loop, not reinforcing loop and
. damping feedback loop, not balancing loop.

Peter Senge in The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization
presents systemic thinking, with its systems diagrams, as one of his five disciplines and as the conceptual cornerstone of his five disciplines.

Senge writes, "Structures of which we are unaware hold us prisoner. Conversely learning to see the structures within which we operate begins a process of freeing ourselves from previously unseen forces and ultimately mastering the ability to work with them and change them." (p 94)

Senge argues that systems diagrams can be powerful tools for understanding complex systems across all fields, for example in:
. management (examining business strategies)
. politics (examining a political lobby group's political environment and policy)
. biology
. psychology
. family therapy
. economics
. ecology

Here are some links:
Causal loop diagrams: www.systemsthinker.com
Guidelines for drawing casual loop diagrams: www.systemsthinker.com
Systems thinking as a language: www.systemsthinker.com
Another description of causal loop diagrams: www.mindtools.com

A community health web site presents
causal loop diagrams as systems thinking for community development, a way to:
. understand the complexity and interdependencies in our communities
. find leverage for sustainable change
. gain a clear picture of our current realities and our desired community future

This systems thinking is part of the field of system dynamics a field which developed from the work of Jay Forrester. It involves identifying the feedback loops of the system under study and building a computer simulation model of the system to examine the dynamics of the system, see
The System Dynamics Society web page

Family therapy & amplifying feedback           menu

The concept of feedback is central to the Feedback Framework and to family therapy.

Nichols & Schwartz (2006) present cybernetics as the first of their "fundamental concepts of family therapy".
"The first and perhaps most influential model of how families operate was cybernetics,
the study of feedback mechanisms in self-regulating systems." (p 88)

In particular, feedback is central to one branch of strategic family therapy.
John Weakland, Richard Fisch, Paul Watzlawick and Arthur Bodin (1974),
from the Brief Therapy Team at the Mental Research Institute of Palo Alto, California wrote:

"Our fundamental premise is that regardless of their basic origins and aetiology ... the kinds of problems people bring to psychotherapists persist only if they are maintained by ongoing current behaviour of the patient and others with whom he interacts. Correspondingly, if such problem maintaining behaviour is appropriately changed or eliminated, the problem will be resolved or vanish, regardless of its nature, origin, or duration. Our general principles and specific practices of treatment all relate closely to these two assumptions." (Weakland et al, p 144, 145)

"We assume that once a difficulty begins to be seen as a "problem", the continuation, and often exacerbation, of this problem results from the creation of a positive feedback loop, most often centring around those very behaviours of the individuals in the system that are intended to resolve the difficulty: the original "difficulty" is met with an attempted solution that intensifies the original difficulty, and so on an so on." (p 149)

These therapists also see amplifying feedback as
a central mechanism for achieving beneficial change from therapy. They wrote:
"We contend generally that change can be effected most easily if the goal of change is reasonably small and clearly stated. Once the patient has experienced small but definite change, in the seemingly monolithic nature of the problem most real to him, the experience leads to further self-induced change in this, and often also, in other areas of his life. That is, beneficent circles [beneficial amplifying feedback loops] are initiated." (p 150).

The Feedback Framework suggests that
counsellors work collaboratively with their clients
to identify how the client's presenting problem is maintained by amplifying feedback, and
this can be an effective counselling intervention. It can:
. promote insight,
. offer a new perspective / reframe client difficulties,
. generate motivation for change, and
. help a client see links between different parts of their life, e.g. gambling and grief.

Strategic family therapy offers other ways of utilising this systemic understanding of human functioning.
For example it often uses paradoxical instructions, and does not aim for insight.

It seems that strategic family therapy, and with it cybernetics, is now out of fashion.
Manipulative strategies have been put aside in favour of more collaborative approaches.
" The once celebrated voices of strategic therapy ... have virtually been forgotten. Too bad, because their strategic approaches introduced two of the most powerful insights in all of family therapy: that family members often perpetuate problems by their own actions; and ... " (Nichols & Schwartz 2006 p 145)

The main point here is that the concept of feedback
has been central to family therapy, and
arguably should again be used, as it offers a powerful insight.

Systems theory used to explore each client's uniqueness           menu

With some problem gambling clients, I did use similar interventions. Some of these are given as examples in the paper, i.e. interventions based on the amplifying feedback loops that tend to form around "gambling and boredom" and around "gambling and alienation". At times these interventions seemed effective. However, the presented framework can be used beyond these examples, beyond problem gambling and beyond addictions.

The framework offers counsellors a constructive systems theory way of exploring each client's uniqueness and of utilising the full breadth of the counsellor's conceptual imagination and emotional vocabulary in support of the client.

Counsellors can be supported in understanding each individual client by a working knowledge of systems theory which poses questions like:
. "What are the dynamics of the client system?" and
. "How is this client's presenting problem being maintained?"

One way for a counsellor to tackle this is to carefully consider each client's unique situation, identifying:
. the life difficulties that the client has faced, past and current
. the defences that they have used against these difficulties, e.g. gambling
. the things that attract the client to this defence, and
. the damaging consequences of the defence

This can suggest (as in the example in figure 4 of the article) how:
. a person's defences seem to help them with their life problems, and
. the consequences of the defence tend to increase the life difficulty or reproduce the life difficulty in another area of their life.

When this occurs, the more the client uses this defence, the more they tend to use this defence. In other words, an amplifying feedback system tends to emerge, increasing the life difficulty, the defence and the damaging consequences.

This cyclic logic suggests that problem gambling can develop when:
. a person's gambling has led them into life difficulties OR
. a person's life difficulties have led them into gambling.
The gambling and the life difficulties tend to escalate together, so trying to identify which came first is often not productive.

A challenge for a counsellor using this framework is to:
. identify one of the client's defences,
. identify the associated circularity, and
. use this as an intervention, or as information about the client

This is a constructive systems theory way of exploring each client's uniqueness and of utilising the full breadth of the counsellor's conceptual imagination and emotional vocabulary in support of the client.

The published abstract of the article           menu

Practical concepts and interventions for counsellors and their clients are presented based on Maruyama's concept of feedback.

Elements of psychodynamic theory, Weinberg's theory and Moreno's role theory are reformulated in terms of feedback.
The concept of feedback also links network theory and chaos theory; cognitive challenges and psychodynamic interpretation.

This forms an integrative framework for understanding human functioning.
Human functioning emerges from the interaction of innumerable intrapersonal and interpersonal feedback loops.
The feedback loops organise a network of actions, ideas and feelings, and a network of roles.
Some feedback loops tend to intensify life difficulties, while others tend to resolve these difficulties.

The counselling interventions evolved from problem-gambling counselling practice,
and example interventions are provided based on a composite problem gambler.

Contact the author           menu

Andrew Gunner
Email address: andrewgu52 at yahoo dot com dot au
(I write the email address like this, hoping to discourage spam)

Your responses to the article - a questionnaire           menu

I would appreciate any comments you might have, as the Feedback Framework is still evolving.

If you want to send me your comments, click here to see a questionnaire that might assist you do this.

You can see a discussion concerning the feedback framework on an internet forum offered by
The Society for Chaos Theory in Psychology and Life Sciences
From the menu on this site choose "chaopsyc list serve"
You can "review the discussion archive" without joining the group
Click on the July 07 postings
Discussion Title: Study Group - Nonlinear Dynamics in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy

Finding this web site on the internet         menu

You can find this site using Google with keywords "feedback loop psychodynamic".

Alternative search keywords are:
addiction, problem gambling, chaos, network, psychodrama, defence, complex systems science
counselling, counseling, therapy.

References           menu

Bateson G (1971), The Cybernetics of Self: A Theory of Alcoholism. Psychiatry 34 (1): pp. 1-18.

Capra, F., 1997. The Web of Life, London, Flamingo/Harper Collins.

Ferris J, Wynne H & Single E (1999), Measuring Problem Gambling in Canada, Inter-Provincial Task Force on Problem Gambling

Forrester, Jay W., 1961, Industrial Dynamics.

Gleick, J., 1988. Chaos: Making a New Science, London, Cardinal Sphere.

Gunner, A., 2002. Problem Gambling Development and Recovery: A Reflective Counsellor's Practical Construction Based on Feedback.
Unpublished MSW thesis, School of Social Work, University of Melbourne.

Jackson, A., Thomas, S. & Blaszczynski. A., 2003. Best Practice in Problem Gambling Services , Melbourne, Victorian Government Gambling Research Panel.

Lovelock, J., 2006. The Revenge of Gaia, London, Penguin.

Malan, D., 1979. Individual Psychotherapy and the Science of Psychodynamics, Cambridge, Butterworth.

Maruyama, M., 1968. The Second Cybernetics: Deviation Amplifying Mutual Causal Processes.
In W. Buckley, Modern Systems Research for the Behavioural Scientist, Chicago, Aldine.
This article is available on the web, see below

Moreno, J. L., 1964. Psychodrama Volume 1, NY, Beacon House.

Nichols M P & Schwartz R C (2006) Family Therapy: Concepts and Methods: Seventh edition, Pearson Education Inc, Boston

Senge, P. M., 1990, The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, Doubleday Currency, New York.

Sterman, John (2000) Business Dynamics: Systems Thinking and Modelling for a Complex World

Watts, D., 2003. Six Degrees: The Science of the Connected Age, London, Heinemann.

Weakland, J., Fisch, R., Watzlawick, P., and Bodin, A., 1974.
Brief therapy: focused problem resolution. Family Process 13: 141-168.

Weinberg, G., 1969. The Action Approach, NY, Signet.

Weinberg, G., 1981. The Pliant Animal, NY, St Martins.

Weinberg, G., 1995. Invisible Masters: Compulsions and the Fear that Drives Them, London, Sphere.

Whitaker D S & Lieberman M A (1964), Psychotherapy Through the Group Process, New York, Aldine.

Links to related web sites           menu

The sources I used for my research were primarily books and articles.
For this web site I have found some relevant internet sites.

If you are aware of other relevant web references could you please let me know?

Magorah Maruyama's 1968 paper, The Second Cybernetics
This is a pdf file from The Principia Cybernetica Web Site
This site has many other interesting articles

A site discussing Maruyama and his second cybernetics
www.mountainman.com.au/chaos_05.htm

A site about Fritjof Capra, author of The Web of Life. www.fritjofcapra.net

Web site of The Society for Chaos Theory in Psychology and Life Sciences SCTPLS
including an Introduction to Nonlinear Dynamics, Psychology, and Life Sciences by Steve Guastello

A wealth of information on nonlinear dynamical systems theory is available at www.calresco.org
including a page with links to the full text of many papers

A site about the book Chaos: Making a New Science by James Gleick
www.around.com/chaos.html

Here are sites describing the authors of the Gambling Research Panel report (Jackson, Thomas and Blaszczynski, 2003) :

• Professor Alun Jackson: He supervised my Masters Degree research thesis, from which this article emerged. He was then a professor of Social Work at the University of Melbourne. He is now a director of the Problem Gambling Research and Treatment Centre which is linked to both the University of Melbourne and Monash University.
• Professor Shane Thomas
• Professor Alex Blaszczynski

I worked as a problem gambling counsellor at Gambler's Help Western for ten years.
Gambler's Help Western is run by Isis Primary Care,
a community health centre serving the western suburbs of Melbourne, Australia.
www.isispc.com.au

Gambler's Help Western is one of a network of Gambler's Help services funded by the Victorian state government:
www.problemgambling.vic.gov.au

Training for professionals offered           menu

I have run professional development workshops / training sessions for therapists and counsellors, to show them how to augment their practice by including these effective interventions in their practice.
One day is a suitable length of time for presentations and participant involvement.
Do contact me to discuss this - regardless of where you are located.

My thanks go to:           menu

VicNet who granted me free web space for this site.
www.vicnet.net.au

The web/graphic designer who helped me set up this web site.
www.everlastingmagicdesign.com

James Kwok, Wesley Counselling Services Singapore, who let me know about causal loop diagrams.