SYSTEMS THINKING HELPS US HEAL

For Rebecca Campbell, Emily Dworkin, and Giannina Cabral self-blame in victims of sexual abuse is the product of a systemic interaction between micro and macro levels of reality. 

The implication of their ecological model is that for curbing and/or preventing the traumatizing effects of sexual assault, the individual-level factors (e.g., sociodemographics, biological/genetic factors), assault characteristics (e.g., victim-offender relationship, injury, alcohol use), microsystem factors (e.g., informal support from family and friends), meso/ exosystem factors (e.g., contact with the legal, medical, and mental health systems, and rape crisis centers), macrosystem factors (e.g., societal rape myth acceptance), and chronosystem factors (e.g., sexual revictimization and history of other victimizations) all need to be considered before effective interventions can be designed. Their work is a very good example of what is generally known as system thinking analysis (systemic thinking in short), and it tackles the heart of our biased default beliefs about the sources of our ecological crisis.

What Is Systems Thinking?

Systemic Thinking is a trend in the analysis of reality that emerged more or less in the 70s, when global warming and phenomena like 'the hole in the ozone' were becoming known. Systems thinking contrasts with traditional linear thinking adopted widely by cultures across the world, even in scientific circles until not long ago (e.g. the Judeo-Christian model of good and evil that lead to a philosophy of blame for people suffering with mental illness), because it is an holistic approach that focuses on the way that a system's constituent parts interrelate with each other over time and within the context of larger systems (e.g. a forest, a nation, a continent, a planet). 

Systems thinking has been applied to the study of medical, environmental, political, economic, human resources, and educational systems, among others, and is more than just a collection of tools and methods

In systems thinking there is an inbuilt sensitivity to the circular nature of the world we live in, an awareness of the role of structure in creating the conditions we face; a recognition that there are powerful laws of systems operating that we are unaware of; a realization that there are consequences to our actions that we are oblivious to. In general, a systems thinking perspective requires curiosity, clarity, compassion, choice, and courage. This approach includes the willingness to see a situation more fully, to recognize that we are interrelated, to acknowledge that there are often multiple interventions to a problem, and to champion interventions that may not be popular. At the same time, while knowing that the choices we make will have an impact on other parts of the system, the principles of systems thinking make us aware that there are no perfect solutions.

Applying Systems Thinking to Trauma and Healing

The most accessible way of understanding system thinking in action is the ecological crisis dictated by plastic pollution, an issue that key actors like Dianna Cohen and Charles Moore have popularised through their TED talks, and that is well summarised in this friendly animation. 

As this short TEded shows the implications of our small acts of carelessness are leading to large systemic unanticipated consequences - one of which is the contamination of the whole marine food chain leading logically to increased levels of toxicity in our own bodies (e.g. breast and uterus cancers in women, decreases in fertility rates among men). These examples serve us to understand systems thinking visually as well as reflect on how trauma might grow from such environments.  

What is ultimately most important to retain from this brief section, is the notion that trauma events at all levels of considerations are systemically induced, tying strongly together the small decisions we make about our intimate relationships, to decisions we make about the toothbrush we use. In this way, we open ourselves up to understanding how the mover behind the ecological corruption of our environments, is also found in the attitudes we hold towards the most sensitive parts of ourselves.

The Ecological Crisis: A Reflection of Systemic Attitudes

It is Martin Shaw, again, who in my opinion frames the central emotion in this linked chain of attitudes most eloquently, and with whom I want to finish this section

I think something happened, way back, where some visceral, vital — to use a big word — animistic relationship with the earth got lost. And what we have now a lot of the time is—stories I come across all the time — very well meaning people providing news stories about the earth and the state of the earth, and statistics about the time we’re in. Statistics will not help us fall in love with anything, at this point. The hour is very, very late. And what we need is a great, powerful, tremendous falling back in love with our old, ancient, primordial Beloved, which is the Earth herself

Wishin you Well,

Your Shrink in Bansko