Developing Groups That Change Our Minds and Transform Our Brains: Systems-Centered’s Functional Subgrouping, Its Impact on Our Neurobiology, and Its Role in Each Phase of Group Development

ABSTRACT

Systems-centered¹

¹ Systems-centered and SCT are registered trademarks owned by Yvonne Agazarian and the Systems-Centered Training and Research Institute, a non-profit organization.

therapy and training (SCT) is a theory-based systems approach that introduces the method of functional subgrouping that enables groups to more easily integrate differences in the service of group development and transformation. Functional subgrouping interrupts the endemic group dynamic pattern of scapegoating differences and enacting repetition compulsion roles fueled by group phases that fixates group development. It also simultaneously develops the capacity of the group for Porges‘ (2011) social engagement which supports group members learning to enhance and utilize their social brain functioning and resources.

Acknowledgment

Much appreciation to Jon McCormick for his thoughtful analysis of this article from a psychoanalytic viewpoint and to Fran Carter for her feedback.

Notes

¹ Systems-centered and SCT are registered trademarks owned by Yvonne Agazarian and the Systems-Centered Training and Research Institute, a non-profit organization.

² These subgroups are similar to what Hopper (2003) called massification and aggregation as defensives against incohesion, which he identified as the fourth basic assumption.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Susan P. Gantt

Susan Gantt is an Emerita Faculty with the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Emory University School of Medicine and is Chair of the Systems-Centered Training and Research Institute.