ABSTRACT
In viewing the group as a system, I begin, not with Bion (1959) and Bertalanffy (1969), who are the true forethinkers of group-as-a-whole and systems theory, but with Korzybski (1948), who wrote passionately of the prison that Aristotelian logic has created for our Western minds. Whatever you say a thing is, it is NOT, says Korzybski, striking at the heart of our either/or splits. The map is not the territory, says Korzybski, forcing us to notice that our theoretical maps simultaneously both represent and misrepresent our reality as well as create it! All our observations are self-reflexive, says Korzybski—an important point for us as therapists who so often talk about the group as if we are not part of it. Finally, only when our use of language reflects both the structural and the dynamic aspects of reality, says Korzybski, will we understand that there is both space and time, as well as a relationship between space/time; individual and group, as well as the individual/group relationship.
