Murmurations: Journal of Transformative Systemic Practice

Editorial: Beyond binaries, beyond despair

Francisco Urbistondo Cano — 2025-03-25

This is not the world we were promised and demands our refusal to accept it

Julia Jude — 2025-03-12

Our multi-storied bodies: in practitioner-centred conversations

Poh Lin Lee — 2025-03-31

We will share five fragments of a collaborative exchange where multi-storied bodies practices are brought to practitioner-centred conversations. Our written dialogue woven throughout will illustrate how these practices create opportunities to disrupt professional binaries such as personal/professional, thought/feeling, and individual/collective. We will show how each turn in our exchange was taken and how this has shaped the practice. The story of this collaboration is at its heart, and we will therefore begin there.

“Everything is Research” – a brief reflection on how wizards and Barbie dolls are developing my understanding of binaries in my different contexts

Kate Meredith — 2025-03-14

This writing reflects on how binaries and labels can present themselves for exploration and irreverence in all contexts, from systemic practice in a multidisciplinary team to enjoying theatre, TV and music with family. When we see "everything is research" as practitioner-researchers, we can use any opportunity to consider our positions, both privately and in dialogue with others, and challenge ourselves to work towards ethical congruence in our many contexts.

I thought there was a river behind my house

Anne Aase Ugland — 2025-03-14

Reclaiming Legacy. Beyond a Binary Narrative

Nicola Mackay — 2025-03-12

Bright Intersex Futures

Annette Strzedulla — 2025-03-12

Editorial: Re-imagining Neuro-inclusive Therapeutic Services

Monica Whyte — 2024-12-10

Going to the Dogs and Finding New Hope: An intra-species collaboration

Maeve Dwan — 2025-03-21

In my own attempt to further a refusal of binary dualisms and embrace and embody the potential of this often messy collaboration with otherness, I attempt to explore a meeting in time and space with a young person, myself as a not so young therapist and canine co-therapist. What I offer are my reflections and thoughts and what I imagine to be Holly the dog’s reflections. I wonder how we might be generating new knowledge in practice as we come together in this canine human emergent practice of co-travel. This one small story of intra-species collaboration is not necessarily a new ontology or ideology in of itself. What I wish to highlight are ideas of becoming through an intra-species collaboration of love and hope. I describe some of my thoughts and experiences as I begin a journey with Holly as co-therapist in my work with young people. I explore how the discarding of typological thinking and being open to a movement beyond binary dualisms can enrich clinical practice.

Apple Threads. Holding Past and Present

Ariel Moy — 2025-03-14

Apple Threads explores a mother’s relationship with her newly adult son through poetry. The past and the present, self and other, are encountered through a non-binary lens. The poem is contextualised personally and alongside theoretical conceptualisations that privilege a relational, material and process ethico-onto-epistemology. This work hopes to evoke and provoke a thinking, doing and being differently. Significant relationships with loved ones who have died or who are no longer infants/toddlers/children, remain vibrant and agential in our present experiencing.

Wondering about our mystical world

Janine Lees-Moorhouse — 2025-03-14

Spectrum that Embraces

Shakira Nkanang — 2025-03-14

Shadowplays

Hugh Palmer — 2025-03-12

Here Be Dragons: an autistic woman and clinical psychologist’s reflections on narrative therapy

Francesca Lassman — 2024-12-14

This paper is a collaboration between Hannah- an autistic person seeking therapeutic conversations- and Fran, a non-autistic clinical psychologist and narrative therapist. We are writing this paper to share some of our journey together as expressed through Hannah’s therapy inspired poems. Our hope is to make visible how narrative therapy can be a powerful therapy for autistic/neurodivergent people as well as an honest reflection of the hazards we have encountered. The original intention was for this sharing to be generative for practitioners, as well as a useful reference for neurodivergent people seeking therapy. However, as the journey of writing unfolded something different seemed to emerge. It became a dive into what happened in the therapeutic space, in the relational space, how ideas were experienced, taken up and what was created in the process. We have tried to keep this writing as honest and frank as possible- it is a conversation that unfolded through writing and we have left this conversation as raw as possible, only really editing for clarity. We hope you find some connection, resonance, thoughts, questions, or perhaps something else entirely!

Often I would offer Hannah an invitation in sessions (a preferred term for question, which has connotations of needing an answer and getting it right) and she would not have a verbal answer. But several days later she would share a response in the form of a poem. Hannah had not written poetry for many years. These poems were received as gifts; they helped both of us to step closer to Hannah’s felt or experienced landscape and make meaning in preferred ways. We have chosen to weave our discussions through these poems, and the form and structure we have used reflects how the poems were received and responded to.

Please note that when we refer to autistic/autistic person we don’t mean having a professional diagnosis of autism but anyone with a formal or self-diagnosis of autism.

The Cartesian Trap

Jamie Mcphie — 2025-02-13

Emergent Paradoxes: Integrating AI into Zöe and Systemic Thinking through Creativity and Disruption

Hugh Palmer — 2025-03-11

As part of the broader system of zoe, AI cannot be reduced to an object of control. Rather, it is part of the living, relational systems that sustain life. This paper moves beyond the binary of human and non-human, exploring AI as an active participant in the continuous flows of connection that define life itself. The paper explores the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into systemic thinking and the broader context of zoe (life beyond the human) through a co-authored experiment between a human (Hugh Palmer) and ChatGPT 4o, an AI model developed for language generation. Drawing on interdisciplinary perspectives, including Gregory Bateson’s cybernetics (Bateson, 1972), Rosi Braidotti’s posthumanism (Braidotti, 2019), and Indigenous knowledge systems (Kimmerer, 2013; Cajete, 2000), the paper reimagines AI not as a tool for human control but as a co-evolving participant in dynamic, living systems.

However, this raises a series of emergent paradoxes: How does AI enhance connection while simultaneously disrupting relationality? Can AI truly integrate into zoe while being a product of capitalist infrastructures (Braidotti, 2019; Parisi, 2018)? Does treating AI as a participant in systemic flows risk anthropomorphising it, thereby reinforcing the very binaries we seek to overcome (Barad, 2007)? These questions underscore some of the complexities of AI’s role within systemic practice.

The concept of relational ethics is central to this exploration, as the paper argues for an ethical AI development grounded in mutual influence, flow, and the principles of second-order cybernetics (Bateson, 1972; Maturana & Varela, 1980). By incorporating the notion of autopoiesis, the self-generating capacity of systems (Maturana & Varela, 1980), the paper challenges dualistic thinking and presents a framework for AI to support self-sustaining systems rather than disrupt them. Through a systemic lens, the paper considers the implications of AI for therapy and community work, encouraging systemic practitioners to engage with AI in ways that honour complexity, ethics, and relationality (Simon, 2014). The authors call for an adaptive, responsible approach to AI, one that is guided by systemic wisdom and grounded in the web of life.

Bakhtin's Viva - Transcript - Edited by Professor John Shotter

John Shotter — 2017-10-22

The Viva / Defense of Mikhail Bakhtin was performed at the Bedfordshire International Systemic Winter School February 2015. This transcript is an edited version of Comrade Bakhtin’s defence of his doctoral dissertation: "Rabelais in the History of Realism" at the Gorky Institute of World Literature in Moscow on 15 November 1946. Professor John Shotter edited the rather long transcript of the viva for this performance in February 2015 at Brathay Hall , Ambleside. The original translation was adapted and directed by Lars Kleberg and translated by Denis Zhernokleyev and Caryl Emerson for a round table reading at the 15th International Bakhtin Conference, Stockholm on 25 July 2014. The cast was made up of John Shotter and doctoral candidates on the Professional Doctorate in Systemic Practice. The video of the performance is here

Can therapists be autistic?

Beth Levy — 2024-12-10

This article explores a systemic therapist’s dual role as a family therapist and an autistic person, detailing her journey of integrating her autism diagnosis with her professional identity. The article explores autistic communication in reference to the double empathy problem (Milton 2012), the concept that communication difficulties between autistic and non-autistic individuals are due to mutual misunderstandings, and the importance of direct communication in working with autistic clients. It explores the stigma associated with autism and the considerations of disclosing one's autistic status in therapeutic and personal contexts, highlighting the importance of understanding and accommodating autism in therapeutic settings. Therapeutic approaches with autistic people are explored, such as the PPRR model (Burnham 2017). The paper advocates for post-diagnosis support and longer-term work with families, stressing the value autistic therapists bring to the profession by offering unique insights and validation to autistic clients.

1+(no)1=3, and more

Carmen García Pérez de León — 2025-02-11

A systemic mapping of binary logic can make clear the question of how attempts to counteract binary thinking fail in their intent to produce transformative -second order, in systemic jargon- change. While an approach to transformational change through paradoxical thinking and the creativity of the absurd is not new, it doesn’t seem to have produced news of difference, since binary thinking seems to persist, with ethical implications for the praxis of systemic therapy and its education and training.

Indeed, binary mapping, even when critiqued, tends to reinforce itself, creating a strange loop similar to a Moebius strip. Nonetheless, systemic ethics consists of attending to multiple possibilities beyond binary choices, advocating for relational location of responsibility, coherently with an epistemology that conceives the minimal unit of observation as including not only the constituent parts of a system, but also how these interrelate and their contexts of occurrence.

I propose, playfully, a formalisation in the form of “1+(no)1=3, and more” emphasizing that relationships and contexts are integral to understanding systems, and the difference between relativism and relationality. I connect this differentiation with a critique of the notion of unity which can be drawn expanding interconnectedness in a totalising fashion often proposed in monotheistic traditions with which some systemic therapists bridge and, arguing that these can lead to all-encompassing theories that overlook individual differences.

From such stance, I discus the ethical implications of othering along with limitations of inclusivity and belonging as proposed by equality and diversity in both corporate and governmental policies.

Finally, I take on Byng-Hall's notions of life scripts, suggesting that attempts to replicate or correct these scripts often lead to frustration, while improvisation is a feature of therapeutic change, as a way to respond creatively to the kind of life’s challenges that are explored in therapy. I conclude moving to a wider contextual level, by emphasizing the importance of acknowledging both life and decay, arguing against the idea of limitless accumulation and for a more nuanced understanding of systemic relationships.

Sharp edges led us here

Danna Abraham — 2025-02-12

This work explores the intersections of digital technology and creative poetic expression by integrating binary code as its artistic medium. Inspired by the duality embedded in binary constructs, the authors interrogate how unseen frameworks unify ideologies while perpetuating the damaging effects of singularity. Drawing on Gottfried Leibniz’s foundational binary systems, this piece metaphorically examines the pervasive role of binary operations in modern society. The poem’s binary translation integrates code writing using Python, as a part of combined efforts to make visible the boundaries that often prevent collaboration between technological and social disciplines. By playing with these structures, the authors advocate for a shift away from binary constructs toward embracing complexity, offering a transformative lens in hopes for the reconsidering of the systems that influence human lived experiences.