What the book sets out to do

In the prologue he contributes to the book, Marcelo Rodríguez Ceberio sums up its gesture in this way. It is Pichon-Rivière who clearly takes the step from the individual to the group; it is Horacio Serebrinsky who makes that step the intermediate stage on the way to a systemic psychology. The book deals with this “rite of passage”: it sets out Pichon-Rivière’s theory and digs into its systemic roots, in order to give that reading an epistemological foundation.

The articulation proposed is recursive: it shows how the systemic model implies that of social psychology and how social psychology in turn implies the systemic line. Because Pichon-Rivière’s work pushed social psychology to its limit, the author performs an epistemological turn there — from a linear epistemology to circularity — and formulates his thesis in these terms: an evolution of Pichonian thought, from linear causality (cause and effect) towards a circular model for reading human relationships and conflicts. The writer of the prologue adds that Serebrinsky can be held to be an “authentic Pichonian”, his clinical practice as a group therapist remaining consistent with his master’s ideas; and he ends with a toast to the author and to their friendship.