Beyond the Human: New Materialisms and Systemic Psychotherapy with Christopher Loh and Federico Albertini
Show notes
What shapes our experience of therapy beyond the words we speak? How might the physical environment, our bodies and the objects around us influence what becomes possible in a therapeutic encounter?
In this episode of The Systemic Way, we are joined by Chris Loh and Federico Albertini to explore new materialisms and their potential to challenge and expand systemic psychotherapy. Drawing on philosophical ideas that question familiar divisions between mind and body, human and non-human, and nature and culture, we consider what happens when we look beyond language, narratives and social construction to explore the material conditions through which our experiences and relationships take shape.
The conversation explores the distinction between interaction and correspondence, inviting us to think about relationships not simply as exchanges between separate individuals, but as processes through which people and their worlds continually emerge and change. We consider what this means for therapeutic reflexivity, including the possibility that therapists are not simply observing or influencing families, but are themselves being changed through their encounters.
Through clinical examples, including work with eating disorders, we explore how bodies, objects, spaces and other non-human elements might participate in shaping therapeutic processes. We also examine how the concepts and assumptions therapists bring into the room influence what they notice, how they interpret distress, and whose experiences are heard or overlooked.
Importantly, this is not simply a call to pay more attention to the therapy room or to replace established systemic approaches. The discussion raises questions about how these philosophical ideas can inform clinical practice, how they sit alongside evidence and risk assessment, and how we engage critically with the intellectual traditions from which they emerge.
Join us for a conversation that invites systemic therapists to reconsider the boundaries of therapeutic practice, the nature of agency and change, and the complex relationships between people, bodies, language and the material world.
Albertini, F.M., Christiansen, J.C.V., Loh, C. & Nijabat, N. (2025) New materialism(s) and systemic psychotherapy: Does it matter? (PART 1). Journal of Family Therapy, 47, e12479. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-6427.12479