{{Short description|American psychologist (1919-2017)}} '''Yvonne M. Agazarian''' (February 17, 1929 - October 9, 2017) was the principal architect of systems-centered therapy, based on a theory of Living Human Systems that she also developed. Agazarian taught, trained, and supervised systems-centered therapists internationally, was the founder of the [http://www.systems-centered.org Systems-Centered Training & Research Institute], and practiced in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.<ref>{{cite web |title=YVONNE M. AGAZARIAN |url=https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/inquirer/obituary.aspx?n=yvonne-m-agazarian&pid=187101867 |publisher=inquirer.com |access-date=21 February 2020}}</ref>
{{Infobox scientist | name = Yvonne Agazarian | birth_date = {{birth date|mf=y|1919|2|17}} | birth_place = London, UK | death_date = {{death date and age|mf=y|2017|10|9|1919|2|17}} | death_place = Philadelphia, USA | fields = psychotherapy, group therapy | workplaces = American Group Psychotherapy Association | alma_mater = Temple University | known_for = systems-centered therapy | relations = Noel Agazarian (brother)<br>Monique Agazarian (sister)<br>Jack Agazarian (brother)<br>Francine Agazarian (sister-in-law) | partner = Berj Philibossian }}
==Life== Agazarian was born in London to a French mother and Armenian father, the youngest of six children. She attended a Jesuit boarding school, the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Roehampton, from the ages of 7–17. After the end of the Second World War, she moved to Canada to study English and philosophy, supporting herself through work as a nurse in a mental hospital, and as a cook in a logging camp. It was there she became pregnant with her first son, Jack. After separating with her Canadian husband, she returned first to England, then in 1960 moved to Philadelphia, in order to better support her son, who was born blind.<ref name="gantt">{{cite journal |last1=Gantt |first1=Susan P. |title=In Memory of Yvonne Agazarian, 1929–2017 |journal=International Journal of Group Psychotherapy |date=3 April 2018 |volume=68 |issue=2 |pages=279–289 |doi=10.1080/00207284.2017.1416792|s2cid=150176041 |doi-access=free |pmid=38475655 }}</ref>
While in Philadelphia, Agazarian completed a PhD in the field of group dynamics at Temple University, entitled ''A Theory of Verbal Behaviour and Information Transfer''.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Agazarian |first1=Yvonne |title=A Theory of Verbal Behavior and Information Transfer |journal=Classroom Interaction Newsletter |date=1969 |volume=4 |issue=2 |pages=22–33 |jstor=23869414 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23869414 |issn=0009-8485}}</ref> It was at Temple where she first developed an interest in bridging the lack of common language between group dynamics and psychoanalysis. She qualified as a therapist at the Psychoanalytic Studies Institute in Philadelphia.<ref name="gantt"/>
In 1995, she founded the Systems-Centered Training and Research Institute, based in Philadelphia, which continues to develop systems-centered therapy, and with whom she worked until her death in 2017.
==Theoretical Orientation==
Agazarian had from the sixties been interested in the paradigm clash presented by her training in individual psychotherapy and in group therapy, and in the possibility of overcoming it: from the eighties onwards, she explored the possibility of resolving it through general systems theory.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Gantt|first=Susan P.|date=2019|title=Yvonne M. Agazarian (1929–2017).|url=http://doi.apa.org/getdoi.cfm?doi=10.1037/amp0000332|journal=American Psychologist|language=en|volume=74|issue=2|pages=259|doi=10.1037/amp0000332|pmid=30762396 |s2cid=73445484 |issn=1935-990X|url-access=subscription}}</ref>
It was, however, the challenge presented in the following decade by health maintenance organizations and their stress on short-term therapy, that propelled her into devising systems-centered therapy, in order (she stated) to discover "how to think about short-term therapy in a way that maintained the integrity and values of our work".<ref>Yvonne Agazarian, ''A Systems-Centered Approach to Inpatient Group Psychotherapy'' (2001) p. 9–10</ref>
The influences she credited on her work range from W. R. Bion and John Bowlby to Erwin Schrödinger and Ludwig von Bertalanffy,<ref>Agazarian, ''Inpatient'' p. 7</ref> reflecting both her intellectual range and the trajectory of her movement from psychoanalysis through whole-group therapy to systems-centered therapy.
==Awards and achievements==
In 1997, the American Psychological Association awarded her Group Psychologist of the Year "for her involvement in research, publication, teaching and training. She exemplifies the finest in scholarship in the discipline of psychology. As a group psychologist, she has contributed to expanding our knowledge of the boundaries between clinical and social psychology with the investigation of living human systems and systems-centered group and individual therapy. Her considerable body of work illustrates the highest blend of creativity and learning".<ref>Agazarian, ''Theory and Practice'' p. xii</ref>
==Selected works== * ''The Visible and Invisible Group'', with Richard Peters, 1981 * ''Systems-Centered Therapy for Groups'', 1997 * ''Systems-centered practice: Selected papers on group psychotherapy'', 2006
==See also== *Intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy *Group psychotherapy
==References== {{Reflist|colwidth=40em}}
==Further reading== * [https://www.amazon.com/dp/1855753359 "Systems-Centered Therapy for Groups" (New Ed Edition October 2004; originally published 1997)] * [https://www.amazon.com/dp/1853028479 "Autobiography of a Theory: Developing the Theory of Living Human Systems and Its Systems-Centered Practice" (August 2000)] * Agazarian's articles in the Emerging Theory section of the [http://www.systemscentered.org/Institute/Newsletter SCTRI Newsletter]
==External links== * [https://www.systemscentered.com/ Systems-Centered Training & Research Instititue (SCTRI) website] * [http://www.systemscentered.com/Training/tabid/4012/Training/TrainerDetails/tabid/4481/Default.aspx?name=Yvonne%20Agazarian Yvonne Agazarian biography at SCTRI] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110716182753/http://www.systemscentered.com/Training/tabid/4012/Training/TrainerDetails/tabid/4481/Default.aspx?name=Yvonne%20Agazarian |date=2011-07-16 }}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Agazarian, Yvonne M.}} Category:1929 births Category:2017 deaths Category:20th-century American psychologists Category:21st-century American women educators Category:21st-century American educators Category:American people of Armenian descent Category:American people of French descent Category:American women psychologists Category:English people of Armenian descent Category:English people of French descent Category:English emigrants to the United States Category:Group psychotherapists Category:People from Roehampton Category:Temple University alumni