Feedback

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Short definition

Feedback refers to the way information about behaviour or change returns into a system and influences what happens next. It comes in two distinct forms — negative feedback, which corrects a deviation back towards the familiar pattern, and positive feedback, which amplifies a deviation further away from it.

In systemic therapy, feedback helps explain how relational patterns are maintained, amplified, stabilised or changed within families and wider systems.

Level

LEVEL 2 — CONCEPTS

Expanded definition

Feedback is a core cybernetic and systemic concept. It describes how a response within a system affects future responses. Feedback can happen through words, tone, silence, withdrawal, reassurance, escalation, avoidance, closeness, distance or repeated routines.

In family therapy, feedback helps practitioners understand how patterns continue over time. A behaviour does not simply happen once; it is responded to, interpreted, and fed back into the system — and every response is itself part of what happens next, not a neutral, separate reaction to it.

Two kinds of feedback

Feedback splits into two distinct forms, and the names are easy to misread since neither means "good" or "bad" the way they do in everyday speech — think of them as working like plus and minus signs in an equation, not moral judgements.

Negative feedback

Negative feedback cancels a deviation out and pulls the system back to where it started.

The clearest physical example is a thermostat. A room gets too warm → the thermostat detects this deviation from the set temperature → it triggers the air conditioning → the room cools back down to the set point. Nothing new happens; the system simply corrects itself back to where it was calibrated to be.

A quick family example: a teenager stays out later than usual one night. Their parents react with worry and a stricter curfew. The teenager, not wanting the conflict, goes back to their old, earlier curfew the following week. The deviation has been cancelled out — the family is back exactly where it started.

Negative feedback is what maintains Homeostasis — it can be genuinely protective and stabilising, but it is also the mechanism behind families feeling "stuck" returning to the same unhelpful pattern no matter how much they consciously want change.

Positive feedback

Positive feedback amplifies a deviation instead of cancelling it out — pushing the system further in the same direction, not back towards where it started.

The clearest physical example is microphone feedback — the screeching squeal you get when a microphone is placed too close to its own speaker. A tiny sound goes into the microphone, comes out of the speaker louder, goes back into the microphone, comes out louder still, and within a second or two it's a piercing squeal. Nothing is correcting the sound back to quiet; each pass through the loop makes it bigger than the last.

A quick family example: a teenager stays out later than usual one night. Their parents react with worry and start texting repeatedly to check in. The teenager, feeling suffocated, stays out even later the following week to get some space — and the parents, now more worried, text even more. Each round makes the next round bigger, not smaller.

Positive feedback isn't inherently a problem. The same amplifying mechanism that can escalate a family's distress can also amplify a genuinely helpful change — a small success noticed and responded to warmly can build into real, lasting momentum. The mechanism is the same either way; what differs is which direction it's amplifying.

Why this concept matters

Feedback matters because it helps practitioners notice what keeps a pattern going, or what makes it grow. Rather than only asking "why is this person doing this?", the therapist can ask "what response does this behaviour receive, and how does that response affect what happens next — does it cancel the pattern out, or amplify it further?"

This is useful for formulation, family work, supervision and network consultation because it helps map the relationship between action, response and repeated pattern.

Non-clinical example

Someone decides to start going to bed earlier, to improve their sleep. Two different households respond very differently to the exact same attempted change:

Negative feedback path: their housemate keeps the television on loudly and turns on the kitchen lights at the same late hour as always, unaware anything has changed. The person can't sleep through the noise and light, gives up after a few nights, and returns to their old late bedtime.

loop: attempt change (earlier bedtime) → environment stays the same → change is undone → back to the original pattern

Positive feedback path: in a different household, the first earlier night leaves the person noticeably more energetic the next day. They notice this, feel encouraged, and go to bed even earlier the second night — the change builds rather than getting cancelled out.

loop: attempt change → small positive result noticed → response reinforces the change → change grows bigger, not smaller

Same starting decision, two entirely different outcomes — depending on whether the surrounding system corrects the deviation away or amplifies it further.

Clinical example

A teenager starts wanting to spend more evenings with friends instead of at family dinners — a small move towards independence. How the family responds determines which of two very different paths follows:

Negative feedback path: parents feel anxious about this shift and respond with guilt ("we barely see you anymore"), extra questions about where they're going, and visible disappointment each time they leave. The teenager, uncomfortable with the tension this creates, starts attending family dinners again at the old frequency, and the push for independence quietly drops.

loop: teenager moves toward independence → parents respond with guilt and pressure → teenager reverts to old behaviour → family pattern restored to what it was before

Positive feedback path: in a different family, the parents' anxiety instead leads them to increase monitoring — more calls, more questions, more visible worry. The teenager experiences this as pressure and pulls away further, which makes the parents more anxious, so they monitor even more closely, pushing the teenager further away still.

loop: teenager moves toward independence → parents increase monitoring → teenager withdraws further → parents' anxiety increases → parents monitor even more → teenager withdraws further still

The first family's system absorbs the deviation and pulls itself back to its familiar shape — negative feedback in action, even though the "problem" the family might eventually bring to therapy is precisely this difficulty tolerating the teenager's independence. The second family doesn't return to its previous pattern at all — each pass through the loop produces more distance and more anxiety than the one before. This is exactly the kind of escalating spiral that often brings families to therapy.

Exploring this in practice

A note on status: the questions below are illustrative examples of how this concept might be explored in conversation — they are not a separately documented, named technique from Bateson, Wiener or von Foerster's own published work. The concept itself is well-documented; this list is offered as a practical starting point, not a citable clinical protocol.

What happened first, and who responded, and what did that response lead to?
Where does the loop come back around to its starting point?
What differences has this system already absorbed before, and what might register as new?

Core insight

Every response entering a system shapes what is likely to happen next — no response is neutral. Some responses cancel a deviation out and stabilise the old pattern (negative feedback); others amplify a deviation and grow the pattern, for better or worse (positive feedback). Neither word means "good" or "bad" — they describe direction, not value.

Questions before a session

What repeated responses may be feeding back into the problem, and in which direction — cancelling it out, or amplifying it?
What short-term solutions may be maintaining the difficulty?
What familiar pattern does this system keep returning to, and what pulls it back there?
What seems to be getting bigger here, and since when?
What wider systems may be providing feedback, such as school, services or social care?

Questions during a session

What happens after the problem behaviour appears, and how do others respond?
Does the response reduce distress briefly but maintain — or worsen — the problem over time?
What brought things back to "normal" last time someone tried to change something?
What response might feed a bigger version of this pattern next time?
Has a small good moment ever been amplified the same way the difficulty has been?

Questions after a session

What feedback loop became clearer today, and which direction was it moving in?
Did I help the family see the pattern without blaming any one person for it?
What small change might this system actually be able to tolerate?
How did my own response feed into the system I was observing?

Related epistemologies

Cybernetic epistemology Systems epistemology Systemic epistemology Communication epistemology Complexity epistemology

Related schools and models

Cybernetics Milan Strategic Structural Systemic Therapy CMM

Related concepts

Homeostasis Circular causality Recursive sequences Interactional patterns Relational patterns Problem-maintaining sequence System perturbation Stability and change Rules of the system Morphostasis Morphogenesis First-order change Second-order change Escalation Amplification

Related techniques

Feedback loop questions Circular questioning Pattern questions Sequence questions Punctuation questions Interactional pattern questions Difference that makes a difference questions Homeostasis questions System perturbation questions

Related pathways

Cybernetics pathway Strategic pathway Milan pathway Structural pathway CMM pathway Family and relational dynamics pathway

Key theorists / contributors

Norbert Wiener Gregory Bateson Paul Watzlawick Don D. Jackson Janet Beavin Bavelas Lynn Hoffman Salvador Minuchin Mara Selvini Palazzoli Gianfranco Cecchin

Key texts / references

Wiener, N. (1948). Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine. MIT Press.
Bateson, G. (1972). Steps to an Ecology of Mind. University of Chicago Press.
Watzlawick, P., Beavin Bavelas, J., & Jackson, D. D. (1967). Pragmatics of Human Communication. Norton.
Hoffman, L. (1981). Foundations of Family Therapy: A Conceptual Framework for Systems Change. Basic Books.
Minuchin, S. (1974). Families and Family Therapy. Harvard University Press.
Dallos, R., & Draper, R. (2015). An Introduction to Family Therapy: Systemic Theory and Practice. Open University Press.

Notes / source material

Feedback is a bridge concept between cybernetics, communication theory, systemic formulation and clinical pattern mapping. Neither "negative" nor "positive" is a value judgement — in cybernetic language, negative feedback cancels a deviation out (restoring stability, for better or worse), and positive feedback amplifies a deviation further (escalating a pattern, for better or worse). This page was previously split across three separate pages (Feedback, Negative feedback, Positive feedback); the two sub-concepts were merged in here as sections, with the originals archived, so the full picture lives in one place.

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