What is Autopoiesis ?
Autopoiesis is the miracle process by which we (as agents in a bigger system) become who we are. It is a continuous inside-out process of self-production and self-awareness through which we gain our individual identity. The unbroken sense of self (our identity) is so strong that we resist being changed from the outside-in.

In the bigger systems we define ouselves as being in a hierarchy AND a network created by agents interacting and inducing growth from the bottom-up. They are nevertheless constrained by the rules that influence interactions imposed from the top-down. See Steve Trivett's Dynamic Change Model.

Who discovered it ?
There exists a large body of work by two Chilean biologists, Humberto Maturana and Francisco J. Varela. At the heart of this work lies the description of a process, called 'Autopoiesis' which defines life as the ability to self-produce, rather than as (conventionally) the ability to reproduce. Our identity as an autonomous person is self made through an internally created model of itself and its world.

Relevance to Change Coaching
Change Coaching raises the client's awareness that they are in control of how they see themselves and the world around them and that they have all the resources and capacity to change if they have the strength of will to create a new identity for themselves.

Autopeiesis applies to brains and societies as well as to biology and artificial life. In its original form it was applied to cognition, and replaces an external objective view of this subject with an internal relativistic understanding, in terms of an embedded observer. This thinking underpins the idea of "Self 1" found in the "inner game" approach adopted by Tim Gallwey.

For example, our ability to observe ourselves thinking, feeling and acting. As a result we automatically seek to defend our identity (as individuals or groups) when we perceive it to be under threat.

You can see this behaviour in the way a Puffer Fish expands to protect itself when it feels its very existence is threatened.

Our view of the world is therefore controlled by internally created models or stses of mind. This thinking underpins Neuro-Linguistic Programming. To do something we have to see it as a possibility first. Knowing then comes from doing. As autopoietic systems ourselves we see our way to act in a new way, or act in ways that enable us to see an alternative.

What are the characteristics of an autopoietic system ?
Does the system have identifiable boundaries ?
Does it have constituent elements or components ?
Is it mechanistic (subject to cause and effect) ?
Are the boundaries self-produced ?
Are the components of the boundaries self-produced ?
Are the rest of the components self-produced ?
Under these criteria, not only are biological organisms autopoietic, but so is cognition, society and many institutions within it.

We create boundaries and maintain them, opening up to what we perceive as "ME" and closing down when perceived to be "NOT ME". Paradoxically, when someone changes their mind about something, even when it's pointed out to them they can strongly disagree. We don't see change because it has to be accepted as part of us to get across our boundaries and becomes part of how we define ourselves. I used to hate classical music, but now its part of who I am.

Our autopoietic system rejects alien ideas in the same way that our immune system rejects viruses. When things don't fit easily into our mindset they disturb, irritate or surprise us and our autopoietic system starts to reject them. We then pull back like a hedgehog.

A scentific perspective
Autopoietic systems are self-sustaining wholes, however where these are fairly loosely defined with vague, open boundaries (e.g. most human systems) the terms sympoietic is sometimes used. These terms can can contrasted with heteropoietic which refers to externally sustained or planned systems (e.g. a person looking after an aquarium) and allopoietic which is an unsustainable, throughput-based, system (e.g. a production line which depletes the environment).

We should note that most organisations are not autopoietic systems, even internally, since they are forced into being and do not spontaneously organize (although they could, advantageously, be transformed into such systems). With today's emphasis upon sustainablility it is clear that a focus upon autopoiesis is both invaluable and necessary if we are to correct the many errors caused by our misunderstanding of the nature of systems, evolution and learning.

What's more, autopoiesis, with its stress on action within an environment helps us to understand life at all levels. This relates to self-organization modes of thought, which consider the coevolution of a system and its bigger system or environment. Whilst autopoiesis usually does not incorporate the complexity concept of dynamical attractors it uses the same idea of limited flexibility due to structural connectivity, along with the need to change structure if we are to develop new modes of behaviour. No mechanism is generally suggested however to drive these structural changes and in this respect complexity thought goes beyond this field, allowing for internal mutation or recombination to generate emergent metastable options for subsequent testing against environmental response. Autopoiesis remains however a valuable perspective with which to understand the essential nature of the interplay between any system and its current (and ever changing) environment.

Implications for communication
The implications of autopoiesis for the way we communicate with each other are enormous. Rapport is important because it helps to reduce the chances of an autopoietic reaction. As transaction analysis demonstrates, only adult to adult conversations induce both parties to scan their environment for anything that might interest or threaten them while they are talking. It is this 'autopoietic response' that get's in the way of people listening empathetically.

Conversations are just reaction channels through which energy flows. When the energy to sustain the connection drops, the conversation dries up. Similarly, if the energy is stimulated by something that might serve our interests, the conversation grows.

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