Dear colleagues,
Within the context of international collaboration — and as co-authors of a collective publication — Valeria Pomini, Mauro Mariotti, and Peter Stratton took the initiative to reflect on urgent societal issues and global crises from a systemic perspective. From this initiative, a growing network has taken shape: Systemic Voices for Peace.
As systemic thinkers and practitioners, we believe that what happens in the world touches us deeply — in our hearts, in our conversations, and in our therapy rooms. The complexity we encounter daily with families, couples, teams, and organizations — in the rich, unpredictable reality of our practice — is inseparable from the theoretical and epistemological frameworks that guide us. Together, they offer us a systemic ethical compass for engaging with the broader challenges of our time.
War, conflict, climate change, and migration are not isolated problems. They are different faces of a shared underlying rupture: an epistemological crisis that teaches us we are separate — from each other, and from nature. This belief in separation allows us to exploit, dominate, or ignore the world around us as if we were not radically interdependent. To us, war, social injustice, and environmental collapse all emerge from this same root: a breakdown in relationship, in connectedness, in our sense of belonging to each other and to the earth. A systemic ethics calls us to heal these ruptures at every level — personal, collective, planetary.
In response, we engaged in dialogue with colleagues across borders, committed to a systemic and ethical engagement with the world. From these conversations, a manifesto emerged — not as a final statement, but as an anchor: a moment to pause, reflect, and orient ourselves amidst the turbulence of the times. It is an invitation to ongoing dialogue, and a call to awareness and responsibility.
We are pleased to share with you the Systemic Manifesto — 10 Statements for Peace, Justice, and Responsibility:
Systemic Manifesto — 10 Statements for Peace, Justice, and Responsibility
1. We are systemic thinkers — grounded in relationship, context, power, and meaning. Our thinking is not neutral; it is engaged.
2. We refuse silence in the face of violence. Neutrality becomes complicity when power is unequal and suffering is normalized.
3. We believe peace is not the absence of conflict, but the presence of justice, dignity, and mutual dialogue — never imposed.
4. We reject binary narratives of good versus evil. We see cycles of trauma and disconnection that require understanding and transformation.
5. We embrace complexity — not as an excuse for inaction, but as an ethical call to nuanced, responsible engagement.
6. We commit to naming power and privilege, and to challenging systems that sustain oppression — even when it is difficult or unpopular.
7. We center multivocality. Every voice matters, especially those erased, silenced, or unheard. Dialogue is our practice.
8. We understand healing as both relational and political. No personal change is complete without systemic transformation.
9. We see all crises — war, injustice, ecological collapse — as interconnected, rooted in the illusion of separateness.
10. We choose to speak and act. Not from moral superiority, but from a deep relational responsibility — because another world is possible, and urgently needed.
Peace is a collective act.
In the name of these commitments, and as a community of systemic therapists, we choose to support peace — and all actions that nurture peaceful relations among all communities and peoples.
This is a call for peace from within the field of psychotherapy.
The names of those who contributed to the creation of this manifesto can be found via the link below. In the meantime, many systemic practitioners have already expressed their resonance with the text. Like us, they found in it a source of orientation, solidarity, and hope.
The list of signatories can be found via the Google Form or directly through this link:
If you feel connected to the spirit and content of the manifesto, we warmly invite you to read and sign it:
English version
Italian version
Manifesto – Italiano
With warmth and in solidarity,
The Systemic Voices for Peace Group
