This paper links the Qualitative Systems Exploration Model (QSEM) with the Universal Resonance Model (URM) to show how structural system analysis can be extended into a dynamical interpretation of complex systems. QSEM provides transparent and reproducible methods for identifying factors, feedback loops, and archetypes in causal loop diagrams. URM adds a second layer: phase, resonance, instability, and timing. Interpreted through URM, QSEM’s “loops of interest” become resonance-carrying loops, and QSEM archetypes become stable, unstable, or transitional resonance configurations. The paper argues that structure alone cannot explain disease, collapse, or change. Systems shift at transitions, not in static architecture. By combining QSEM’s structural clarity with URM’s dynamical logic, complex systems—especially in medicine—can be understood as processes of resonance, instability, and recovery rather than as fixed networks of causes. This work bridges participatory system dynamics, systems theory, and clinical systems thinking, offering a two-layer framework: one for mapping structure, and one for understanding movement, timing, and breakdown.
Anita Domargård (Tue,) studied this question.