About the TCCR

Social Work, social sciences, and psychosocial reality

Discover the Cognosystemic Theory

A clear introduction to the Cognosystemic Theory of Human Psychosocial Relational Construction (TCCR), its concept of the Cognosystem, Cognosystemic Narrative Systems, and its three-dimensional proposal for Social Work.

TCCR Cognosystem CNS Social Work Psychosocial research

Understand the central concepts Explore the proposal for Social Work

On this page you will find:

• What the TCCR is
• What Cognosystem means
• What a CNS is
• The three-dimensional proposal
• Its current scientific status
• The foundational book
• The author

General definition of the TCCR

The Cognosystemic Theory of Human Psychosocial Relational Construction (TCCR) is a unified theoretical framework and a developing research program. It seeks to explain how individuals and collectives construct, negotiate, stabilize, and transform their psychosocial reality through narratives, social relationships, and historically situated institutions.

The TCCR does not reduce psychosocial reality to something purely internal, nor does it claim that all reality is a subjective invention. Its proposal is more precise: what a society considers intelligible, true, legitimate, or possible is organized through the dynamic configuration of bond, meaning, and context, without excluding material, institutional, historical, and power conditions.

Meaning

Narratives

Organize experiences, reasons, expectations, and criteria for deciding what counts as evidence.

Relationship

Bonds

Distribute positions, recognition, authority, cooperation, conflict, and possibilities for action.

Situation

Contexts

Include institutions, resources, norms, temporalities, and concrete sociohistorical conditions.

The Cognosystem: a sociohistorical order of meaning

In the TCCR canon, a Cognosystem is a sociohistorical suprasystem of meaning belonging to a society and a period. Within it, Cognosystemic Narrative Systems (CNS) circulate, become hierarchically organized, and gain legitimacy, thereby guiding how reality is understood, how possibilities are evaluated, and how practices are coordinated.

It is not a mechanical sum or the “total set” of every narrative. It is a relational field of meaning sustained through language, practices, institutions, media, and validation mechanisms. Across its micro, meso, exo, and macro levels, particular CNS acquire greater or lesser plausibility, epistemic authority, and normative effectiveness.

Essential distinction: the Cognosystem does not refer to one person’s mind or isolated inner world. It must always be delimited with reference to a society and a period. People participate in it, are influenced by it, and may also reproduce, challenge, or transform its narratives.

Simunovic, J. (2026). Cognosystemic Theory of Human Psychosocial Relational Construction (TCCR): Foundations and Core Conceptual Framework for Contemporary Social Work. The Journal of Cognosystemics, 1, art. 1, 1–43. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18880343

The Cognosystemic Narrative System: the minimum unit of organized meaning

A Cognosystemic Narrative System (CNS) is the minimum unit through which human meaning is narratively organized within a situated Cognosystem. It is not an anecdote, a frequently used word, or an isolated opinion. It is a functional organization of meaning that guides interpretation and action.

CNS can be delimited in personal, family, group, organizational, or sociocultural configurations. This does not make them separate worlds: their intelligibility depends on the relationships, institutions, and historical conditions of the Cognosystem in which they operate.

The canonical architecture of a CNS comprises eight interdependent components:

1. Experience
2. Perceptions and emotions
3. Context
4. Propositional core
5. Evaluative body
6. Epistemic attitude
7. Narrative purpose
8. Narrative function

These components make it possible to analyze how experiences are selected and situated, how they become reasons and claims, which rules govern the acceptance of evidence and counterevidence, which purpose guides the narrative, and which relational effects it produces. Narrative function must be inferred from observable consequences; it is not simply the actor’s stated intention.

Simunovic, J. (2026). The Operational Model of the “Cognosystemic Narrative System” (CNS) in the TCCR: Architecture, Dynamics, and Second-Order Regulators. The Journal of Cognosystemics, 1, art. 4, 114–141. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20416868

The TCCR’s three-dimensional proposal for Social Work

The TCCR proposes an architecture intended to connect coherently what Social Work understands as its reality of intervention, how it produces knowledge about that reality, and the methodological decisions through which it seeks to transform it.

Ontology

Narrative-relational and ecosystemic

Defines the object as the psychosocial structuring of bond, meaning, and context.

Epistemology

Cognosystemic

Requires situated, traceable, contrastable, coherent, and professionally reflexive knowledge.

Methodology

Ecosystemic–narrative

Translates analysis into change hypotheses, justifiable mediations, and evaluable effects.

1. Narrative-relational/ecosystemic ontology

From the TCCR perspective, the object of Social Work is not reduced to isolated individuals, administrative procedures, or abstract structures. It is defined as psychosocial narrative-relational structuring: a dynamic configuration of bond, meaning, and context expressed through practices, narratives, social positions, institutions, and concrete effects on well-being, dignity, participation, and access to rights.

2. Cognosystemic epistemology

Knowing this reality requires the simultaneous study of cognitive-narrative signification and ecosystemic relational organization. Professional knowledge is not understood as a mere accumulation of data or as uncontrolled subjective interpretation: it must be grounded in coherence, interpretive traceability, contrast with evidence, and professional reflexivity.

3. Ecosystemic–narrative methodology

The methodology seeks to translate cognosystemic analysis into justifiable decisions, relevant actions, and evaluable effects. It is implemented through the A–B–C operational methodics, understood as a revisable cycle rather than a rigid sequence.

A. Cognosystemic delimitation of the problem

Defines the problem as a narrative-relational configuration; delimits society, period, actors, institutions, sources, temporalities, and relevant levels; and identifies the CNS organizing the case.

B. Change hypothesis and intervention design

States which pattern is expected to change, through which mechanisms and mediations, at which levels, with which actors, indicators, time frames, and possible adverse outcomes.

C. Implementation, monitoring, and evaluation

Implements and documents the intervention, monitors change, contrasts sources, and decides whether the hypothesis should be retained, adjusted, or rejected.

Data→Meaning→Decision→Mediation→Effect→Adjustment

The value of this architecture lies in keeping the defined object, collected evidence, inferences, intervention decisions, and observed effects connected. Traceability makes the process auditable, but it does not by itself demonstrate causality.

Simunovic, J. (2026). A Three-Dimensional Proposal for Social Work from the TCCR: Narrative-Relational/Ecosystemic Ontology, Cognosystemic Epistemology, and Ecosystemic–Narrative Methodology. The Journal of Cognosystemics, 1, art. 3, 76–113. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20190541

Current scientific status of the proposal

The TCCR has a formalized theoretical architecture and an explicit research agenda. However, theoretical plausibility does not amount to definitive empirical validation. Its scientific value will depend on whether its concepts can be operationalized, its hypotheses generate observable expectations, and adverse findings can be used to correct the program.

In clear terms: the TCCR should currently be presented as a theoretical proposal and an open, revisable research program undergoing empirical testing—not as a theory that has already been generally confirmed.

Formalized

Theoretical language

Canonical concepts, organized hypotheses, and a disciplinary architecture for Social Work are available.

Pilot stage

Operationalization

Protocols are being developed to reconstruct CNS and evaluate interventions with traceability.

Still to be built

Cumulative evidence

Independent, comparative, and longitudinal studies are needed to examine scope and limits.

For a deeper examination of this scientific status, see the article on empirical foundations and scientific plausibility and the formalization of the TCCR as a Scientific Research Program.

A theory must be open to evidence that challenges it

The purpose of the TCCR’s empirical phase is not to confirm every concept in advance, but to determine where the framework works, where it requires revision, and which alternative explanations perform better.

Read about the TCCR research program →

Foundational book of the TCCR

Cognosystemic Theory of Human Psychosocial Relational Construction TCCR: A Unified Theoretical Proposal for Social Work
Jalin Simunovic · Social Ius Ediciones · 2025

This book presented the first extensive formulation of the TCCR and brought together its philosophical, systemic, narrative, ecosystemic, and relational foundations. The canonical articles published in 2026 subsequently refine and formalize several definitions; when terminology differs, the most recent canonical formulation should therefore be preferred.

What will you find in the book?

• The Cognosystem: the sociohistorical order in which interconnected narratives circulate and become hierarchically organized.
• Narrative as a system: the structure, functions, and life cycle of CNS.
• Dynamics of cognosystemic change: Beta, Alpha, and Delta regimes.
• Narrative hierarchies and power: hegemony, contestation, and the displacement of meanings.
• The cognosystemic meme: vehicles of narrative circulation, consolidation, friction, or transition.
• Classification of narrative systems: intrapersonal, interpersonal, organizational, and sociocultural configurations.
• Theory construction: the articulation of abduction, deduction, and induction.

Why does it matter for Social Work?

The book seeks to provide a disciplinary language connecting theoretical understanding, research, and professional intervention. Its proposal:

• integrates micro, meso/exo, and macro levels without reducing one to another;
• translates philosophical and social debates into researchable professional questions;
• places relational interdependence at the center of the psychosocial object;
• offers conceptual tools for analyzing, intervening in, and evaluating narrative and relational change.

Who is the book for?

• Social Work professionals in clinical, community, educational, organizational, and public-policy settings.
• Teachers and researchers interested in relational, narrative, and ecosystemic theories.
• Students seeking a guide for approaching psychosocial complexity.
• Interdisciplinary teams that need a shared language of analysis.
• Readers interested in learning about the TCCR theoretical project.

Suggestions for rigorous reading

• Relate each concept to examples and counterexamples from your context.
• Use the Beta–Alpha–Delta dynamics to formulate questions and hypotheses, not as automatic predictions.
• Distinguish the book’s initial definitions from later canonical formalizations.

Five central ideas

1. The Cognosystem organizes sociohistorical conditions of plausibility, legitimacy, and coordination.
2. Emotions take part in selecting and transforming narrated experience.
3. Narrative power is unequally distributed and can be contested.
4. Cognosystemic memes participate in the circulation and mutation of meanings.
5. Narrative plasticity is a hypothesis about possibilities for reconfiguration that must be examined under specific conditions.

Book details

• Title: Cognosystemic Theory of Human Psychosocial Relational Construction TCCR: A Unified Theoretical Proposal for Social Work.
• Author: Jalin Simunovic.
• Publisher: Social Ius Ediciones.
• Year: 2025.
• Location: Arica, Chile.

Author

SW. Jalin Simunovic Menares

Jalin Simunovic Menares is a Chilean social worker with more than fifteen years of experience in systemic psychosocial intervention with children and adolescents, families, and organizations. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Social Work and a Master’s degree in Family Law and Family Intervention, together with further training in systemic therapy, public management and policy, and organizational development.

He works in Chile’s public sector in the People Management and Development area of JUNJI. During his professional career, he has led child-protection programs—PRM, OPD, and DAM-Arica—and conducted specialized psychosocial assessment and intervention processes connected with Family Courts and the Public Prosecutor’s Office.

He has also taught and trained professionals, technicians, facilitators, and intervention agents in educational and community settings. His current work brings together professional practice, theoretical development, and research on the TCCR.

Frequently asked questions

Has the TCCR already been empirically validated?

Not in a general sense. It has conceptual development and initial plausibility, but it still requires independent research, operationalization, and cumulative empirical testing.

Does a Cognosystem belong to an individual person?

No. The Cognosystem refers to a sociohistorical organization of meaning delimited by a society and a period. People participate in it through situated CNS.

Is a CNS simply a story or an opinion?

No. It is a functional organization of meaning composed of interconnected elements that guide interpretation, justification, and action.

Can the TCCR be used only in Social Work?

Its development is explicitly oriented toward Social Work, but its concepts may be investigated in other social sciences and humanities when their relevance, method, and limits are properly justified.