The present study introduces a novel method to identify systemic relational metaphors that highlight the complex causal structure of a target domain. The paper reports two experiments, both very thoroughly described, on systemic metaphors. Results from Experiment 1 suggest that metaphors can be quantified in terms of the degree to which they highlight systems: participants wrote longer and more intricate descriptions in response to systemic metaphors, they explicitly rated these metaphors as more systemic, and they viewed systemic metaphors as more complex. Experiment 2 builds from results of Experiment 1 and suggests that system metaphors induce holistic and relational thinking. Results are carefully presented, accurately analyzed and persuasively put in a larger state-of-the-art literature.