June Conference on Bowen Theory in SF Bay Area

The 20th Annual Conference in Bowen Family Systems Theory and its Applications

June 21 & 22, 2008

Hilton Garden Inn, Emeryville, on the San Francisco Bay

The Individual and the Group in Natural Systems: Perspectives of Family Therapists and Interdisciplinary Dialogue

Murray Bowen defined a theory of the family and how the family emotional system affects the basic adaptiveness and level of self of its members.  He defined principles of psychotherapy for families at all levels of functioning with all kinds of emotional illness.  Bowen also defined the family as a natural system, meaning that the family is an emotional unit and the human is a part of nature.   Bowen saw emotional illness as coming from the instinctive part of the human shared with other forms of life, which he defined as the emotional system.   For this conference clinicians and researchers present their expertise about people and their behavior in  emotional systems and their origins in the interactions of the individual and the group in natural systems.

Click here to view the pdf brochure with further information on the program and registration . Magnify the size of the text by hitting the "plus" button at the top of the pdf form.

Program change:  Lee Ross after being struck by a sudden illness has asked Andrew Ward, PhD. to stand in for him in discussing The Person and the Situation: Big Lessons of Social Psychology.  Andrew Ward is Associate Professor of Psychology and Acting Director of the Peace and Conflict Studies program at Swarthmore College and has served as Associate Director of the Stanford Center on Conflict and Negotiation.  For the past 18 years, he has conducted research with Dr. Lee Ross of Stanford University on psychological processes that contribute to interpersonal conflict and misunderstanding as well as investigating factors that promote the successful resolution of disputes.  Additional research interests, supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, include environmental factors that facilitate or hamper effective efforts at self-control.Ward is Associate Professor of Psychology at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania.