Bridging Emotional Cutoff & Differentiation of Self in This Time and Beyond
CONFERENCE PROGRAM & SCHEDULE
8:30 AM Check In to Online Waiting Room
8:45 - 9:00 AM Admission to Online Conference Room
9:00-Conference Begins: Introduction: Laura Havstad , PhD Director, Programs in Bowen Theory
8:45 - 9:00 AM Admission to Online Conference Room
9:00-Conference Begins: Introduction: Laura Havstad , PhD Director, Programs in Bowen Theory
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9:10 - 10:10 The Value of Connection To Survival: Differentiation, Cutoff, and the Family System in Troubled Times
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Daniel V. Papero, PhD, LCSW
The Bowen Center for the Study of the Family, Washington, DC
As we enter the third decade of the 21st century, intersecting challenges of pandemic illness, climate change, and unstable economies and institutions drive uncertainty and fearfulness in people across the globe. The biologically based functions of the family system become more evident as family units fear for their livelihood, sustenance and the well-being of all family members.
The extended human family appears to act as a buffer for its members and the interconnected nuclear families that comprise it during such times. For that buffering to occur, family members and family sub-units have to remain in viable and meaningful contact with one another. Just as emotional forces within the extended press individuals to remain connected, other forces work against connection and lead to the cutoff of relationships in the short- and long-term.
In order to maintain meaningful and viable connection in challenging circumstances, individual family members have to engage their best thinking, manage emotional reactiveness effectively, and guide their behavior in accordance with beliefs and principles that recognize interdependence and support cooperative behavior, in short they need to work on differentiation of self.
The Bowen Center for the Study of the Family, Washington, DC
As we enter the third decade of the 21st century, intersecting challenges of pandemic illness, climate change, and unstable economies and institutions drive uncertainty and fearfulness in people across the globe. The biologically based functions of the family system become more evident as family units fear for their livelihood, sustenance and the well-being of all family members.
The extended human family appears to act as a buffer for its members and the interconnected nuclear families that comprise it during such times. For that buffering to occur, family members and family sub-units have to remain in viable and meaningful contact with one another. Just as emotional forces within the extended press individuals to remain connected, other forces work against connection and lead to the cutoff of relationships in the short- and long-term.
In order to maintain meaningful and viable connection in challenging circumstances, individual family members have to engage their best thinking, manage emotional reactiveness effectively, and guide their behavior in accordance with beliefs and principles that recognize interdependence and support cooperative behavior, in short they need to work on differentiation of self.
10:10- 10:45 Discussion
10:45- 11:00 Break
10:45- 11:00 Break
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11:00 - 11:45 Bridging Emotional Cutoff as a Path toward Differentiation of Self in the Family
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Mercy Burton Russell, MSW, EdD
Programs in Bowen Theory, Sebastopol, California
Between 1992 and 2006, the author bridged an emotional cutoff with her maternal grandfather’s family guided by Bowen Family Systems Theory. She aimed to lift her own life functioning with specific goals and to test the predictive value of the theory. In the process of failed and successful attempts to establish an independent relationship with her maternal uncle’s family, she collected and verified evidence of the nature of the emotional cutoff and its impact on fact finding, perceptions, beliefs and behavior across three generations. The successful restoration of relationships across this cutoff aligned with dramatic improvements in the author’s personal life and in the family life of her family of origin. In 2006, a series of deaths triggered the disruption of the nascent family contact. To date, the author’s efforts to re-establish contact with her cousins have been unsuccessful.
The success of this effort and the subsequent persistence of the denial of importance of family members to each other raise numerous questions about efforts to bridge emotional cutoff in the family. Recent research and theoretical reflections will be presented with a plan for moving forward as a self in the family.
Programs in Bowen Theory, Sebastopol, California
Between 1992 and 2006, the author bridged an emotional cutoff with her maternal grandfather’s family guided by Bowen Family Systems Theory. She aimed to lift her own life functioning with specific goals and to test the predictive value of the theory. In the process of failed and successful attempts to establish an independent relationship with her maternal uncle’s family, she collected and verified evidence of the nature of the emotional cutoff and its impact on fact finding, perceptions, beliefs and behavior across three generations. The successful restoration of relationships across this cutoff aligned with dramatic improvements in the author’s personal life and in the family life of her family of origin. In 2006, a series of deaths triggered the disruption of the nascent family contact. To date, the author’s efforts to re-establish contact with her cousins have been unsuccessful.
The success of this effort and the subsequent persistence of the denial of importance of family members to each other raise numerous questions about efforts to bridge emotional cutoff in the family. Recent research and theoretical reflections will be presented with a plan for moving forward as a self in the family.
11:45- 12:15 Discussion
12:15 End
12:15 End