Community Seminar
in Bowen Family Systems Theory
Please Note: The Community Seminar Program is suspended for the academic year 2008 – 2009. The Bowen Center is engaging in a process of study about this program and its future. Decisions about the program will appear in future posting on this page.
Application Form
Since 1976 this Seminar has encouraged attendees to use family
systems ideas to promote thoughtful self-direction, nonreactive decisionmaking
and responsible connections in their families, work places, and important
systems. Since the theory has implications for many fields, people in different
occupations are welcome in the seminar.
Systems thinking sees all behavior as inextricably linked to peoples’
important systems, especially the family. Humans and other living beings
participate in and are affected by predictable emotional process. All
members of a system inadvertently contribute to the patterns of behavior
present in the system.
A key concept of Bowen theory, differentiation of self, challenges people
to recognize emotionally driven behavior in self and others and to manage
it more effectively. The starting place is recognizing how one’s
anxiety-driven behavior contributes to the problem. Differentiation of
self emphasizes responsibility for one’s life. When teaching and
learning are based on differentiation, the individual is responsible for
his own learning.
The seminar is based on the assumption that Bowen theory is not a fixed
body of knowledge that can be taught in a standard curriculum. Rather,
systems thinking is a way of conceptualizing human behavior that can be
gradually developed by motivated people. The seminar is intended to raise
as many questions as it answers and to encourage participants to work
toward clarity in their own thinking.
The seminar meets every other Tuesday evening beginning September 2007 and continuing until June 2008.
Optional teaching videotapes are shown at 5:45 PM beginning in September. Tuition is $725 for the year and is due by September 10, 2007. For further
information, call (202) 965-4400 or e-mail
the Family Center.
Snow Policy
When it snows, if the Federal Government is open, the seminar will
be held. If the Federal Government is on liberal leave, the seminar will
be held. If the Federal Government is closed, the seminar will not be
held.
Information about the Federal Government is availBable from three sources:
1) On local television stations by 5 AM. Some stations may broadcast the
information as early as 4 AM. 2) Directly from the web site of the Office
of Personnel Management of the Federal Government at: www.opm.gov/status.
3) By a telephone call to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) at:
202-606-1900.
