The Bowen Center

Dr. Anne S. McKnight will discuss J. D. Vance’s best-selling book in which he describes his life growing up in the Rust Bowl with his addicted mother and her ever-changing partners. His grandmother played a pivotal role in providing a connection out of the family chaos and instability. He went into the Marines, and then […]

African American Maroons (people who permanently self-removed from enslavement) and indigenous Americans founded a novel society in the Great Dismal Swamp of North Carolina and Virginia beginning with the rise of colonialism in the Mid-Atlantic region. After over a decade’s work on several sites in the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, archaeology is showing […]

Twenty-eight years of leadership in the Episcopal Church has provided an opportunity to think about and practice leadership principles. Bishop Stacy F. Sauls says he may have learned a thing or two, some painfully, about the relationships among responsibility, authority and power; the destructiveness of secrets; and the supreme importance of the moment of asking […]

In her recent book, The Beauty of What Remains, Dr. Susan Hadler reveals the details of her journey to break through barriers of absence, silence and prohibitions. This effort was an opportunity to gain strength and support to persevere in the face of reactivity to find the lost, to bridge cut-offs and to bring her […]

The development of higher cortical systems involved in the ability to manage self is embedded in the relationship circuitry of the family. The differentiation of the intellectual system and its relationship to the family will be discussed in its developmental and evolutionary contexts. Robert J. Noone, PhD is co-founder of the Center for Family Consultation […]

Mr. Keith Tignor has worked closely with the beekeeping industry for over twenty-five years. He is coordinator of the regulatory and assistance programs for beekeeping in the Commonwealth of Virginia. This presentation will include his recent research on the beekeeping industry that demonstrates how bees are a symptom of the environment in which they live. […]

As much as 8,000,000 tonnes of plastic enters the ocean every year and this amount is predicted to double within the next decade. This number keeps increasing in pace with global plastics production. Left unchecked, by 2025 as much as 1 tonne of plastic may be in the ocean for every 3 tonnes of fin […]

When Dr. Murray Bowen died in 1990, he left a vast collection of materials, (including audio and videotapes, professional and “Dear Family” letters, original research records, drafts of papers, and presentations) that documents the thinking and research that led to Bowen theory. The Murray Bowen Archives Project is dedicated to making these materials available to […]

As the parental brain extends its attention from self to offspring, neural and physiological adaptations enhance emotional resilience and cognitive flexibility. Stress responsivity – associated with susceptibility to psychiatric illness and chronic disease – is dampened in males from both bi-parental and uni-parental primate models (e.g. owl monkeys and long-tailed macaques, respectively). Recent investigation of […]

Can Bowen theory give us a way to understand the enormous complexity of societal events that we observe or experience personally? Are these events, which have occurred throughout human history, enhanced through media bombardment? This presentation will apply concepts from Bowen theory such as differentiation, triangles, projection process, reciprocal functioning, and cutoff to a number […]

Clinical Public Health is the enhancement of health care by providers’ use of the principles of epidemiology and population health, health policy, health systems management, and community health. Changes in the structure, financing, and performance expectations of health care systems are creating unparalleled opportunities for improved individual and community health while drastically altering the roles […]

This talk will address the predominant theories of grief work in Western culture and in the world of grief therapy as well as the new research on bereavement based on the concept of resilience. These ideas will be contrasted with those in family systems theory in which the level of differentiation across generations is the […]

One of Dr. Murray Bowen’s challenges in developing a science of human behavior was to seek effective ways to engage people to think theoretically about social systems. What difference would learning family systems theory make in their lives? Ms. Andrea Schara is affiliated with Leaders for Tomorrow, where she was founder and president and began […]

Defining a self in one’s family is a foundation for raising one’s level of differentiation. To be robust, this work includes defining or differentiating a self not only in one’s family but also within one’s profession, work system, and within the community and larger society. In this presentation Dr. Peter Titelman will focus on defining […]

Recent research has demonstrated that — like some human newborn infants — newborn rhesus monkey infants are capable of engaging in extensive face-to-face interactions with their mothers throughout their initial days and weeks of life. These face-to-face interactions are thought to facilitate establishing attachment bonds between the infants and their mothers. However, unlike the case […]