How cutting ties from a ‘toxic’ person may be robbing us from seeing our part. “When one is more objective one is better able to see their part in the system, the way he effects the emotional functioning of others and the way others effect his emotional functioning. More objectivity means one is better able…
Drugs & Alcohol- a symptom of the system Drugs and alcohol have been used by human beings for millennia. Today, the ‘drug war’ receives near constant media attention even though most modern drugs were discovered and consumed many millennia ago. The prevalent view of addiction these days is that it is a disease which is…
Anxiety- Chronic or Acute? We all experience anxiety from time to time, it is a natural condition of being alive. Anxiety is our response to a threat, real or imagined, and exists on a continuum – from a short lived spike in heart rate to a paralysing stress response. It is normal for us to…
We have a body. We know we do. But how aware are we of it, day to day, moment to moment? If we happen to be a dancer, a yogi, an actor or an athlete we may be naturally more attuned to our bodily sensations during the day. Back in the day before I had children, when I used to practice three hours of yoga a day, it was easy to feel what was happening physically and what I needed to do to adjust my body. Align my shoulders, strengthen a core muscle group or be less forceful with my in-breath, whatever the physical issue was, I was more aware of it. Whenever we train or focus on something systematically we naturally become more attuned to it. It’s like learning a language or an instrument. We know that neurons that fire together wire together. We know that our brain has plasticity and can change. However it takes effort. Especially if we’re out practice.
This paper is a personal account of my own family of origin research. It explores the impact of separations from parents, nuclear family, and extended family through a Bowen family systems theory perspective using concepts pertaining to Bowen theory such as chronic anxiety, differentiation of self, multigenerational family process, and the emotional system.
It is rare to come across couples who have decided to attend couples therapy without each hoping the other will change in some small or large way. It would all be so much simpler if the other person changed. In fact, the problem would not exist at all if our partner did what we wanted them to do, was who we wanted them to be, and changed their behaviour to meet our needs- right?