(The following is an abridged version of a longer piece by Ashley North LMFT, faculty and board member of the Western PA Family Center.  You can hear more from Ms. North at the WPFC Fall Conference and Symposium, where she will be a featured speaker ...

Sometimes when I want to calm my brain at night from the day’s activities, I watch a program about the vastness of the universe.  Listening to Neil deGrasse Tyson describe the universe and black holes, I soon rise above the petty concerns of the day. ...

I couldn’t escape the irony of it all.  As a young therapist, I was doing rather well at a new job in a family counseling program. Yet as the mom of a 13-year-old daughter who  rhapsodized about her best girlfriend’s mother and shunned contact with ...

“The Bowen theory involves two main variables.  One is the degree of anxiety, and the other is …the level of integration of the differentiation of self.” Murray Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p. 361 My “Bowen nugget” is a dense phrase I noticed in ...

Today I play ocean waves To block out sounds As I try to meditate. I recall listening to The same rich rhythm Of waves 10 months ago When confined to our home To avoid the virus. So much has happened During these 10 months. Too much to ...

As a newer student of Bowen Family Systems Theory, I have struggled with the idea of blame and responsibility. Coming from a heavy psychology background, I have naturally approached problems from an individual mindset where there is one single thing to blame (a person, an ...

I would have answered once upon a time with more questions: “How could helping be overrated? Isn’t helping others a good thing?” I answer that question differently now: Helping is overrated when it is driven more by my own anxiety than by the real needs ...

In the fall of 2002, I began my first formal training in Bowen family systems theory. I understand it to be a theory of human neurophysiological functioning and development, for both individuals and their human systems, with both inextricably intertwined as are the human mind ...

Recently, I was walking with a friend through snowy woods, talking about some hopes and plans I have for my vocational future. As I spoke about this, my mind became fuzzy, and I was muddled in a deep feeling of insecurity and doubt, even as ...

WPFC, founded as an educational center for those interested in learning a theory about how families and organizations work, operates with the tenets of Bowen systems theory in paying attention to relationships, in thinking and managing self in ways that show the principles of the ...