45th Annual Symposium
on Family Theory
and Family Psychotherapy

November 7-8, 2008

Distinguished Guest Lecturers:
Dorothy L. Cheney, PhD and Robert M. Seyfarth, PhD
Dr. Cheney is a professor of biology and Dr. Seyfarth is a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. They are the authors of How Monkeys See the World and the recently published Baboon Metaphysics: The Evolution of a Social Mind, the fruit of fifteen years living with baboons in their native habitat. A recent review of the book states, “In this gem of a book, Cheney and Seyfarth, two pioneers in the study of primate psychology, combine in-depth ethological research with ingenious experiments to probe the minds of wild baboons living beside Botswana’s Okavango swamp.… Baboon Metaphysics is at once innovative and profoundly thoughtful, as readable as it is rigorous.” — Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, author of The Woman That Never Evolved

 

About the Symposium
The Symposium was initiated in 1965 by graduating psychiatric residents at Georgetown University Medical School. They proposed an annual “homecoming” at which they could present papers to each other and hear about new developments at Georgetown and in the family field nationally. As interest in family systems ideas grew, a decision was made to open the Symposium to professional people around the country.

When the Family Center opened in 1975, responsibility for planning the Symposium shifted to the faculty. Since the beginning, an important feature of the Symposium has been the distinguished guest lecture, featuring pioneers in the field of family therapy as well as researchers and scientists whose work had the potential to extend knowledge about the family and develop a science of human behavior. Distinguished Guest Lecturers have been leading authorities in such diverse fields as sociobiology, ecology, primatology, evolution, neurobiology, genetics, and medicine.