Fall Fundamentals Conference
The Bowen Center’s Fall Fundamentals Conference provides background on family systems thinking related to a topic of current interest to therapists in clinical practice. Held at the University of the District of Columbia since 2016, the conference will be offered via Zoom in 2021.
Dating and Mating: Partnering with a Family Systems Lens
What's love got to do with it? As Tina Turner wondered, who needs a heart when a heart can be broken? How can clinicians and clergy help people bring their best thinking to this often anxiety-producing part of life? A family systems view provides a different perspective on the intensity of sex, dating, and finding a partner. Join Bowen Center faculty members for a day full of discussion about what differentiation can look like in our relationships systems, from dating apps to deciding to tie the knot.
Overview
Date: Friday, October 1, 2021
Location: Online via Zoom
Time: 9:30 AM- 3:30 PM Eastern Time
Schedule
Time |
Title |
Presenter(s) |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| 9:30 | Differentiation of Self: You Can't Help Who You Like or Can You? A look at the landscape of the family relationship patterns through a Bowen family systems theory lens offers one insight into how you function in relationships and how you might be choosing your mate. |
Carrie E. Collier, PhD, LPC, CRC | |
| 10:15 | The Problem with You Completing Me and Other Lessons on Life and Love that the Movies Fail to Teach Us So many hopes and dreams for dating, partnership, marriage and life come from the movies and the pressure of unrealistic expectations set up in the movies can last a long time. But what happens when reality doesn’t match our expectation? Let’s figure out what the movies got wrong and how understanding how our family is functioning can help us find a little more realistic and functional path. |
Amie Post, MA, LCMFT | |
| 11:00 | Break | ||
| 11:15 | Defining Yourself or Designing Yourself: Anxiety and Dating Apps What does it look like when people lead with their best thinking, instead of their anxiety, when using dating apps? This presentation will explore examples of how individuals have worked on defining themselves in the dating process rather than simply trying to get others to "swipe right." |
Kathleen Smith, PhD, LPC | |
| 12:00 | A Mature Expression of Human Sexuality: Anxiety and Differentiation in the Bedroom Human sexuality is so often fraught with, and fueled by, anxiety. Need that be so? What does sexuality look like, higher up on the scale of differentiation? This presentation will explore these questions. |
Jake Morrill, MDiv, MA, LMFT | |
| 12:45 | Lunch Break | ||
| 1:30 | Pre-Marital Conversations: From the Impulsive to the Indecisive and Everyone In-Between. When a decision is made to commit to each other, someone is likely to say, “welcome to the family.” A door is open to find out more about your spouse (and about yourself) and become connected in an extended relationship system in new ways. |
Edward J. Henley, MDiv | |
| 2:10 | Use of Theory to Inform the Functioning of the Family as Its Members Date and Go about Selecting Mates Dating, mating and selecting a life partner can send emotional ripples throughout the families of a couple. How other family members manage themselves can affect how the couple goes about making decisions about their future and actually influence the stability of the future relationship. Bowen theory can usefully inform how other members of their families can function more optimally when family members of any age date, mate and consider a permanent commitment to one another. |
Randall T. Frost, MDiv | |
| 3:00 | Panel: Comments and Closing Remarks | All Presenters with Laura R. Brooks, LCSW-C | |
| 3:30 | Adjournment |