Couple Therapy - A Systems Approach

“I can’t live with them and I can’t live without them!”

Attachment & Differentiation in Marriage

Key note speaker: Dr. Dan Papero Ph.D LCSW

Dan Papero has been a popular engaging speaker at our conferences in 2006 and 2008. He demonstrates a unique ability to bring theory to life with both depth and clarity. Dan has been on the faculty at the Bowen Centre for the Study of the Family since 1982, working alongside Dr. Murray Bowen for some years.

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Popular approaches to relationship counselling emphasize improving communication and trying harder to understand and meet the needs of our partners. Such approaches lead themselves to the view that personal unhappiness in marriage is the fault of our partner for failing to meet our needs.

Bowen family systems theory offers a different approach. How do we maintain who we are as a person when in a committed relationship without destroying the relationship? How do we enhance the relationship without losing ourselves in the process? This conference will illustrate some of the differences between conventional approaches to marital difficulties and the fundamentals of relationship from the perspective of Bowen theory. The conference will include a discussion of conflict in relationships and ideas about how to address it.

This conference is for anyone who would like to better understand the challenges of living in a committed relationship and to use this understanding in lending a hand to couples in clinical practice.

CONFERENCE SEMINARS EACH DAY :

Presenting Case Studies and reflections on the Therapist's Own Family System influences.

*** This conference will address the following Focussed Psychological Strategies relevant to Medicare providers -

• Psycho-education on relationship effectiveness for couples
• Relationship skills training (ways to develop improved personal boundaries in intimate relationships). Anger management and communication skills relevant to reducing marital fusion and strengthening spouses defining themself to the other. (“I” position)
• Interpersonal systems therapy as it relates to depression in one spouse.

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Systems @ Work Seminar 

•  Fundamentals of systems thinking – Getting clear about the most basic ideas of using a systems lens.
•  Regression and its consequences in an organisation  – Utilizing Bowen’s concept of societal regression to describe how the process of regress operates organizationally and its consequences 
• How people apply these systems ideas in the workplace – Case examples to illustrate 
• Video of one leader’s efforts to hold their course in the face of relationship turbulence. 
• Q and A

“Thinking Systems” is akin to sailing against the wind, when people faced with workplace responsibilities confront the intensity of an anxious organisation.  When under pressure to look for the quick answer, people who understand systems thinking have an additional set of tools to aid their efforts to manage effectively and to keep sight of goals and principles. 

 

“While the content of anxiety or instability shifts with the wind, the process of how people and the group act remains  predictable."                                                                                                                                                                       

D Papero

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FREE PUBLIC LECTURE

In Association with the Family Systems Institute Annual Conference

Wednesday Evening:  20^th June, 2012 – Time:  6:45-8:00pm

Exisle Publishing

 “Most people come to couples counselling saying they’re here to work on their relationship.  The irony is that the couples who make the most progress are the ones who stop focusing on the marriage itself and start directing their attention towards their own behaviours.  This is the paradox of growth within a marriage:  that a responsible focus on yourself, and not the relationship, can bring the utmost degree of mutual satisfaction.  If you want a better marriage, you will need to give up making a project out of changing the relationship or your partner and instead make a project out of expressing your own maturity within it.”  Jenny Brown

 PLUS Interview with Dr Papero – Can couples be too close? – and other questions.

Interview with

Key note speaker at the FSI 2012 Conference.

 Click here to register online at FREE Public Lecture  or phone:  9904 5600 or Fax:  9904 5611