On Healthy Family Systems:
“Being calm is not as important as being a self.”
“The ability to manage the intensity of relationship demands, while managing one’s own functioning, is a biological as well as a relationship process.”
“Any good applied science will be comprehensible." "Togetherness and Individuality are built into neurobiology"
“Feelings are suspect as an indicator of anxiousness. When anxiety is high physiologically, feelings go off-line.”
"When threat is perceived by the individual in their relationships they may move into the well know anxiety responses which are expressed both biologically and relationally: "fight" = conflict, "flight" = avoidance; or the "freeze" = which is from the neurological old vagal system that produces a shut down, as with a hibernation state."
“The family starts and stops the reactivity clock. An immediate response to stress is not enough for symptom development; it’s about sustained reactivity, the timing and duration of reactions.”
“Physiological reactivity is ordinary and natural, like oxygen; the key is to see how it plays out and whether we can see it.”
"There is more going on IN BETWEEN than within."
Differentiation of self is the meat and potatoes of managing reactivity. Mediation and prayer retreats, if unhinged from family work, can make it difficult to recognise anxiousness in daily life.”
