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.”

On Clinical Practice and Relationships:

There is a correspondence between fusion with people and internal fusion of emotion and intellect." 

"Asking questions about observable facts (as opposed to opinions and feelings) makes a difference clinically. It interrupts reactivity."

“The Bowen approach to mindfulness and self regulation is observing and managing anxiety - BUT not in a vacuum, it is in relationship with significant others, a multitude of techniques can be used with an emphasis on objectivity.”

“If the clinical focus is on eliminating symptoms, it just pops up somewhere else in the system.”

“A difference with DBT and CBT: Thinking about reactivity rather than thinking without reactivity.”

“Self regulation is about interrupting anxious reactivity with a self directed study and lived experience. It is not to be confused with positive thing or placebo.”

“Theory guides everything. Techniques are employed in the service of understanding the system.”

“When the therapist can become an angle of a triangle rather than simply a reactor, then triangles become a force for good.”

“The therapist /or the parent shows support and interest without telling them what to do. They say what they think without assuming what others should think.”

“The therapist adopts a research attitude not an expert attitude.”

“In neuro and bio feedback, the training of the practitioner is critical. It isn’t the equipment that makes a change.”

“Journaling the facts of functioning, starts with identifying the research project for self and adapting this to paper and pencil. The goal is to generate a broader view about symptoms. It could involve tracking the % of each day’s energy that is in service of others.” 

On Family of Origin Work:

“I was not working to change my mother but to see what I could manage in contact with her without asking too much of myself.”

“When I am assuming so much responsibility for others that I can’t think, I run out of things to do.”

“It’s amazing my mother survived all the help she got!”

“Everything hinges on triangles, But I was blind to being able to see triangles for a decade, I went on faith.”

Bowen asked me, “Who is the most mature and neutral person you could go to in the family? When I couldn’t nominate anyone he said, “Well I guess you’ll just have to go be that person.”

“People who know this theory and apply it to life, spread it. They bring it alive in others.”

“The process of change ignites the change back reaction. Reactions are part of the work.”

“People may be blind to others reactivity and the part it plays; or to self reactivity and the part it plays in the system.”

“Togetherness forces are behind how a cheque is written.”