Category: Blog

Find out more about the Family Systems Institute, a registered not-for-profit organisation offering training and professional development in family therapy.

On Wednesday 28th and Thursday 29th October the Family Systems Institute held its Annual Clinical Conference: Dialogue with Difference. Its aim was to explore Bowen Family Systems Theory alongside other approaches to clinical practice. Theories explored included Bowlby’s Attachment Theory, Gestalt Psychotherapy, CBT, Gottman and the Dialogical Approach. Day 1 Day 1 introduced us to […]

By Ken Morgan, Sunday, 5 April 2020 The COVID19 crisis is the most disruptive phenomenon our society has experienced since the Second World War.  It’s social, psychological, and economic impacts are yet to be fully appreciated. Different leadership is required in a crisis to the more stable and predictable periods, where strategy can be developed […]

Challenging Cases Blog #2 Jenny Brown PhD : Couple therapy after an affair Blog written by Aleksandra Trkulja as part of a post grad learning internship  The second Challenging Cases seminar was presented by Dr Jenny Brown, and looked at couple therapy after an affair – presentation of high anxiety after the crisis of disclosure. […]

Challenging Case Seminar #1 at the Family Systems Institute. – Presented by Linda Mackay PhD. Blog is written by Aleksandra Trkulja as part of a post-grad learning internship  Link to Powerpoint slides:  Intimacy, Sex and Child Abuse Dr. Linda MacKay presented a case study of how to discuss intimacy with clients who have histories of sexual […]

Drugs and alcohol have been used by human beings for millennia. Today, the ‘drug war’ receives near constant media attention even though most modern drugs were discovered and consumed many millennia ago. The prevalent view of addiction these days is that it is a disease which is genetically transmitted residing within the afflicted individual (the […]

Like many, I have spent time pondering and discussing Donald Trumps unexpected success in American politics. While my knowledge of American culture, economics and politics is limited, I became interested in exploring America’s current political and cultural climate in the context of Bowen theory and the 2016 presidential election that led to Donald Trump becoming […]

Couples in Conflict = Clarifying the distinction between violence and frequent conflict *This is a version of a blog published by Jenny Brown on her site: www.jennybrown.info I’m sitting down to write about couple conflict.  With so much important publicity recently about the serious end of the spectrum of domestic violence I’ve thought it useful […]

As our conference on addictions and the family system approaches it is timely for each of us to ask: What patterns in our family, can contribute to misuse of tranquilising substances (or behaviours & activities)? Many families can look back over the generations and see that there have been people who have been over reliant on […]

Lily Mailler “Symptomatic individuals play a functional role on behalf of the equilibrium of the family unit; in other words the symptom serves to regulate the instinctual forces of emotional distance and closeness in the family.” “In contrast to an individual psychology approach like CBT, the focus in therapy is less on changing or fixing […]