The 44th Annual Symposium on
Family Theory and Family Psychotherapy
was held November 2-3, 2007
Information on the Symposium is below.
DVDs and recordings of the 44th Symposium are available on our online store.
Distinguished Guest Lecturer: Barbara Smuts, PhD
Barbara Smuts trained in evolutionary biology and anthropology and is now a professor in the psychology department at the University of Michigan. She has studied social relationships in chimpanzees and savanna baboons in East Africa and wild bottlenose dolphins in Western Australia. For the last few years, she has been studying the social behavior of domestic dogs. Her publications include Sex and Friendship in Baboons, Primate Societies, as well as numerous articles and chapters. She is now working on a book about the social relationships of domestic dogs.
Dr. Smut’s research has focused on how nonhuman animals create and negotiate their social lives. Her research has documented social behaviors such as friendship formation and sexual coercion, previously studied only in humans. She was introduced to Bowen theory in the 1990s. It has played an important role in her current understanding of socio-emotional processes and the importance of a systems perspective for understanding behavior in the animals she studies.
About the Symposium
The Symposium was initiated in 1965 by graduating psychiatric residents at Georgetown University Medical School. They proposed an annual “homecoming” at which they could present papers to each other and hear about new developments at Georgetown and in the family field nationally. As interest in family systems ideas grew, a decision was made to open the Symposium to professional people around the country.
When the Family Center opened in 1975, responsibility for planning the Symposium shifted to the faculty. Since the beginning, an important feature of the Symposium has been the distinguished guest lecture, featuring pioneers in the field of family therapy as well as researchers and scientists whose work had the potential to extend knowledge about the family and develop a science of human behavior. Distinguished Guest Lecturers have been leading authorities in such diverse fields as sociobiology, ecology, primatology, evolution, neurobiology, genetics, and medicine.
