Thursday Professional Lectures

Lectures are held at the Georgetown Family Center at 7:30pm on the 2009-2010 calendar dates shown below. The lectures are free and open to the public. On-street parking is available.

The Thursday Professional Lectures focus on the family as a natural system and on knowledge from the study of other natural systems. A distinctive feature of this meeting is the length of time the presenter is given to develop an illustrate ideas and entertain discussion.

For further information, contact the Thursday Lecture Series Coordinator, Keo Miller.

October 1, 2009

Many studies investigating maternal behavior in primates and humans have combined specific behaviors into broad maternal styles. These studies are theoretical, based on sophisticated forms of factor analysis. They create different typologies for understanding variation in maternal behavior and are used to explain outcome in terms of offspring functioning. Differentiation of self is a coherent, theory-driven variable that can explain more variation in outcome than maternal style. Bowen observed that it is not the valence of the relationship but rather the intensity of the relationship that accounts for the functioning of offspring.

November 2009

December 3, 2009

This presentation will explore the idea that a symptom such as substance abuse erupts in response to a family relationship process. Does this problem occur under conditions where the force toward togetherness has overcome the force toward individuality? The challenge of using family systems theory to understand drug and alcohol abuse, rather a theory that views the problem as in the individual, will be addressed.

January 7, 2010

The role of chronic inflammation in the development of cancer, heart disease, and many other clinical conditions is now well established. Parallel research is defining how the stress response can result in the cells of the immune system becoming less responsive to the inhibitory effects of glucocorticoids. This opens the door for understanding how the chronic stress response can aggravate chronic inflammation. This presentation will describe the latest research in this area and also the important role chronic anxiety plays in clinical problems.

February 4, 2010

This presentation will review the work of seminal contributors in psychoanalysis, individual psychotherapy, and marriage and family therapy who have defined different conceptualizations of the therapeutic relationship. Reports from Bowen’s NIMH Family Study Project will describe his developing family systems perspective on the therapeutic relationship. Lastly, the components of the therapeutic alliance, as it is sometimes called, or the coaching relationship, as Bowen called it, will be contrasted.

March 4, 2010

The presentation examines the phenomenon of male homosexuality as a variable creating acute and chronic anxiety in varying degrees of intensity, frequency and duration during the life cycle of a homosexual male. Anxiety influences the varying degree of solid self and pseudo self that develops and how functioning may be affected. Understanding this phenomenon has clinical significance applicable to homosexual males in psychotherapy, as well as for understanding the functioning of homosexual males at the personal, familial, and societal level.

April 15, 2010

Is the Earth’s biosphere unique, or do alien biospheres exist and even share some of its features? Major events in biotic evolution were likely forced by environmental physics and chemistry, including the origin of life itself, photosynthesis, and the emergence of eukaryotes and big-brained animals. Is this pattern repeated on Earth-like planets around Sun-like stars? The observational search for alien biospheres in coming decades promises to supply at least a partial answer.

May 13, 2010

Outcomes in American health care are among the poorest of the developed countries. Psychiatric outcomes for serious illnesses like schizophrenia rank far behind outcomes in Third World countries. Yet Americans spend more on health care than any other people in the world. How are the major institutions in American society interacting to produce declining care? and what could systems thinking offer to ameliorate this crisis?

June 3, 2010

President Obama finds some of his most difficult challenges in the Middle East – winding down US involvement in Iraq, dealing with nuclear proliferation and unexpected political developments in Iran, rekindling progress in the Middle East peace negotiations and countering instability and terrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This lecture will assess US interests in the Middle East, analyze progress towards Obama’s goals, and offer ideas about what lies ahead.