Top Highlights

• The eight concepts of Bowen theory, in the logical progression that builds on the family as the emotional unit, are: Nuclear Family Emotional System The Differentiation of Self Scale Triangles Cutoff Family Projection Process Multigenerational Transmission Process Sibling Position Societal Emotional Process.
• Acute Anxiety Subjected to a stressor or stressors, mammals react in predictable ways.
• Chronic Anxiety If the anxiety continues, as it does with the “background” level we all carry around with us, acquired from our years of experience in our original families and/or from the circuiting of anxiety in our present family, a different set of hormones is secreted. This time the outer cells of the adrenal gland, or “cortex” are involved, s...
• Anxiety is Additive Anxiety, whatever its trigger, is additive. If, in addition to that background level of anxiety one carries around from one’s family, some business reverses occur, then the IRS finds a problem with one’s tax return, and then a national crisis such as 9/11 happens, one’s anxiety will escalate to a level much higher than usual.
• This “huddling together” or herding instinct kicks in whenever anxiety increases. To greater and lesser extents in different families, when one gets upset, all do, just like the cows.