Recent Articles
My Mother’s Birthday
April 4, 20109 Comments
My mother, Dorothy Pearl Haught, was born on this day, April 4, ninety-five years ago. I remember her lovely smile, her contagious laughter, and her strong work ethic. She died too young (at age fifty-seven), but the value of her life cannot be measured by its length.
Easter 2010
April 3, 20106 Comments
I wish for you a most happy and blessed Easter, and I hope that your celebration of our Lord’s resurrection will be filled with joy.
It was my son, Jonathan Butterworth, who first introduced me to blogging. He and his wife have come to visit his mother and me for Easter, and he suggested yet another “stretch” [...]
The Paschal Triduum
April 1, 2010No Comments
The Paschal Triduum is “theater” in the best sense of that word. The three days, experienced in succession, enable us to rehearse yet again the drama of Divine deliverance, not just as spectators but as those who are drawn into the action. The story of salvation becomes our story, and our stories always tell us who we are.
Palm Sunday
March 27, 2010No Comments
There are always some who welcome Jesus. Mark’s Gospel tells us that, even in Jesus’ day, “many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields” — a kind of “red carpet” reception. And they went ahead of him and followed him, shouting, “Hosanna! Lord, save! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!”
Do we in our day bless the coming of the kingdom?
The Annunciation
March 25, 20102 Comments
This day on the Christian calendar occurs exactly nine months before Christmas Day, and for that reason it is the day on which we celebrate the Feast of the Annunciation. It is in Luke 1:26-38 that we have the account of the announcement to Mary that she will give birth to the Savior of the world. Read it, and you will see that something is afoot.
Emotional Process in Society
March 24, 20101 Comment
The same laws that govern families hold true in larger emotional systems (teams, schools, congregations, corporations, etc.) and even in society. A nation or a community of nations may behave in ways very similar to that of a family which seeks to deal with anxiety by abandoning principled decision making for emotional reactivity. And, just as one member of a family can raise the level of the group’s functioning by differentiating herself or himself from the emotional fusion, so leaders in society may do the same for the larger system. These ideas are captured in Bowen theory by the concept of Emotional Process in Society.
Sibling Position in Bowen Theory
March 20, 2010No Comments
In Bowen theory, job one is to work on changing the self rather than on changing others, in order to attain an ever higher level of self-differentiation. Sibling position descriptions provide a starting point for this work. As a person differentiates herself or himself from the emotional system of the family, she or he will work beyond the weaknesses of sibling position, family generational history, and emotional reactivity.
Multigenerational Transmission Process
March 19, 2010No Comments
The family projection process explains how differentiation and undifferentiation are passed from one generation to another. In a similar way, the multigenerational transmission process is that same phenomenon, writ large, through the generations. This is now the eighth post in a series on Bowen family systems theory.
Family Projection Process
March 18, 2010No Comments
Why are children in the same family different from each other in their ability to cope with life, realize potential, and reach goals? Bowen family systems theory finds the answer to this question in observing what the theory calls the family projection process. As you might guess, what is “projected” is anxiety, and the difference among children has to do with how well differentiated each child is from the family emotional process, in which anxiety is diverted around the system.
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