About this course

This lecture highlights the family systems perspective of viewing the mental health problems of the young person as the symptom of a maladaptive family system.  The child focus, a common phenomenon of parents focusing on the young person with symptomatic behaviours as the problem,  is explained as a manifestation of the family projection process.  Core ideas of the Bowen family systems theory – acute and chronic anxiety, symptoms, differentiation of self, the emotional system, family projection process and multigenerational transmission process are elaborated to help explain the culmination of symptoms in the young person.  This lecture also includes three useful experiments for the viewers to undertake in their family relationships to enhance their understanding of family interactions and management of self.

Changing self, instead of changing the young person, is deemed as the most effective way to enhance functioning of the family system and the symptomatic person.