Day 1

December 3, 2022 (Sat)

8:45 am – 12:00 pm

Language: English

Dr. Michael E. Kerr, MD

Schedule

Part 1: 

A Radically New Understanding of How Relationships Work

 A description of the difference between systems thinking and cause-and-effect thinking and an example of its application clinically. The clinical method focuses on How, What, Where, and When—Not Why. A discussion follows on social cues that sustain a heightened level of chronic anxiety. All creatures in the natural world derive motivation from an emotional system. It is a naturally occurring system. Explication follows using a clinical illustration. Bowen Theory is comprised of eight concepts. One of those concepts, the “Triangle,” is explained in detail. Finally, how a sustained level of heightened level of chronic anxiety results in a family system experiencing (and other social systems, such as business organizations) a regression in emotional functioning.

Part 2: 

Systems Biology Meets Bowen Family Systems Theory: Implications and Likely Outcome

This presentation uses cancer to highlight a recent development in the biological sciences referred to as systems biology. This new perspective is leading to a focus on treating cancers by modifying the tissue context in which the cancer is thriving rather than trying to kill cancer cells directly. This is similar to the steps Murray Bowen took after recognizing that schizophrenia was best approached by attending to the family system in which it occurs, i.e., the context. The family does not cause schizophrenia, but the recognition that sustained levels chronic anxiety is an extremely important part of the process is important. Systems biologists are referring to what is happening in biology these days as the “post genomic era.” Genes are important, but are not causal. Just as the family is a system, the body is a system. Chronic anxiety driven sustained disturbances impede homeostasis.

Michael Kerr, M.D. is a psychiatrist specializing in the family. His talks are designed for people familiar with Bowen Theory and folks hearing about it for the first time. After medical school, post graduate training and two years in the Navy, Mike practiced for forty years in Washington, D.C. He is now based on a midcoast island in Maine and is still doing clinical practice. He trained under and worked closely with Dr. Murray Bowen, the originator of Bowen family systems theory. Dr. Bowen founded the Georgetown University Family Center in 1975, where Dr. Kerr served as Director of Training until Dr. Bowen’s death in 1990. Kerr succeeded him as Director of the Center until stepping down in 2011. Kerr and Bowen coauthored Family Evaluation, a book published in 1988, and excerpted in The Atlantic Monthly. The book became a widely used text in the field of family theory and therapy. His second book, Bowen Theory’s Secrets: Revealing the Hidden Life of Families, was published in 2019. Dr. Kerr has lectured in the United States and internationally on family theory and its applications and to family therapy, non-family groups, a variety of business, and individual families.