A Review of John O’Donohue’s “Bless the Space Between Us”

Post Date April 4, 2023
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Category Book Review, Bowen Family Systems Theory, Family of Origin, John Bell

In his book, To Bless the Space Between Us, John O’Donohue sets out to write a book of blessings that follow what he calls, “the seven rhythms of the human journey: beginnings, desires, thresholds, homecoming, states of the heart, callings, and beyond endings.”  In chapter 4, Homecomings, O’Donohue describes the trajectory of human development from birth to adulthood.

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Learning Bowen Theory

Post Date April 29, 2022
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Category Bowen Family Systems Theory, Family of Origin, Stephanie Ferrera

My first acquaintance with the thinking of Murray Bowen was through reading “On the Differentiation of Self,” the paper in which Dr. Bowen presents his theory and describes how it guided his effort toward differentiation of self in his own family. In my first couple of readings, I understood little of the theory or what Dr. Bowen was doing on those visits home, but I heard him clearly on the results. His family became calmer and more flexible. Personal communication opened up. Seriousness gave way to humor.

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“Forward” to Death and Chronic Illness in the Family: Bowen Family Systems Theory Perspectives

Post Date May 31, 2019
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Category Bowen Family Systems Theory, Death & Chronic Illness, Family Emotional Process, Grief & Mourning, Robert J. Noone

The consideration of death, especially of one’s own mortality, has been a preoccupation of the human since the evolution of the wondrous primate brain allowed for the awareness of the future and so of one’s end. The reality of death is never far from consciousness. Along with the effort to understand life and how it came to be, the human has struggled to comprehend death and its meaning. It is a subject many seek to avoid considering and yet in one form or another it influences our daily lives.

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