What We Do

Consultations

What is consultation from a Bowen family systems perspective?

Challenges, as experienced by individuals, couples and families in their physical, emotional, or social functioning, offer  an opportunity to learn new patterns to live more optimally. Bowen family systems theory describes the predictable patterns of relationships established in the family. By looking at individual and family patterns of functioning over time, people can be more thoughtful during times of duress. Taking responsibility for self is central to a decrease in symptoms.

 Consultation involves:

• Developing a broader way to think about and solve relationship problems
• Increasing awareness of relationship patterns
• Increasing self-regulation by developing ways to manage self in anxious situations
• Developing thoughtful principles to guide behavior in important relationships
• Considering questions that engage your thinking in a new way.

Key ideas that guide consultation:

• Relationships are more complex than cause and effect
• The role of anxiety and how we manage our perception of threat is a central regulator of functioning
• The patterns in our multigenerational families continue to play a part in individual functioning.

Examples of dilemmas that people seek consultation on:

• Physical - Chronic pain, chronic illness, migraines, cancer, digestive issues, inflammatory disease, suppressed immune functioning, cancer
• Emotional - anxiety, depression, OCD
• Social - Alcoholism and substance use/abuse, money management
• Relational - Life transitions, such as marriage, birth, offspring into adulthood, divorce, death.

The Family Relationship Assessment is designed for you to consider the interplay of factors in your life and the challenges you are experiencing. This assessment also is an ongoing tool to guide learning and assess your efforts. Please print, fill in, and bring to you consultation.

How does neurofeedback fit into consultation?

Individuals coming for consultation at The Learning Space are encouraged but not required to use neurofeedback as a part of their consultation.

Zengar neurofeedback decreases reactivity and increases self-regulation.  This allows individuals to experience and act in less anxious ways and with more flexibility in solving relationship problems. The neurofeedback allows you to experience your own brain’s functioning as it interrupts inefficient patterns that correspond to chronic anxiety in the thinking, emotional, and physical states as described in Bowen theory.