Are you cut off from a family member and not happy about it? This conference is for you. Getting Beyond Cutoff in the Family is the subject of a conference being held at the Carleton Hotel on Friday, July 25.
The conference is being hosted by the Center for Family Consultation, an organization of family therapists who base their practice on Bowen Family Systems and teach mental health professionals. The conference is open to the public and will be of special interest to anyone who feels a loss from being cut off from a family member or friend and is looking for a way to reconnect.
“Emotional cutoff” is a term that was defined by Murray Bowen as “the process of separation, isolation, withdrawal, running away, or denying the importance of the parental family.” He added this concept to his Family Systems Theory after observing that it was common for family members to distance themselves from one another and even to stop contact.
It is a response to increasing emotional intensity as people encounter the difficulties of resolving their differences. It often involves seeing the other as the problem, blaming and sometimes labeling them as narcissistic or “toxic.” Cutoff in one generation begets cutoff in the next, as children who grow up in more intense family emotional climates are likely to replicate the pattern as a way of managing relationship tensions.
This conference will focus on alternatives to emotional cutoff. With knowledge of the emotional process that sparks cutoff and motivation to work on one’s own part in it, cutoffs can be bridged, contact can be re-established, and people can reclaim to a significant extent the emotional connection that has been lost through cutoff. Study of one’s family and moving toward a more objective and systemic view are first steps. With an enlarged perspective, one begins to see cutoff as a product of the family emotional system and to see one’s own part in the reactive family patterns. With this view, possibilities for change open up. It is a well-proven avenue for growth in one’s own maturity.
The great documentarian, Ken Burns, says he thinks people learn best through stories. This conference will be a day of learning about the family emotional system through stories. In the morning, CFC faculty members, Stephanie Ferrera, Cecilia Guzman, and John Bell will present stories illustrating the creative ways they or their clients have reversed family cutoffs.
In the afternoon, we will watch the documentary, Everything’s Kosher, a delightful story of how one family reconnected and resolved their differences. CFC faculty member, Lisa Moss, will interview the film’s director and main character, Adam Fried, on his experience in his family. It is hoped that our audience will take home a host of creative ideas and a spirit of hopefulness regarding their own families.
For more information and to register for the conference, check out the Center for Family Consultation website: thecenterforfamilyconsultation.com or email Ms. Ferrera at: sjferrera7@gmail.com
Stephanie Ferrera is a faculty member of the Center for Family Consultation and has a therapy practice in Oak Park.