This presentation extends and integrates the thinking from the Bowen Centre Spring Conference April 2025 on Sexual Diversity and The Human Family where Rochelle presented a paper entitled “Trying to Live Your Own Life” and posed the question: What would Bowen family systems theory look like if it included a scientific biological understanding of the gender and sexual diversity inherent in nature?

Several further case studies will be put forward of families and couples of who represent diversity in relationships, sexuality and gender. These will be explored through a Bowen lens. The heteronormativity in many of BFST writings will be discussed in the context of the times they were written, directly contrasting the times we are in now and how our unexplored assumptions of normativity may impact our neutrality as therapists.

LOCATION: St Barnabas - 57-61 Mountain St, Ultimo NSW, 2007 (or online)