Daniel A. Bochner, Ph.D.

Families can be truly complicated. Nevertheless, it is essential to understand how the depth of psychology comes directly from family dynamics. When viewed through an understanding of the connection between inner, life sustaining and protecting, motivations, and how those motivations are nurtured, damaged, neglected, or balanced, it becomes clear that the depths of the psyche, at either the individual or the group level, are similar within us all. Our lives, as unique as they might seem, fall into very definite patterns. Because the motivation to live is essentially the same in everyone, the pitfalls in living are readily understood once one has a true grasp of family functioning and interpersonal influence from the depths of each individual and throughout the family unit. Although the topic can be quite complicated, this section provides articles that will shed light and provide clarity. In the article, From Id to Family System, the mechanisms of human life are discussed from the engine outward. Within the engine of the system is our desire to thrive itself, and that desire influences every other part of the machine. When the individual machine loses balance, the balance it seeks within others and from the environment can seem to unbalance everything. On the other hand, that lack of balance is yet just another kind of balance itself within the Great Life Machine, where ultimately some kind of balance is always found or entropy (the disintegration of everything) prevails. Emotional Space, the other article in this section, discusses how emotion takes up space, and how space, too, must be balanced within the family.