The focus of Advancing Navigating Systems this year is on differentiation of self in the family and at work using science as a basis for our thinking and will use the writings of John B. Calhoun to begin the year.

This year, the faculty at Navigating Systems is focusing on understanding the work of John B. Calhoun, Ph.D. Calhoun was an ethologist and behavioral science researcher studying how crowding affects mice's behavior at the National Institutes of Health. 

The primary variable he documented was the change in social interactions in a mouse colony. Calhoun was curious about what happens under conditions of crowding. His overriding question was how interactions would impact the behavior of the individual mice? And of course, what might be the implication for the future of the human?

There are many references to his work on the web, but very few, if any, have the printed handout that he gave to those fortunate enough to attend the 1993 Symposium at the Georgetown Family Center. The six-page paper holds valuable ideas for the times we live in and suggestions and hints for designing a better future. Although Calhoun is gone, his work lives on, challenging us to think differently about what the future holds for our families and our work. 

The handout demonstrates the range of creative thinking that Dr. Calhoun used in dealing with the problems of overcrowding. The topics are relevant today: social unrest, population density, and social disruption. His description of the mice colony under stress sounds just like the human dilemma as mice lose the ability to interact maturely.  

Just as we struggle to understand the increase in mental health issues and our environment's degradation, Calhoun came up with some fascinating observations. How cooperative mice could tolerate eight times the stress of mice acting in intuitive ways. 

In addition to Priscilla Friesen's unexpected discovery, Navigating Systems faculty member Andrea Schara has located two audiotapes of Dr. Calhoun recorded in 1986 at a symposium at The Bowen Center for the Study of the Family on the science of human behavior. What a score!

Applying John Calhoun's research to the challenges of today

The ideas presented in the audiotapes and the written handout will be part of the source material for the 2020 - 2021 Advancing Navigating Systems Course. For those who have participated in Bowen Theory training, this seminar is a way to apply Dr. Calhoun's original research to the world we live in today. The goal is to offer participants a place to hone ideas and consider the human's sensitivity, as we may more carefully consider how best to design our future. Each of the Navigating Systems faculty will present our best approach to think systems in turbulent times, and we invite you to think with us.