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Available for appointments. Call 202-966-1145 x 1 or email pjfries@yahoo.com.
Priscilla J. Friesen was introduced to Bowen family systems theory in l976 while studying for a Master’s of Social Work at the University of Kansas. The theory described her life experience. She moved to Washington DC after graduate school in l978 to study with Dr. Murray Bowen, the originator of the ideas. Working in numerous teaching, training, administrative capacities, Ms. Friesen has been associated with the Bowen Center for the Study of the Family (formerly Georgetown Family Center) since l978. Ms. Friesen’s primary faculty responsibility at present is assisting the Bowen Center, Bowen family and the National Library of Medicine to make the Bowen Archives “available to the world.”
In fall of 2005, Ms. Friesen founded The Learning Space with Regina Carrick and Glennon Gordon.
Ms. Friesen’s professional and personal interest has been in the brain, physiology and the relationships. Guided by the framework of Bowen theory, Ms. Friesen has interwoven self-regulation methodologies into her work with individuals, couples, families and in her teaching.
Biofeedback, a method to develop self-regulation through awareness and feedback of the physiology such as muscle tension, heart rate, hand temperature and sweat response. Biofeedback allows you to see the physiology of life situations, thought and emotion. This learning process assists individuals experiencing symptoms such as headaches, GI symptoms, high blood pressure, chronic pain, anxiety, depression, panic attacks, to decrease and manage symptoms and to be more thoughtful in life decisions.
Neurofeedback is feedback to the central nervous system or of the brain waves. Through visual and auditory feedback, one gets immediate feedback from the electrical patterns of the brain. The feedback is faster than human awareness and affects the way the brain organized perception, emotion and learning. Neurofeedback is useful for anyone who is interested in increasing their functioning. Individuals who are experiencing symptoms such as depression, anxiety, physical symptoms, head injury, seizures, and learning difficulties can use neurofeedback to increase functioning.
Both neurofeedback and biofeedback are methods that establish facts of a body’s functioning. Bowen theory assists the individual to conceptualize their body’s functioning into a broader context…their life and the impact of essential relationships. How the individual physiology as well as thinking, feeling and perceiving is adapting to important aspect of life is key to an individual being more effective in life.
Through the fields of applied kinesiology, sensory integration and Brain Gym, Ms. Friesen has experienced how the physiology is built by our personal developmental adaption through our lives. How we move, how we use our senses, how we feel is the way we have adapted through our development to the life we have lived as well as the multigenerational process that has set the stage.
Through yoga, Ms. Friesen has experienced the organization of her body and its connection with life experience. The method of yoga develops subtle observation of the physiology of movement, breath and focus central to self-regulation.
Experience with Vipassana (mindfulness) meditation, she has studied deeper and more subtle levels of the breath, body, emotion, thought and perception. This study in particular has expanded her ability to coach others in their use of biofeedback and neuro-feedback, as well as developing the study of one’s self in the relationships.