Change

• All Bower Place practitioners must have a Theory of Change – that Theory of Change must be identifiable, parsimonious, transparent, open to critique, and must include a Theory of Problem and Symptom Formation and Resolution. [See Watzlawick P, Weakland J, and Fisch R, 1974, Change: Principles of Problem Formation and Problem Resolution, W.W. Norton, New York].
• The Theory of Change implicit in the bower(method) and bower(note) is – 
• Change is naturally occurring – universally and individually – the Earth turns, the seasons come and go, the sun rises and the sun sets; the horizon line curves; the minutes and hours and days and weeks and years pass; people are born, get old and die; illnesses and accidents happen; people recover, people don’t; families form and disintegrate – nothing is required of any human for change to happen 
• Problems and symptoms are naturally occurring in all humans – in consequence of the way humans are organized into living systems – each living system is social, necessary, and idiosyncratic to that particular group of humans – idiosyncratic, because the constraints implied by this particular piece of social organization, this living system, are peculiar to this living system – and all living systems have in common the fact that they are constrained – problems and symptoms are a direct human response to constraint – and necessary because without constraint there are no problems and symptoms, because there are no living systems, and as such no humans – all human problems and symptoms are a direct result of the constraints that apply to each individual human in the particular human (living) system they are consigned to. 
• Problems and symptoms are naturally occurring in all human systems (families etc.) – humans are born not fully developed and requiring a human living system (family) to survive and complete that development – all forms of social organization (i.e. human living systems) are constrained – each human (living) system is constrained in its own idiosyncratic way to privilege, and reinforce, this particular form of idiosyncratic social organisation over all other possible forms of social organisation. 
• Problems and symptoms require no other reason to exist, and carry no intrinsic value or meaning – a human problem or symptom requires no other reason to exist – it carries no intrinsic value or meaning except that applied to it by that human living system – the first line of explanation for any problem or symptom is the fact that humans exist in living systems, and are subject to systemic constraints that privilege some differences over others, and convert some functional differences into inflexible inequalities  that advantage some people and disadvantage others – any meaning applied to a human problem or symptom is wholly human, ordinarily social, and wholly analogical. 
• Difference is naturally occurring between people in all human systems (families etc.) – each human is different, bearing different physical, emotional, cognitive, biochemical, and neurobiological characteristics – each human system (family etc.) is socially organized to manage these differential characteristics into the functional best interests of the social group, and if the social group agrees, the individual – these differences are translated into functional points of inequality between people – inequality is not naturally occurring between people – living systems are inclined to ossify such differences as inflexible inequality, privileged, advantaged over others, often to the disadvantage and exclusion of those others – inequality, disadvantage, inclusion and exclusion, and problems and symptoms, are all linked.  
• Problems and symptoms are directly connected to inequality and disadvantage – the particular problems and symptoms experienced by a person are the direct result of way their particular human system (family etc.) transforms particular differences into inequality, exclusion and disadvantage – living human systems produce symptoms and problems by transforming naturally occurring difference into inequality, inclusion and exclusion, and disadvantage – this is how constraint actually works – this is the everyday practice of morality, being, the way reciprocity and compassion are distributed through and by any human living system (family etc.). 
• Problems and symptoms are naturally managed or resolved in flexible human systems (families etc.) – a human living system not ossified by inflexible inequality and disadvantage between people, will act to address and resolve the problems and symptoms produced in and by its members – the differentials of one member would not be privileged over the differentials another, unless there was some time-limited compelling reason to do so. 
• Problems and symptoms are always temporal – problems and symptoms evaporate time-future, privilege time-present, and call-up time-past. When time-future evaporates, time-present and time-past are privileged, and problems and symptoms appear. All time is not equal. The recursive, reflexive, nature of time is compromised or lost. This is at the heart of punctuating events like trauma.  
• Problems and symptoms are always defined and located in space – problems and symptoms privilege inside-space over outside-space, OR, outside-space over inside-space. Inside = neurobiological. Outside = social-relational. The recursive, reflexive, nature of inside-outside space is compromised or lost. In consequence a problem or symptom becomes more defined as inside or outside, and in doing so space becomes inflexibly arranged, standing in the way of naturally occurring problem resolution.  
• Problems and symptoms are always defined and located in the relationship between space and time
• Problems and symptoms are always developmental – human systems (families) are living systems, and – this shapes and privileges certain individual ways of being over other ways of being, privileges a particular individual developmental process over others, shapes all aspects of identity formation and transformation, determines the rules of inclusion and exclusion,  establishes how this living system  connect to  and relates to other living systems, the way naturally occurring difference is transformed into inequality, the politics of authority and responsibility and the way these are distributed, and in particular the  collective conceptualization of space and time]. 
• Inequality, exclusion, and disadvantage, produce the systemic inflexibility that makes it difficult for a human living system to manage or resolve a symptom or problem   
• Human systems naturally resolve problems and symptoms – the key question is why this particular human system has not resolved this particular problem or symptom – the answer is in the degree to which  the internal social organisation of that human system is flexible or inflexible. 

No Change

Q: Why do I do the things I do – why I can’t let it go? 

A: You are what you do & what you do needs no reason to continue – wake up, talk to your friend, go to work, come home, get stoned, eat sleep, wake up – each day is what it is & life goes on without you ever needing to do anything different – ‘change’ requires a reason – ‘no change’ requires no reason