ABSTRACT
M. Bowen believed a societal level of anxiety was related to the human species’ survival instinct, that it emerged out of threats to the relationship with the earth and its resources. This chapter explores an anthropological perspective on what is becoming a global phenomenon of great humanitarian consequence with Bowen’s eighth concept of societal emotional process and societal regression. Anthropological studies can extend Bowen’s understanding of societal emotional process to incorporate knowledge about how human families are like all other social species. Evolutionary anthropology dates to the 19th century, when European countries had established colonies, and missionaries and explorers had encountered the diversity of ecosystems with plants, animals, and human cultures. Humans have lived on this Earth as foragers for eons, moving in family groups; then, beginning at the end of the Ice Age, about 10,000 years ago, some groups took the revolutionary step to domesticate plants and animals.
