Table of Contents

Introduction
Who's willing to work at growing up?

Part 1: Understanding the relationship foundations of adult maturity
1. Becoming a self in our relationships
2. Real maturity or pretend maturity
3. Family ties that bind

Part 2: Maturity for the first half of adult life
4. Leaving home and growing up
5. The single young adult
6. How marriage can grow people
7. Sex for grown-ups
8. Grown-up parenting

Part 3: Being a grown-up beyond family
9. Off to work we go
10. Developing mature beliefs

Part 4: Nurturing maturity in the face of set backs
11. Separation and divorce
12. Symptoms and setbacks

Part 5: Maturity enhancement in the second half of life
13. Midlife
14. Ageing well
15. Old age and facing death

Part 6: Broadening the focus
16. The grown-up helper
17. Society and self

Epilogue

Appendix 1: Summary questions for reflection
Appendix 2: Mature connection and separateness
Appendix 3: What are guiding principles?
Appendix 4: Differentiation of self as a continuum
Appendix 5: How to construct your family diagram
Appendix 6: An overview of human development across the lifespan from a Bowen family systems perspective
Appendix 7: Some Biblical reflections on relationships

Notes
Bibliography and further reading
Acknowledgements
Index

About the Author

Jenny Brown, PhD, is founder and executive director of the Family Systems Institute and Family Systems Practice in Sydney, Australia, where she has a counselling practice and trains mental health professionals and organizations.