The Bowen family systems theory concept Nuclear Family Emotional Process describes the basic patterns of emotional functioning among and between members of two successive generations of a family - most often between partners and between the partners and their offspring. These basic patterns result in chronic anxiety. Family tensions come to rest in certain parts of the family such that the more anxiety one nuclear family or relationship absorbs, the less other family members or relationships must absorb. This workshop will explore how at sufficient levels of anxiety intensity, each pattern contributes to the development of one of three categories of clinical dysfunction in a nuclear family: (1) illness in a spouse; (2) marital conflict; and (3) impairment of one or more children.