Transcript BOWEN FAMILY SYSTEMS THERAPY

SANDRA MALOUGH
CYNTHIA LOPEZ
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Murray Bowen
◦ Oldest of 5 children
◦ Medical doctor
◦ Hospitalized entire families with schizophrenic
member
◦ 1975 founded the Georgetown Family Center
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Family = an emotional unit (network of interlocking
relationships)
◦ Etiology of an individual’s dysfunction
◦ Families are tied in thinking, feeling, and behavior
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Trying to take the intuitiveness out of therapy by
having an objective theory
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Multigenerational trends
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8 key concepts
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Differentiation of self
◦ Occurs when an individual is able to distinguish
between intellectual processes and the feeling
process he or she is experiencing
◦ Greater fusion between individuals, poorer
functioning
 Can’t differentiate b/w thoughts and feelings
 Have trouble differentiating themselves from others
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Undifferentiated family ego mass
◦ “a conglomerate emotional oneness”
 In other words, an emotionally “stuck together” family
 Can be so intense family members know each others
feelings, thoughts, dreams, and fantasies.
◦ Originally characterized in psychoanalytic terms
 Later referred to as fusion-differentiation
 Amount of fusion-differentiation changes
Fusion
•Lowest levels
•Emotionally fused to
the family
•Feelings dominate
Differentiation of self
•Highest levels
•Separate thinking
from feelings
•Over 60 is a small %
of society
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Triangles
◦ Smallest stable relationship system
◦ A major influence on the activity of a triangle is
anxiety
 More anxiety = more distance, or closeness
 Less anxiety = comfortable back and forth discussion
of feelings
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Nuclear family emotional system
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Lack of differentiation > emotional cutoff >
fusion in marriage
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Unstable fusion in marriage tends to produce
1. Dysfunction in a spouse
2. Marital conflict
3. Projection to one or more children
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Family projection process
◦ Parents transmit their lack of differentiation to their
children
◦ Intensity of this process is related to:
1. Degree of immaturity/undifferentiation of parents
2. Level of stress/anxiety the family experiences
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Multigenerational transmission process
◦ Transmission of anxiety from generation to
generation
◦ Patterns, themes and roles are passed through
generations
◦ Less anxiety focused on children = more likely
they’ll grow up w/ greater differentiation
◦ Child most involved in family’s fusion has lower
differentiation
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Emotional cutoff
◦ A way to manage intense fusion & anxiety
◦ Distance ourselves physically and emotionally
◦ Escape
◦ Greater fusion = greater cutoff
◦ The pattern remains unchanged
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Sibling position
◦ Provides info. about roles people take in
relationships
◦ People in same sibling positions tend to share
characteristics
◦ Sibling roles are complementary
◦ Reflected in later relationships
◦ Influences triangulation with siblings & parents
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Societal emotional process
◦ How families deal with social expectations of things
like gender, race, class, sexism, etc.
◦ Coping strategies are passed through generations
◦ Those with higher differentiation deal better
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Do not act as problem solver
Coach clients to understand process &
structure
Encourage expanding familial ties
Asks questions
Neutral parts of triangles
◦ Best if therapist observes from partially outside the
family
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Decrease anxiety, increase self-focus
De-triangulation
Balance fusion and differentiation
Understanding, not action
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Assessment
◦ Genograms
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Process questions
Relationship experiments
De-triangulation
Coaching
Taking “I-positions”
Displacement stories
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Nichols, N. P., & Schartz, R. C. (2008). Bowen family systems
therapy. In Family therapy: Concepts and methods (8th ed.).
Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Bowenian family therapy. (2008) Based in part on Nichols, N. P., &
Schartz, R. C. Family therapy: Concepts and methods.
Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Retrieved from
www.psychpage.com/learning/library/counseling/bowen.html
Bowen Center for the Study of the Family. (2009). Bowen family
therapy. Retrieved from www.thebowencenter.org
Brown, J. (1999). Bowen family systems theory and practice:
Illustration and critique [Electronic version]. Journal of Family
Therapy, 20, 94-103.4
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Read each scenario and form an analysis
using the 8 key concepts
Taken from www.thebowencenter.org