Chapter Five

1. Chapter Five • Murray Bowen’s Systems Therapy

2. Bowen’s early work • Studied schizophrenic families • Discovered that the “anxious attachment” or fused relationships between mothers and children account for most problems. • Also observed alternating cycles of closeness and distance: • separation anxiety • incorporation anxiety

3. Bowen’s TheoryMost elaborate of any of the early founders • Six Interlocking Concepts originally • differentiation of self • triangles • nuclear family emotional process • family projection process • multigenerational transmission process • sibling position

4. Later additions • Emotional cutoff • Societal emotional process

5. The Centerpiece:Differentiation of self • Differentiation is...the capacity to think and reflect before responding; implies an interior self that is separate from others, and able to relate to them with self restraint and balance. Similar to ego strength. • Undifferentiated people are emotionally fused with others; reactive and anxious • We are less autonomous, or free, than we think. We are more reactive and dependent than we assume.

6. Triangles and Triangulation • There’s a difference between triangles and triangulation. • A triangle is a relationship structure • Trangulation refers to relationship process • Anxiety gives rise to barriers between people: it’s hard to talk about things • A third person provides an outlet and a reduction of anxiety, but no solution • triangles are stable • freezes conflict in place

7. Nuclear Family Emotional Process • The emotional forces that operate over the years in repeated patterns to create an excess of fusion • Emotional reactivity (lack of differentiation) leads to fusion in the family • This leads to emotional cutoff from the family of origin, which in turn leads to fusion in marriage.

8. Family Projection Process • The way that parents transmit their lack of differentiation onto their children • Emotional fusion in a marriage leads to conflict, emotional distance, and “tilt” in which one overfunctions and the other underfunctions. • The overfunctioning parent tends to become over-involved with one child, who • achieves the least differentiation, and • develops problems.

9. Multigenerational Transmission • The child most involved in the family’s fusion moves toward a lower level of differentation. • The child least involved achieves a higher degree of differentiation. • As they mature, the children will become attracted to partners with an equivalent degree of differentiation.

10. Multigenerational Transmission, continued • The new couple will establish a family in which a great deal of anxiety will be present. • The mechanisms for “binding” it will be even more active in this generation than the previous one.

11. There is no escape • Rebellion and compliance are two sides of the same coin. Simply leaving one’s family does little to foster differentiation. • Differentiation comes about through adult-to-adult relationships with each family member. • It’s important to go back and to do the work you need to do to establish yourself as an adult in your family of origin.

12. Sibling Position • Children develop personality characteristics based on their position • first borns children tend to be conservative, aligned with power • later borns tend to side with the underdog.

13. Emotional Cutoff • The greater the fusion, the more likely that emotional cutoff between parents and children will occur. • We tend to mistake cutoff as maturity

14. Societal Emotional Process • crime rate • natural disaster, war • sexism • class • ethnic prejudice

15. Normal Family Development • low anxiety • direct communication • differentiation • healthy contact with families of origin • resolution of unfinished business: Seminal confrontation

16. Family Life Cycle: Developmental Stressors • leaving home • marriage • families with young children • adolescence

17. Family Life Cycle: Developmental Stressors • launching of children • midlife crisis • later life

18. Important concept • Basic level of differentiation resides within the individual • Functional level of differentiation depends on the quality of current relationships • Your relationship can pull you down or up

19. Goals of therapy • Learn about yourself • Assume responsibility • Stop blaming • Learn to assess the structure and process of relationships • De-triangulation

20. Marital therapy • improve self focus; I-position; to see one’s role in relationship problems • decrease emotional reactivity; therapist strives to minimize emotionality in therapy through neutrality and calmness • modify dysfunctional patterns; process questions aid awareness of what is going wrong and what needs to change • therapeutic triangle is essential; both partners are necessary

21. Therapist’s Goals • to remain neutral or “detriangled” • to focus on process (patterns of emotional reactivity) and structure (network of triangles) rather than content • not to settle disputes, but to get clients to do so • model the I-position for the clients

22. Therapy with one person • differentiation is the focus • cut-off indicated by denial of the importance of the family • development of one-to-one relationships with each family member

23. The client’s personal path to change • gathering information about the family • establishing relationships with as many family members as possible • identifying triangles in which you participate • detriangulating yourself

24. Interventions that Bowenians use • genograms • process descriptions and process questions • detriangulating • coaching • asking clients to take “I positions” • modeling I-position as the therapist • displacement stories

25. Examples of process questions • “What is it that you do that upsets her the most?” • “What do you think you do that creates distance between you and him?” • “What do you do when she starts to cry?” • “Who is the one that pursues in your relationship? Creates distance?”

26. Conditions for change • Whole family not necessary • Change takes place through the agency of individuals who are willing to change their individual, one-to-one relationships with the rest of the family • “Meet people where they are at, stay in the present, and respond appropriately”