Bowenian Therapy: A Study in Systems Theory, Essay Example

Bowenian therapy offers a very powerful means of helping families to recognize and overcome their destructive and harmful patterns of behavior. It is rooted in systems theory, which itself is the result of a truly massive paradigm shift that overturned the linear, pre-systemic paradigms: instead of straightforward causation, the systems theory approach teaches interdependence of many elements, with all of the elements together creating many causes and effects in very complex ways. This in turn led to Bowen’s insights regarding emotional systems, and how families manage—or fail to manage—them. The goal of Bowenian therapy is to help clients realize how their own lack of differentiation, defined as their ability to separate thoughts from feelings and self from others, is harming them and their loved ones, and how they can change. This powerful therapy promotes a view of the therapist as part of a therapeutic alliance system involving the family; within this framework the clients can map out their processes and began crafting new ones.

An accounting of the pre-systemic world of therapy might truly be said to begin and end with a consideration of causation. The entire mentality that served as the basis for the dominant paradigms in Western psychotherapeutic thought was linear, with events proceeding from causes in an entirely straightforward fashion (Winek, 2009, p. 6). From the time of Freud onward, then, the regnant models held that presenting symptoms of mental illness were caused by some prior events in a wholly straightforward manner. The trouble with this, as later practitioners were to learn, was that human beings do not work in quite so simple and straightforward a manner as, say, billiards. A straightforward consideration of causation and effect, while it amply serves the aims of the physical sciences, is inadequate for a full consideration of the issues which may underlie mental symptoms (pp. 6-7).

The linearity of the pre-systemic views undermined their ability to have any conception of the degree to which the complex interpersonal interchanges of the familial and communal systems could be of significance for the development of mental health issues. Indeed, a key problem of this approach is precisely the fact that it assumes, however implicitly, that the problem with someone who is mentally ill is intrapsychic, resulting from an impairment or difficulty of some kind that is internal to that person (Winek, 2009, p. 6). The reality is far more often a study in interaction, with different causes and effects feeding off of each other to the point where it may become impossible to fully ascertain cycles of causation (pp. 6-7).

Systemic theory is based on a number of concepts which reject entirely the assumptions of the pre-systemic, linear world. Equifinality is a case in point: this is the idea that any given end state may be the result of an infinite, or at least quite considerable, number of pathways. As Winek (2009) explains, a good example is actually depression: “we see that factors such as genetics, family of origin, drug usage, age, socioeconomic status, nutrition, exercise, self-concept, history, head trauma, and lack of social support can all contribute to its development” (p. 7). On the other side of the proverbial coin, there is equipotentiality, the idea that any given situation or state may produce any number of outcomes or final states. The possible ramifications of this may be demonstrated by returning to the example of the individual with depression, whose depression may be the result of any number of factors. By initiating changes in some number of these factors, possibly even all of them, it should be quite possible to enable the individual to overcome their issues with depression and achieve an outcome state that is not characterized by depression (p. 7).

Philosophically, the pre-systemic paradigms adhere to a more modernist approach. In this approach, reality is seen as an objective external reality, one that exists independently of human perception. Reality is ‘out there’, and it may be observed, measured, and made to yield its secrets. This view of reality favors a quantitative methodology for research, since quantitative methodologies are, indeed, suited to measuring and quantifying phenomena. Another ramification of all of this is a focus on the past, with the upbringing in the family of origin seen as influencing present symptoms. However, as recently as the 1940s and 1950s it was considered patently unethical to see multiple family members in a single session, because of multiple transference issues (Winek, 2009, pp. 7-8).

The rise of family therapy is fundamentally associated with the paradigm shift to systems theory, and a radically different way of conceptualizing reality itself. Ironically enough, the origins of the systems theory approach lie with mathematicians, physicists, and engineers—just the sort of specialists one would tend to intuitively think would favor a straightforward, linear approach. In fact, these researchers contributed enormously to the paradigm shift, precisely because they used their expertise to mechanically model the human brain, beginning in the 1940s and 1950s. With this came an insight so powerful and so penetrating that it held the key to a new way of looking at complex systems: in complex systems such as the human brain, the whole truly is more than the sum of its parts. The sum total of all the interrelated parts does not adequately describe the whole, because of emergent properties. With emergent properties, the system assumes a kind of new thing-ness, becoming something that simply did not exist before. a key part of this is that any change to any part of the system will have ripple effects that will affect all parts (Winek, 2009, p. 8).

The groundwork may have been laid by engineers, physicists, and mathematicians, but therapists were quick to appreciate their insights. They realized that if the brain is a complex system after all, perhaps it would only be meet to seek to ascertain how it functions in response to multiple causes and effects, especially those of other brains, other complex systems that cannot be simply reduced to their component parts. From this comes the systemic perspective on the family as a whole consisting of interdependent parts, a whole that can be thought of as an entity in its own right (Goldenberg & Goldenberg, 2013, pp. 91-92; Winek, 2009, p. 8).

Systems theory differs sharply from pre-systemic perspectives in that it is circular rather than linear, and postmodernist and constructivist rather than modernist and positivist. There is no objective external reality from the postmodernist perspective: instead, perception shapes the experience of reality. For a postmodernist, mental health issues do not of necessity reflect some deficiency or trauma in the person’s upbringing. In fact, they may not even indicate conflict at all. From the constructivist standpoint, which is a part of this broader platform of systems theory, perceptions of reality and beliefs about self and others are constructed, and are then used to guide behavior and affect. Individual family members, and the family as a whole, return to these constructions again and again to guide their behavior as they seek to go forward (Goldenberg & Goldenberg, 2013, p. 23).

This, of course, changes the landscape for therapy profoundly: instead of ferreting out putative past trauma or deficiencies in the upbringing, the therapist can engage with the family and seek to ascertain how they communicate, as well as what they tell themselves and each other with the narratives that they have constructed. This too raises an important point, another distinction with the older, pre-systemic approaches: the systemic approach holds that one cannot observe a system outside of it, since to observe and try to change a system is to participate in it. This is second-order cybernetics, contrasting with the first-order cybernetics of the pre-systemic approach: the idea that there is the family system on the one hand, and the client-therapist system on the other (Goldenberg & Goldenberg, 2013, pp. 23-24).

There were a number of important figures responsible for this transition. Beginning in the early 1940s, many of them met in a series of conferences, the Macy Conferences, and produced the important conceptions of both general systems theory and cybernetic systems theory. These theories describe the functioning of complex systems, with all of their constituent parts working together interactively to produce emergent properties in the whole (Gehart, 2014, p. 38).

Anthropologist Gregory Bateson was one of the more important figures who participated in these conferences. He used his studies of inter-tribal interactions in New Guinea and in Bali to articulate cybernetic systems theory, an important model of how complex systems function (Gehart, 2014, p. 38). Bateson’s contributions included insights into human behavior in terms of social systems, rather than intrapsychic functions. He also produced a theory of schizophrenia based on his own extensive, ten-year-long study of how families with schizophrenic family members communicated. His double-bind theory of schizophrenia “reconceptualized psychotic behavior as an attempt to meaningfully respond in a family system characterized by double-bind communications” (p. 38).

Milton Erickson was another significant figure. Known for his unconventional and dramatically successful therapies, Erickson used hypnotherapy and paradoxical directives to bypass client resistance and motivate them to utilize their strengths in such a way as to overcome their problems (Haley, 1993, pp. 18-19; Kottler & Montgomery, 2011, p. 254). Erickson contributed tremendously to systems theory, with his “brief, rapid, and creative interventions” (Gehart, 2014, p. 38).

For systems theory, families are entities governed by rules. These rules shape behavior, effectively determining who is allowed to do what, who is expected to do what, and so forth. Rules, for families, are guides to behavior. Often unspoken, family rules might determine any number of important behaviors that help the family to regulate itself. Values and roles are established through rules, which helps to determine much regarding who does what in a household. With some couples, one partner may be the more pragmatic, straightforward partner, while the other is the more feeling, supportive partner. With other couples, both partners may have elements of each (Goldenberg & Goldenberg, 2013, pp. 91-93).

For the therapist, understanding a family’s rules can provide a roadmap of sorts to understanding the family. If the therapist can ascertain how the family is used to acting and why, they will be that much more well prepared to help them correct behavior patterns that are not productive. An important idea here, amply born out in practice, is that out of a spectrum encompassing all possible behavior, families will usually determine some preferred range that encompasses how they will interact with each other. Following Jackson (1965) this usually follows a kind of redundancy principle, which builds a great deal of repetition into the family system (ctd. in Goldenberg & Goldenberg, 2013, p. 93). Understand the rules, begin to understand the family.

There are arguably two different types of rules, which can be characterized with particular metaphors. Descriptive rules, characterized by descriptive metaphors, describe patterns of interchange. In essence, descriptive rules describe what actually happens, or will happen. In different families, different descriptive rules may or may not be negotiable. In general, “rigid families may have too many rules, chaotic families too few” (Goldenberg & Goldenberg, 2013, pp. 93-94). Prescriptive rules, on the other hand, are based on prescriptive metaphors. For example: “’Children allow parents to speak without interruption’; ‘Children hang up their clothes’… ‘Mother makes decisions regarding the purchase of new clothes’” (p. 94). Other examples may include gender roles, governing a gendered division of labor (or a relative lack thereof), and other cultural and/or religious values (p. 94).

The aforementioned are the kinds of rules that are usually quite openly stated and explicit: they are usually very clear. However, it is quite common for families to have rules that are not explicitly stated. Children often know which of their parents to approach in order to get the best response to a problem or a dispute in any given situation—or indeed if they should approach their parents at all. Some families are warm and nurturing, others are conflict-prone and fractious. With these characteristics, systems theory argues, come rules, many of which will remain unstated and not at all explicit (Goldenberg & Goldenberg, 2013, p. 94).

Fundamentally, rules function to provide families with a means of self-correction in order to maintain a self-regulating, balanced state of homeostasis. Without rules, there would be nothing to correct with or to, since there would be no clear idea of what to do to improve things, and/or what improving things would look like. Indeed, this is precisely the problem with chaotic, disordered families: they are not well equipped to correct their problems because they do not have enough rules that are sufficiently enforced. Here, however, a vital point is that maintaining homeostasis is not about maintaining a static state, but rather a balanced, dynamic state. And in order to maintain balance in a dynamic system, feedback is necessary (Gehart, 2014, p. 39).

There are two kinds of feedback which a system can provide: positive feedback and negative feedback. These terms require some definition. In essence, negative feedback means that no new information is coming in. Things are the same: there is no change detectable. Positive feedback, on the other hand, means that something is changing. Such a change could be a beneficial thing or a detrimental thing, and either kind of positive feedback can create reactions that will produce one of two outcomes: “(a) return to former homeostasis, or (b) create a new homeostasis” (Gehart, 2014, p. 40). The changes produced may also be of two kinds: second-order, and first-order. With second-order change, a new normal is produced. The system acquires a new homeostasis, a new baseline from which to measure future change. First-order change, on the other hand, occurs when the system self-corrects in order to return to the homeostasis it had before (p. 40).

Families also have subsystems. These subsystems are of the most foundational importance if the rules of a family system are to be understood. First, there is the parental subsystem, which consists of parents and may, depending on family and culture, also consist of grandparents, older siblings tasked with some responsibilities for younger siblings, and the like. This subsystem provides a kind of governing organ in the family system, responsible for raising children and (hopefully) instilling discipline. When this subsystem functions well, children learn healthy ways of dealing with those in authority over them, while also finding their own abilities for decision making. When this subsystem functions poorly and breaks down, as can be seen in cases of rebellion, defiance, and other problematic behaviors, there are often deep-rooted issues involved (Goldenberg & Goldenberg, 2013, p. 101).

A second main subsystem is that of the siblings, for those who have them. As Goldenberg and Goldenberg (2013) explain, sibling relationships are of profound importance for developing interpersonal skills, helping children to learn how to deal with other people (p. 101). Siblings are also very often a source of profound and lifelong connections. Overall, this subsystem tends to be highly dependent on the family system’s other subsystems: if those function well, it will too; if not, then very probably not (p. 101). There are other subsystems in families as well, such as mother-daughter, father-son, mother-youngest child, and the like, but they are usually less important than the ones described (p. 101).

Individuals, subsystems, and systems are separated from each other and from the outside by boundaries. Behavioral boundaries, based on rules, determine the scope for autonomy of the individual, and often what they are expected to contribute to a subsystem or system as well. Subsystems within a family system also have boundaries, and families have boundaries with the outside world. In some cases, the boundaries serve as gatekeepers: there might be a rule, for example, that family problems—possibly including quite severe ones—are not to be discussed with those who are not family members. They may also reify important values, such as punctuality, respect for others, or particular religious and/or cultural practices (Goldenberg & Goldenberg, 2013, p. 101).

A healthy, well-functioning boundary is strong enough to differentiate the individuals, subsystems, or systems it defines, but also open enough to permit sufficient interchange. A common family example: a parent may reinforce the boundary between the parental subsystem and the sibling subsystem by telling the oldest child that they are not allowed to dictate to their siblings; however, the parent may suspend this rule on certain occasions, entrusting the oldest sibling with a limited authority to watch their younger siblings while the parents go out for the evening (Goldenberg & Goldenberg, 2013, pp. 101-102). Good boundaries are well-defined, clearly specifying who is and is not within the category in question and what their responsibilities are, but they are also permeable, facilitating exchange with the outside (p. 102).

This, then, constitutes the background to Bowenian intergenerational therapy. Bowenian intergenerational therapy draws heavily from the background of systems theory, conceptualizing individuals and the relationships that define their family systems. A key concept in Bowenian therapy is differentiation, a term used to describe the ability of the individual to distinguish between intrapersonal and interpersonal distress (Gehart, 2014, p. 230). With intrapersonal differentation, the seminal objective of successful differentiation is the separation of thoughts from feelings. By so doing, the individual is better able to respond to circumstances that may confront them: rather than merely reacting, they are able to respond in a cogent manner, thinking rather than merely feeling. Interpersonal differentiation covers the ability to distinguish between self and others, a valuable skill in interacting with others socially (p. 230).

For Bowen, differentiation consisted of the ability of the individual to strike a balance between their needs for togetherness on the one hand, and autonomy on the other (Gehart, 2014, p. 230). The more differentiated the person, the more capable they are of separating thoughts from feelings and self from others. This means that more differentiated people are more capable of handling life’s challenges, including the challenges of living in a family, or being in an intimate relationship (p. 230). More differentiated people are better capable of exercising their own faculties for thinking, planning, and carrying out their designs. This is especially marked where issues that may provoke anxiety, fear, or other insecurities are involved: the more differentiated person will be at an advantage, because of their ability to distinguish feelings from thoughts and self from others (Goldenberg & Goldenberg, p. 208).

Another distinction Bowen drew is between the pseudo-self and the solid-self. Someone who has achieved a solid self, the desirable state in Bowen’s thought, “operates on the basis of clearly defined beliefs, opinions, convictions, and life principles developed through the process of intellectual reasoning and the consideration of alternatives” (Becvar & Becvar, 2013, p. 146). On the other hand, those individuals with a highly fused state often exhibit a pseudo-self, making choices “on the basis of emotional pressures rather than on the basis of reasoned principles” (p. 146). These people are not very self-aware, and as such are not aware of the fact that they are frequently inconsistent (p. 146).

Bowen believed that the great test of the differentiation experience was the ability of the individual to differentiate themselves from their parents. The test, then, is for the individual to be able to successfully differentiate, negotiating the bonds that they have with their parents and establishing their own identity. To be sure, however, the expression of this varies by culture: not all cultures process this in the same manner. A key point is that this is also not about detachment, only differentiation: a well-differentiated person may still have very deep, strong feelings about any subject, but they are not ruled by those feelings. They understand their feelings, and can distinguish them from their thoughts. This helps them to be more rational about what they think and feel (Goldenberg & Goldenberg, 2013, p. 209).

The opposite of differentiation is fusion. Bowen believed, and the current wisdom remains, that individuals who are poorly differentiated tend to be poorly differentiated, or highly fused, both with respect to self and others and with respect to thoughts and feelings. These individuals react adversely to even very low levels of stress, because they are unable to process their circumstances very capably. Such individuals are frequently ruled by their reactions, by whatever strong emotion may seize them—or others, since they are also poorly differentiated from their families (Goldenberg & Goldenberg, 2013, p. 209). Such individuals are often vulnerable to exercising too little responsibility for themselves, and/or exercising too much for others. One ramification of all this is that the poorly-differentiated, highly fused person consumes their energy in frustration, anxiety, and other emotional experiences, as well as in their entangled relationships. This leaves them with little in the way of energy to self-direct, meaning they are not terribly capable of contributing to a healthy, balanced homeostatic state in their marriage and/or family. In fact, their dysfunctional behavior is frequently an integral part of the regular state (Klever, 1998, p. 121).

These ideas in turn are solidly connected to Bowen’s intergenerational hypothesis. Bowen believed that people exercise assortative mating preferences with regard to their level of differentiation. He believed that people were attracted to those with similar levels of differentiation. Thus, poorly differentiated people tend to find each other, get married, and start families. The same is true for well-differentiated people, of course, but they are much less likely to need the help of a therapist. Because poorly differentiated people tend to start families that replicate the patterns they grew up with, those problems are in turn quite frequently passed down to the next generation (Becvar & Becvar, 2013, p. 146).

The logical outcome of the pairing of two undifferentiated people is that both individuals will end up in a kind of reflective, mutually-reinforcing spiral: undifferentiated, they will both look to the other for a sense of belonging, stability, and surety. The problem is that since they are both in need of this and unable to provide it, they end up caught in a spiral of instability and relationship turmoil: each party is looking to the other, but neither is able to give the other party what they need (Becvar & Becvar, 2013, p. 146). One consequence of this is emotional reactivity, a volatile mixture of clashing emotions that produces distance between the spouses. Since each cannot get stability from the other, the relationship stalls—or is prone to profound conflict. In either case, distance is the result, isolation bred of the inability to find meaningful fulfillment in the relationship. Dysfunction of one kind or another is another outcome that is very common, as the parties are unable to resolve their differences and aid each other properly. Outright conflict is still another result, as the differences breed resentment and anger, leading to fighting. Projection of the problem is another outcome that is also very common with this pattern of instability, as both partners are unable to resolve it properly for themselves (p. 146).

It is this last deleterious outcome, projection of the problem onto one or more of the children in the family, that is the beginning of triangulation. Bowen believed that dyads, two-person systems, were prone to much more stability as long as they were calm. After all, two people can form a pattern of mutually-reinforcing behavior which, even if dysfunctional in many ways, is nonetheless relatively stable. At any rate, it is much easier to achieve and maintain this outcome with two people than it is with three people, a triangle or triad. It is not only that the threshold for destabilization is much lower with three people; rather, a dyad that becomes too stressed may result in one or even both parties seeking the aid of a third party, usually a vulnerable third party, to bolster their position. This logic, of course, extends to both parties, so a single triad can very easily lead to an escalating cascade of interlocking triangles, triangles feeding upon triangles to greatly compound the problem (Becvar & Becvar, 2013, p. 146).

The result: a process of family projection, by which the parents project their lack of differentiation and all the problems attendant upon it onto their children. The typical pathway involves anxiety, the result of the emotional fusion. The parents then communicate their anxiety to the child, thereby involving the child in their own efforts to gain stability and assurance. Bowen believed that much the most common form of triangulation was “one in which the child resonates the mother’s instability and lack of confidence in herself as mother, which the mother interprets as a problem in the child” (Becvar & Becvar, 2013, p. 147). The result: overprotection and increased attention on the part of the mother towards the child. This in turn decreases the child’s functionality, as they in effect learn to be passive, learn to be helpless. Then comes the role of the father: he will try to “calm the mother and play a supportive role in dealing with the child” (p. 147). The result of this profoundly unhealthy pattern, however, is a new kind of stability: both mother and father are being attentive to the child’s problems, even if they are doing so in a way that is teaching the child passivity and helplessness. The result is that the couple has now oriented themselves around the child’s problems. The child’s problems dominate the couple’s lives, and thus the family life. It is unhealthy and dysfunctional, but it is stable, and it is a thoroughly rule-governed system (p. 147).

Bowen believed that there were different pathways by which the third person in a triangle becomes involved in that triangle. In some cases, the dyad may actively recruit them, quite possibly unwillingly: for example, a mother-daughter dyad might recruit the father to help resolve a pattern of disputation; vice-versa for a father-son dyad and the mother. It is also possible, Bowen believed, for the highly charged emotions of the dyad to “overflow”, in which case they, in effect, spill over onto the third person and involve them that way. Children may often feel like this when their parents are fighting, and especially during a divorce. Finally, the third person may have a predisposition due to emotional programming to become involved, whether because that is just how the family does things generally, or because of some specific rule or circumstance (Goldenberg & Goldenberg, 2013, p. 212).

From all of this it follows that intergenerational processes are indeed of paramount importance—as Bowen believed. Following Bowenian therapy, one powerful assessment tool for helping couples and families is the genogram. This is essentially a kind of history of family events, one that maps out the processes that characterize the family and the etiologies thereof. By so doing, the therapist can help the family to see how they are being dysfunctional, why—this is always an important part of Bowenian therapy, the why—and, crucially, possibilities for change. The genogram is much, much more than an assessment tool: as Gehart (2014) explains, it is also a very powerful means of intervention (p. 231). The assessment part of the genogram is the way in which it maps out important intergenerational patterns. A genogram can include parenting styles and personalities: for example, an authoritarian father with an anger problem has a daughter who grows up to replicate many of these same patterns in her family. Perhaps her husband comes from a family where no one ever raised their voice or even talked about their feelings much, and so the two have many problems in their marriage.

In this case, the genogram would help them to see all of this more clearly, simply by putting it down and making it legible. If done well, a genogram is a very real consciousness-raising exercise, one that can help people to appreciate things that they might never have even considered before. This in turn can serve as the touchstone for very real and very powerful interventions. The interventions typically take the form of helping people to realize how they can do things differently, by breaking the cycles of ineffective, harmful, and dysfunctional behavior. By so doing, the couple/family can begin to repair the damage. Very often, the ‘intervention’ will follow quite naturally from the process of mapping out the genogram, as the clients realize that they are simply replicating harmful patterns of behavior, and determine to affect a change for the better (Gehart, 2014, p. 231; Goldenberg & Goldenberg, 2013).

From all of this a great deal follows about the role of the therapist, how change occurs, and what ‘health’ looks like. For one thing, the therapist has to be able to lead by example. ‘Health’ means differentiation: this much has already been established. Therefore, the goal of therapy is to help the clients to become differentiated. Only the differentiated therapist can help a client: it is scarcely conceivable that a poorly-differentiated therapist could be of much help to a client. One very important reason for this is that only a differentiated person, in this line of theory, is capable of maintaining a presence that is relatively free from anxiety. This is because, again, differentiation between emotions and thoughts is required if one is to be able to master one’s emotions and not be ruled by them. If one is not differentiated, then the first time that something goes wrong or someone expresses anxiety—again, differentiation includes differentiation of self and others—then the therapist is likely to become anxious as well. For this reason, the therapist must be a paragon of the thing that they are trying to teach the client(s) if they are to progress at all (Gehart, 2014, p. 232).

What, then, does Bowenian therapy actually consist of? What does it look like? The answer is that it consists of a great deal of observation and discussion. There are no special tricks, as it were: what matters is the process. What Bowen aimed to do was to help his clients create a roadmap for change—and to do that, they had to see where they had been. The means of therapy, then, entail the therapist sitting down with the clients and going over the processes of the family: what has happened, and with whom, and how, and why. Only by so doing can the therapist help the clients to see what has gone wrong, where, with whom, how, why, and how they might be able to rectify the deleterious patterns of behavior with better and more effective patterns of behavior. A key emphasis of this methodology is focusing on emotional systems, emotional processes: only by so doing, Bowen believed, could the therapist help their clients to facilitate a changed situation, a better family life, one characterized by support and building up of each other rather than whatever dysfunctional and harmful behavior they may be manifesting (Becvar & Becvar, 2013, pp. 149-150).

Bowenian therapy is systems therapy, based on systems theory. Unlike other schools that focus on specific itemized elements, say, Bowenian therapy looks at how the systems in question work. This is what the therapist must observe, and in observing must communicate to their clients. Only by so doing can the clients have a real shot at change—at effectively overturning the problematic patterns of behavior and substituting good, beneficial patterns of behavior. This is why Bowenian therapy is not reducible to a great deal of specific techniques: it is about the process, and as such is concerned to a great degree with the journey, as it were, as well as the destination. Still, there are specific things that the therapist can and should do, and others they should avoid (Becvar & Becvar, 2013, pp. 149-150).

In the actual therapy itself, then, the first key thing for the therapist to be able to help the clients ascertain is the emotional systems of the family. Once the family has identified these, the whole process will become the more simple. The emotional systems of the family are those processes that affect the regulation of the whole such that they determine the family’s means of processing affect. From this it follows that if there is a dysfunction in any part of the system, the problem will lie within one or more of the family’s emotional systems. Emotional systems may include any number of processes for solving problems, and as such may channel anger, fear, and other negative emotions as well as love, reassurance and support. What characterizes all such systems is their interdependence, such that all elements are tied together and affect each other. Resources used to counter or ameliorate the effects of one parent’s drinking problem, say, or anger problem cannot be used to provide support to other members for other things—or to counter or ameliorate their dysfunctions (Gehart, 2014, p. 233; Becvar & Becvar, 2013; Goldenberg & Goldenberg, 2013).

Bowen believed that chronic anxiety was present in all natural systems. Chronic anxiety, he held, was a natural response to traumatic events—to crises, to conflict, to loss, to other difficulties of a serious nature. Chronic anxiety is natural, but it is not necessarily good or healthy or beneficial in any way. Bowen believed that he could reduce chronic anxiety in a family by helping them to facilitate their own differentiation. Again, since differentiation enables one to effectively rule one’s emotions and not be ruled by them, then it follows that a family of well-differentiated individuals would be more capable of overcoming chronic anxiety and seeing things with clearer heads, which should in turn help them to overcome the problems at hand and produce a situation where chronic anxiety is not likely to arise (Gehart, 2014, p. 233).

The therapist can then help the clients to see how their emotional systems flow through multigenerational patterns of transmission, as parents, say, project their anxiety onto their children, or model dysfunctional and harmful patterns of behavior involving substance abuse, anger, and the like. This can also help clients to see whether they are replicating Patterns X, Y, and Z, or rebelling against them—after all, children often diverge from their parents on at least some issues, and sometimes they outright rebel against parental policies. A conservative, conventional family may produce a wildly unconventional son or daughter; a weak, indecisive, or even absent parent may produce a son or daughter who becomes strong, capable, resourceful, and caring of others because they had to be so growing up. This exercise can help clients to see both what works and what doesn’t: thus, it is not necessarily an unending litany of dysfunctions and pathologies, but rather an examination of what has been going on in the family, why, and whether or not this part or that part is working (Becvar & Becvar, 2013, pp. 144-149; Gehart, 2014, p. 233).

This exercise is, to be sure, a very powerful one. It can also help clients to figure out their level of differentiation, and how this has been passed down (or not) through the generations. If the clients can see this, then they will be able to figure out where they need to improve in terms of differentiating emotions and thoughts, and between individuals. All of this can in turn enable clients to see emotional triangles, how unstable dyads—say, mother and father—involve third parties, such as one or more of the children, and how this produces a cascade of instability that compounds misery of all kinds. Indeed, triangles are especially important to identify. So too is the family projection process, since this is how the anxieties and dysfunctions of the parents’ relationship are transmitted to the children. Conversely, an especially important process for the therapist to help clients assess is emotional cutoff: the situations in which Person A no longer engages with Person B emotionally. Cutoff is especially important to root out because it can be so pernicious: people who display cutoff usually believe that they are healthy for doing so, because it is a means of actually regulating their emotions and how they interact with others. In fact, cutoff is typically a sign of problems with differentiation: fusion has gotten to the point where Person A must not interact with Person B if they want to be comfortable at all. Basically it is an attempt to rectify a bad case of fusion, but it relies on avoiding the problem by avoiding the person—not a healthy pattern in the least (Gehart, 2014, pp. 234-236; Becvar & Becvar, 2013, pp. 146-150).

What, then, is the central conception of health in Bowen’s model? In fact, Bowen’s model does away with normalcy as such: it is about levels of functioning, and it recognizes that there is a spectrum. A healthy family may still have certain patterns that are not optimal, and it is neither realistic nor at all reasonable to expect even a very healthy family to be able to deal with all situations it may face. Different individuals have different strengths; ipso facto, one healthy family that may be very good at dealing with some crises may be very poor at dealing with others, especially if they are well outside of its pool of experience (Becvar & Becvar, 2013, pp. 147-148).

All of this said, to state the obvious Bowenian theory has very decided ideas about health and pathology. The differentiated individual and the differentiated family are healthy; the undifferentiated, fused individual/couple/family are not. There is a continuum, and many different people and families can be found at very different points on the continuum, but there is still a very clear direction in that differentiation creates a more healthy situation, and fusion creates a less healthy situation. Correcting pathology and promoting health, then, means helping clients to see how they are not differentiated, and the specific patterns of problematic and hurtful behavior they are replicating, and to use these insights in a meaningful, productive way to craft new patterns of communication and behavior (Becvar & Becvar, 2013, pp. 148-150).

With this comes some very important assumptions about what is a healthy, differentiated individual. A healthy, differentiated individual is inner-directed rather than outer-directed: she looks to herself for meaning, focus, purpose, and the ability to set her own goals. She believes in taking responsibility for herself, and lives her life accordingly. She relates to others from a position of strength rather than ‘weakness’ or need. She separates thinking from feeling. To put it mildly, these are quite particular assumptions, and not everyone may share them—indeed, there may be good reason not to, depending the point of view one may hold to. Nonetheless, the model remains a highly useful one (Becvar & Becvar, 2013, p. 149).

Systems theory constitutes one of the truly great paradigm shifts in the history of thought. It overturned modernist, positivist epistemology and realist ontogeny for constructivist, postmodern ontogenies and epistemologies. In so doing, it laid the foundations of Bowenian therapy. Rather than a simple cause and effect joining putative childhood traumas to present dysfunctions, Bowenian therapy joins multiple elements of a family system together, and looks at many different levels of interlocking causation and triangulation. Bowenian therapy also focuses on differentiation, the ways in which people do or do not separate emotions from thoughts and self from others. In so doing, Bowenian therapy offers clients a very powerful means of figuring out exactly what it is that they are doing that is not working, and how to fix it. By so doing, Bowenian therapy teaches clients to use their own strengths to, in effect, heal themselves and their loved ones.

References

Becvar, D. S., & Becvar, R. J. (2013). Family therapy: A systemic integration (8^th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.

Gehart, D. (2014). Mastering competencies in family therapy: A practical approach to theory and clinical case documentation (2nd ed.). Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole.

Goldenberg, I., & Goldenberg, H. (2013). Family therapy: an overview (8^th ed.). Belmont, CA: Brooke/Cole Cengage Learning.

Klever, P. (1998). Marital fusion and differentiation. In P. Titelman (Ed.), Clinical applications of Bowen Family Systems Theory (pp. 119-146). Binghamton, NY: The Haworth Press.

Kottler, J. A., & Montgomery, M. J. (2011). Theories of counseling and therapy: An experiential approach (2^nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.

Winek, J. L. (2009). Systemic family therapy: From theory to practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.