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Bowen Theory a natural systems theory of the family

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Title: Bowen Theory a natural systems theory of the family


1
Bowen Theory a natural systems theory of the
family
2
Underlying concepts
  • Counterbalancing forces
  • togetherness
  • individuality
  • unbalanced togetherness fusion,
    undifferentiation
  • unbalanced individuality emotional cutoff

3
Differentiation
  • the capacity for autonomous functioning, helps
    people avoid getting caught up in reactive
    polarities.
  • Otherwise emotional reactivity results in
    polarized positions pursuer/distancer,
    overfunctioning/underfunctioning

4
Differentiation of Self
  • Intrapsychic separate feeling from thinking
  • Between self and other

5
Differentiation- Undiff..continuum
  • Undifferentiation
  • react emotionally to family dictates
  • little autonomous identity, tend to fuse with
    others
  • Differentiation
  • take definite stands because can think things
    through, decide what they believe and act on it
  • can be intimately involved without reflexive
    action

6
Triangles
  • Virtually all emotionally significant
    relationships shadowed by third parties
  • most likely to develop when there is distance
  • average person is about as able to resist
    triangles as cat is able to resist birds.

7
Nuclear Family Emotional Process
  • Parental transmission of immaturity and lack of
    differentiation
  • child as object of projection process

8
Multigenerational Transmission Process
  • Child most involved in familys fusion moves
    toward lower level of differentiation of self,
    while least involved moves toward higher level of
    differentiation
  • multigenerational sequence in which all are
    actors/reactors

9
Sibling Position
  • Frank Suloway (1996) Born to Rebel Personality
    is the repertoire of strategies that siblings use
    to compete with one another, secure a place in
    the family and survive the ordeal of childhood
  • myth of shared family environment, multiplicity
    of microenvironments, collection of niches,
    vantage points

10
Emotional Cutoff
  • The way people manage undifferentiation(and
    emotional intensity associated with it)
  • The greater the fusion between generations, the
    greater the likelihood of cutoff

11
Societal Emotional Process
  • Background influence affecting all families
  • prolonged increase in social anxiety can lower
    family functioning
  • sexism
  • racism
  • Terrorism
  • Other isms

12
Optimal Family Development
  • Family members relatively differentiated, anxiety
    is low and parents in good emotional contact with
    own families of origin
  • leave home unresolved unresolved sensitivities
    that flare up in intense relationships

13
Development...
  • Emotional attachment of spouses resembles family
    of origin
  • Main goal Decrease anxiety and increase
    differentiation of self nothing else lasts
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