Disclaimer—Any attempt to describe another scientists theory and thinking risks the subjectivity of the writer’s head altering in some way the original. In an effort to avoid this the writer has used almost exclusively the words of Murray Bowen, MD, from his books, articles and reports to NIMH during his research study to describe Bowen Family Systems Theory. Bowen’s words are indicated below in italics or quotation marks. Dr. Bowen challenged his audiences to always read original works whether in Freud, Darwin or E. O. Wilson to name a few. The following sources of Dr. Bowen’s writing and thinking are recommended for serious students of the theory. The references below were used in the description of Bowen Theory.
- Bowen, M. Family Theory in Clinical Practice, A Jason Aronson Book, originally published 1978; The below quotes are taken from the Rowan and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., soft cover edition, 2004.
- Kerr, M. & Bowen, M. Family Evaluation, W.W. Norton & Company, NY, 1988.
- Murray Bowen, edited by J. Butler. The Origins of Family Psychotherapy, Jason Aronson, 2013.
L. Murray Bowen, MD, (1913-1990) pioneered the concept of the family as a system guided by the same scientific principles that shape all forms of life. While embracing some tenants of Freudian theory, Bowen broke with existing paradigms of human behavior and instead based his thinking and theory in evolution. Bowen wrote:
If knowledge about the human ever becomes an accepted science, it can share new knowledge with the accepted sciences and proceed into the future with the other sciences. I support the view that the human is as scientific as the other forms of life on the planet, that it will finally be possible to construct a total human theory from scientific facts alone, and that the feeling elements of human existence will be handled in relationship with other human beings. (Family Evaluation, M. Kerr & M. Bowen, p. 360, 1988.)
Dr. Bowen undertook a unique research study at the National Institute of Mental Health (1954-1959) where he housed young adults diagnosed with schizophrenia, first with their mothers and then later with other family members all living on an inpatient psychiatric unit. Meticulous observations undertaken 24/7 by trained staff revealed patterns of functioning that led to the development of Bowen Family Systems Theory. The initial hypotheses that the intense mutual connection between mother and child in utero and after birth was a central mammalian characteristic vital to survival and that the intensity of that connection would impede the offspring’s ability to achieve autonomy as an adult (Butler, 6, 2015). The ability to observe the family on the psychiatric unit and chronicle verbal and non-verbal movements led to a revision of the hypothesis to acknowledge that the intensity of the mother-child relationship was broader then the dyad and involved the whole family. Dr. Bowen’s view of the family shifted to that of an interlocking system.
Dr. Bowen read extensively in the sciences searching for ways other disciplines had dealt with scientific facts and feeling states. He found astronomy and paleontology to be baselines for science and that the sciences from nature itself were devoid of feeling states. “The scientific facts of evolution have been chosen to replace many of the ides in Freudian theory. Evolution is a rich body of facts that can be proven and validated.” “I fashioned a natural systems theory, designed to fit precisely with the principles of evolution and the human as an evolutionary being. (Bowen, p 304, 2004)
Murray Bowen relied on basic ideas about the nature of man that guided the selection of concepts for Bowen Family Systems Theory. These included:
Man is conceived as the most complex form of life that evolved from the lower forms and is intimately connected with all living things.
The most important difference between man and the lower forms is his cerebral cortex and his ability to think and reason.
Intellectual functioning is regarded as distinctly different from emotional functioning, which man shares with lower forms.
Emotional functioning includes the automatic forces that govern protoplasmic life. It includes the force that biology defines as instinct, reproduction, the automatic activity controlled by the autonomic nervous system, subjective emotional and feeling states, and the forces that govern relationship systems.
In broad terms, the emotional system governs the “dance of life” in all living things. It is deep in the phylogenetic past and is much older than the intellectual system.
The theory postulates that far more human activity is governed by man’s emotional system than he has been willing to admit, and there is far more similarity than dissimilarity between the “dance of life” in life in lower forms and the “dance of life” in human forms.
Emotional illness is postulated as a dysfunction of the emotional system.
A major concept in this systems theory is developed around the notion of fusion between the emotions and the intellect. The degree of fusion in people is variable and discernable. The amount of fusion in a person can be used as a predictor of the pattern of life in that person. (Bowen, p 304-305, 2004)
As Dr. Bowen identified concepts to include in his systems theory of the family he worked “to couch new ideas in biological terms, to make it easier for research-oriented people in the future.” (Bowen, p 345, 2004). Bowen chronicled the new ideas emerging from family system theory. These ideas, listed below, represent an abbreviated form of the concepts in Bowen Family Systems Theory along with other guiding principles. More detailed writing about each of the nine concepts in the theory will be presented later.
New ideas emerging from family systems theory:
- a theory based on facts alone
- the family diagram, to handle the voluminous material
- the emotional system, which included biological facts, in addition to old ideas about feelings
- the differentiation of self, to denote ways that each person is basically different from others
- triangles, the basic building blocks of any emotional system, carefully separated from the old terms of dyad and triad
- fusion, to denote ways people borrow or lend a self to another
- cutoffs, to describe the immature separation of people from each other
- nuclear family emotional system, to describe the complex ways parents handle emotional process in a single generation
- the nuclear family projection process, to describe the automatic emotional system, to describe unseen involvement of the extended families
- the extended family emotional system, to describe unseen involvement of the extended families
- the multigenerational transmission process, to describe the patterns of emotional process through multiple generations
- the therapist’s involvement of self, to describe the process through which the therapist becomes involved in the family emotional process, or ways he can be separate from the family unit
- the fact that these are all systems components of the large emotional system, which is the family
- meshing of the family system with the environment, to describe the ways the family is part of the total society
A Systems Theory of Emotional Functioning
An early report from Dr. Bowen’s NIMH study of families quoted by J. Butler (2013) contained the following observation about the families on the unit:
“The psychopathology fluctuated in a way to suggest “first the schizophrenia is in the patient and now it is in the mother” and the area of the problem shifted in a way to suggest first the problem is between mother and patient and now it is between mother and the rest of the family.”
This observation represents the early conceptualization of family emotional functioning and led Dr. Bowen to conceptualize the family as an emotional system.
Man is conceived as the most complex form of life that evolved from the lower forms and is intimately connected with all living things. The most important difference between man and the lower forms is his cerebral cortex and his ability to think and reason. Intellectual functioning is regarded as distinctly different from emotional functioning, which man shares with lower forms. Emotional functioning includes the automatic forces that govern protoplasmic life. It includes the force that biology defines as instinct, reproduction, the automatic activity controlled by the autonomic nervous system, subjective emotional and feeling states, and the forces that govern relationship systems. There are varying degrees of overlap between emotional and intellectual functioning. (Bowen, p 304-305, 2004)
Bowen termed this overlap “fusion”. He used the term emotional illness denoting a dysfunction of the emotional system in place of standard psychiatric diagnostic terms. The degree of fusion between the emotional and intellectual system in the human varies. Bowen wrote that the greater the fusion between the emotion and the intellect, the more life is governed by automatic emotional forces that operate, the more the individual is fused into the emotional fusions of people around him, the more man is vulnerable to physical illness, emotional illness, and social illness and the less he is able to consciously control his own life. It is possible for man to discriminate between the emotions and the intellect and to slowly gain more conscious control of emotional functioning. (Bowen, p 305, 2004) A method for gaining conscious control over automatic functioning is biofeedback and neurofeedback used in conjunction with the study of one’s own family.
Differentiation of self-scale: This concept is the cornerstone of the theory. It includes principles for estimating the degree of fusion between the intellect and emotions… The scale refers to the level of solid self which is within self, which is stable under stress, and which remains uninfluenced by the relationship system. (Bowen p 306, 2004) Opposite of this is pseudo-self which is determined by the relationship system and which can fluctuate from day to day, or year to year. Pseudo self can be increased by positive relationships and periods of low tension in the individual and can also be decreased by negative relationships and increases in tension in and around the individual. (Bowen, p 306, 2004) Bowen used a three-generation family diagram and level of current life function to estimate a person’s level of differentiation of self.
Triangles: This concept describes the way any three people relate to each other and involve others in the emotional issues between them. The triangle appears so basic that it probably also operates in animal societies. The concept postulates the triangle, or three person system, as the molecule or building block of any relationship system. A two person system is basically unstable. In a tension field, the two people predictably involve a third person to make a triangle. If it involves four or more people, the system becomes a series of interlocking triangles. There are two important variables in the triangles. One deals with the level of “differentiation of self.” The other variable deals with the level of anxiety or emotional tension in the system. The higher the anxiety, the more intense the automatic triangling in the system. The lower the differentiation of self in the involved people, the more intense the triangling. The higher the level of differentiation, the more people have control over the emotional process. In periods of low anxiety, the triangling may be so toned down it is not clinically present. In calm periods, the triangle consists of a two-person togetherness and an outsider. (Bowen, p 307, 2004). Bowen describes the togetherness as the preferred position and that it is rare for all three to be in a comfortable position. The person on the outside will make a bid to be in the togetherness which upsets the optimum togetherness and results in attempts to adjust the optimum level. When tension rises the outside position becomes the preferred place to be. These moves in a triangle are automatic and without intellectual awareness. The goal of therapy is to modify the positions taken by family members in the most important triangles by increasing their awareness self plays in the automatic emotional responsiveness, to control the part that self plays and to avoid participation in the triangle moves. (Bowen, p 307, 2004)
When it is possible to modify the central triangle in the family, the other family triangles are automatically modified without involving other family members in therapy. The therapy also involves a slow process of differentiation between emotional and intellectual functioning and slowly increasing intellectual control over automatic emotional processes. (Bowen, p 307, 2004).
Nuclear family emotional system: This concept describes the range of relationship patterns in the system between parents and children. Depending on the relationship patterns each spouse developed in their families of origin and the patterns they continue in marriage, the adaptive patterns in the nuclear family will go toward marital conflict; toward physical or emotional or social dysfunction in one spouse; toward project of the parent problems to one or more children; or to a combination of all three patterns. (Bowen, p 308, 2004)
Family projection process: This concept describes the patterns through which parents project their problems to the children. This is part of the nuclear family process, but it is so important that an entire concept is devoted to it. The family projection process exists to some degrees in all families. (Bowen, p. 308)
Multiple generation transmission process: This concept describes the over-all pattern of the family projection process as it involves certain children and avoids others and as it proceeds over multiple generations. (Bowen, p. 308)
Emotional cutoff: This was one of two concepts added to the theory in 1975 and describes the most prominent mechanism involved in emotional process between the generations. The principle manifestation of the emotion cut-off is denial of the intensity of the unresolved emotional attachment o parents, acting and pretending to be more independent than one is, and emotional distance achieved either through internal mechanisms or physical distance. (Bowen, p. 382)
Sibling position: This concept is an extension and modification of sibling position profiles as originally defined by Toman. The original profiles were developed from the study of “normal” families. They are remarkable close to the observations in this research, except Toman did not include the predictable ways that profiles are skewered by the family projection process. Knowledge gained from Toman, as modified in this concept, provides important clues in predicting areas of family strength and weakness for family therapy. This is so important it has been included as a separate concept. (Bowen, p. 308)
Societal emotional process: Chapter 13–“Societal Regression as Viewed Through Family Systems Theory” in Bowen’s book, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice: This paper represents one nodal point in a long term effort to systematically correlate emotional forces in the family with emotional forces in society….Over the years, there has been a slow extension of concepts about the family, into larger social systems. In the period around 1960 there were several conferences in which I was one who expressed the belief that the greatest gain from the family movement would come, not from family therapy, but as the basis of new theories about man and his efforts to adapt. Through the 1960’s, there were comments about emotional patterns in society being the same as emotional patterns in the family. This seemed logical and right, but specific connecting facts were elusive. Then came my emphasis on triangles that operate the same in society as in the family. (Bowen, p 269, 2004)
During 1972-73 Dr. Bowen was asked to present a paper to the Environmental Protection Agency about man’s predictable reaction to crisis and specifically to the crises that agency was expected to manage. Bowen’s presentation to the EPA and his follow up paper about background thinking and theory demonstrates the complexity involved in this concept. To grasp this concept, it is recommended to read Chapter 13 in its entirety. Broad ideas from the chapter will be included below.
One basic view that has influenced my thinking since the 1940’s is that man is an evolving form of life, that he is more related to lower forms of life than he is different from them, that most psychological theories focus on the uniqueness of man rather than his relatedness to the biological world, and that the instinctual forces that govern all animal and protoplasmic behavior are more basic in human behavior than most theories recognize. Over the years I have probably spent more time reading Darwin than reading Freud, and more time on the work of biologists, ethologists, and natural scientists then on the work of psychologists and sociologists. (p. 270)
The hypothesis postulates that man’s increasing anxiety is a product of population explosion, the disappearance of new habitable land to colonize, and growing awareness that “spaceship earth” cannot indefinitely support human life in the style to which man and his technology have become accustomed.
Another theoretical notion is important to this background thinking; it is another predictable characteristic of man. With his logical thinking and knowledge, he could have known decades ago that he was on a collision course with his environment. His emotional reactiveness and its cause-and-effect thinking prevent him from really “knowing” what he could know.
A critical index of the functioning of an emotional system is the balance of the togetherness-individuality forces.
It is possible to identify some of the manifestations of a regression. Togetherness forces begin to override individuality, there is an increase in decisions designed to ally the anxiety of the moment, an increase in cause-and-effect thinking, a focus on “rights” to the exclusion of “responsibility,” and a decrease in the over-all level of responsibility. Others include the principles of “free speech” and “freedom of the press”.
The regression stops when anxiety subsides or when the complications of the regression are greater than the anxiety that feeds the regression. If my hypothesis about societal anxiety is reasonably accurate, the crises of society will recur and recur, with increasing intensity for decades to come.
The main goal of this paper is to present a beginning effort to correlate knowledge gained from the study of the family with broad societal patterns. A comparison between the ways that parents deal with delinquency and behavior problems in their teenage children, and the ways that representatives of society deal with the same problem, provided the first data on which to base such a bridge. Whether or not this particular effort eventually proves reliable is of less importance than the fact that knowledge gained from study of the family is of critical importance to the total human phenomenon. (Bowen, p. 282, 2004)
Application of Bowen Theory in Clinical Practice
The use of Bowen Theory in clinical practice is based on the view of man as an evolutionary being. The shift from individually oriented, cause and effect thinking to a systems view of the family based on theory and guided by thinking is a hallmark of Bowen theory. “This theory focuses on the facts of functioning in human relationships. It focuses on what happened, and on how and when and where it happened insofar as observations are based on fact. It carefully avoids man’s automatic preoccupation with why it happened…Systems theory focuses on what man does and not on his verbal explanations about why he does it. (p. 416-417)
Background assumptions and hypotheses
Emotional illness is deeper than a one generation product of parent-child relationship
Early relationship models were based on systems thinking
Emotional illness is directly related to the biological part of man. This was based on the assumption that man is more intimately related to the lower forms of life than is generally recognized, and that emotional illness is a dysfunction of that part of man which he shares with lower forms.
Emotional illness is a multigenerational process. Data for this is gathered using at least a three generational family diagram including information about births, deaths, marriages, divorces, employment, and education.
There is a wide discrepancy between what man does and what he says he does.
Structuring of “hard to define” concepts into functional facts. The incorporation of functional concepts into therapy has resulted in therapeutic results that are far superior to conventional therapy. “That man dreams is a scientific fact, but what he dreams is not necessarily a fact.”
Cause and effect thinking. Man has been a cause-and-effect thinker since he first became a thinking being and he began to look for causes to explain events in his life. (p. 417-419)
Clinical Coaching
Coaches practicing Bowen Family Systems Theory come from a variety of backgrounds and clinical specialties. Most have sought training in Bowen Theory at one of the many centers around the US or internationally. Trained coaches have spent time working on own family with a coach to reduce emotional reactivity, observe self in the family system, recognize and reduce fusion and see the part they play in triangles as well as to learn the theory. They have become more objective observers of their own family and by extension the families of those they work with clinically. They work to accumulate facts about the extended family allowing them to see the bigger picture in their own family. This wider family knowledge allows them to better predict the responses of family members to life situations. At all times, theory drives the work of a Bowen Theory coach.
Much has been written about Bowen Family Systems Theory and coaching. Dr. Bowen always recommended that students read primary source material first not information that has been sifted through the head of another person.