Princeton Family Center or Education

Training programs in Bowen family systems theory, for professionals and non-professionals.

About Murray Bowen, M.D.

Managing a ward of families with diagnosed schizophrenics and working with medical staff trained in individual-based therapy had to have been the ultimate challenge.  I heard my father describe those days and the trials and tribulations that came with the growth of the project.  Everyone engaged in the project had to have experienced the challenge: the staff, who had been trained in individual psychoanalytic therapy; the administrators, as they engaged new ground rules for a therapeutic relationship; and Bowen himself, who was breaking new ground, bringing about a paradigm shift, and navigating relationships steeped in the paradigm of individual therapy.  Reading the reports and papers in this volume has left me with a profound understanding of the monumental nature of his accomplishments.

The reports and papers lay out the progress of this natural experiment—and they demonstrate what it took for him to be a neutral presence in an emotional storm.  I must say, I am now more than ever in awe of my father and his accomplishments.

The outcome discussed in this volume speaks for itself.  Within five years, Murray Bowen had come to understand schizophrenic psychosis in a patient as a symptom of an active process involving every member of a family (Bowen, 1959, 6).  The family was a unit rather than a collection of individuals, and individual behavior was viewed through the lens of the emotional unit.  True to his training in science and medicine, Bowen collected data from the psychiatrist who also served as the families’ primary care physician, evidence that allowed him to see the phenomenon of the reciprocal relationship existing between family members and their health.  He was now able to hypothesize on the interaction between emotional and physical symptoms.

This shift in perspective, from individual to family unit in its physical and emotional manifestations, allowed Bowen to see broad patterns of “form and movement that had been obscured by the close-up view of the familiar individual orientation” (Bowen 1959, 10).  The basics of family psychotherapy emerged one where his staff thought about, related to, treated, and saw the family as a unit.  And out of this project came the development of a set of systematic principles based on his research.” (Butler, J., ed.  The Origins of Family Psychotherapy: The NIMH Family Study Project.  Lanham, MD: Jason Aronson, 2013) pp 3-4

In a forward written by Joanne Bowen, Ph.D., Chair of the Board and President of Leaders for Tomorrow and daughter of Murray Bowen, M.D., in The Origins of Family Psychotherapy: The NIMH Family Study Project, Joanne Bowen writes:

“Bowen was an observer of humans and their relationships with each other.  Having lived in a small rural community where families had lived for generations, he understood the important role social relationships play in sustaining the very fabric of an agricultural community.  Bowen’s genius was far greater—he had an intuitive understanding of the role emotions play in every relationship—within and amongst families, in communities, and in nations.  He could see emotions underlying well-thought-out positions when others saw logic.  He often remarked, “Humans can think about, think about, think about.”  To him what counted was not what humans said, but what they did, and he observed behavior as would a biologically trained ethologist.  Ultimately, he developed a natural systems theory about the biological basis of human relationships.

The Eight Basic Concepts of Bowen’s Family Systems Theory

Bowen family systems theory is comprised of eight interlocking concepts.  Dr. Bowen wrote that differentiation of self “is a cornerstone of the theory.” (Bowen, M. “Theory in the Practice of Psychotherapy” (1976) in Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1978.) p 362  Dr. Bowen wrote that in working on differentiation of self, “Any effort toward assuming responsibility for one’s own distress, toward containing one’s own needs a little better, toward blaming the other less, or toward controlling one’s emotional responsiveness to the other is a step toward reduction in family tension.” (Bowen, M. “Family Therapy and Family Group Therapy” (1971) in Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1978.) p 234

  • “If the goal is toward long term stability and the differentiation of self, this eventually becomes the effort of one person who can give primary attention to self. This involves the principle that all family members play a part in everything that goes on in the family. It is never possible to really change another person, but it is possible to change the part that self plays. The modification of self requires that person to be sure of self on all life principles that involve himself and his family, to have the courage to take action on his convictions, and to devote primary attention to becoming the most responsible possible person.” (Bowen, M. “Society, Crisis, and Systems Theory” (1973) in Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1978.) pp 448-449

  • “This concept describes the pattern of emotional forces as they operate over the years in the nuclear family. The intensity of the process is governed by the degree of undifferentiation, by the degree of emotional cutoff with families of origin, and the degree of stress in the system. Over time, the emotional problem becomes manifest as (a) emotional distance between the spouses; (b) dysfunction in one spouse which is manifested as physical illness, emotional illness, or social illness; (c) marital conflict; or (d) projection of the family problem to one or more children.” (Bowen, M. “Society, Crisis, and Systems Theory” (1973) in Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1978.) p 425

  • “The basic building block of any emotional system is the triangle. In calm periods, two members of the triangle have a comfortable emotional alliance, and the third, in the unfavored “outsider” position, moves either toward winning the favor of one of the others or toward rejection, which may be planned as winning favor. In tension situations the “outsider” is in the favored position and both of the emotionally overinvolved ones will predictably make efforts to involve the third in the conflict. When tension increases, it will involve increasing outside members, the emotional circuits running on a series of interlocking emotional triangles.” (Bowen, M. “The Use of Family Theory in Clinical Practice” (1966) in Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1978.) pp 160-161

  • “This is the process by which parents project part of their immaturity to one or more children. The most frequent pattern is one which operates through the mother with the mechanism which enables the mother to become less anxious by focusing on the child. The lifestyle of parents, fortuitous circumstances such as traumatic events that disrupt the family during the pregnancy or about the time of birth, and special relationships with sons or daughters are among factors that help determine the “selection” of the child for this process. The most common pattern is one in which one child is the recipient of a major portion of the projection, while other children are relatively less involved. The child who is the object of the projection is the one most emotionally attached to the parents, and the one who ends up with a lower level of differentiation of self. A child who grows up relatively outside the family projection process can emerge with a higher basic level of differentiation than the parents.” (Bowen, M. “On the Differentiation of Self” (1972) in Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1978.) p 477

  • “This concept was added to the theory in 1975 . . . to have a separate concept for emotional process between the generations . . . The concept deals with the way people separate themselves from the past in order to start their lives in the present generation . . . The degree of unresolved emotional attachment to the parents is equivalent to the degree of undifferentiation that must somehow be handled in the person’s own life and in future generations. The unresolved attachment is handled by the intrapsychic process of denial and isolation of self while living close to the parents; or by physically running away; or by a combination of emotional isolation and physical distance. The more intense the cutoff with the past, the more likely the individual to have an exaggerated version of his parental family problem in his own marriage, and the more likely his own children to do a more intense cutoff with him in the next generation.” (Bowen, M. “Theory in the Practice of Psychotherapy” (1976) in Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1978.) p 382

  • “My concept, multigenerational transmission process, defines a very broad pattern in which certain children emerge with lower levels of differentiation than the parents, and others emerge with higher levels of differentiation, while most continue at about the same level as the parents. Those who emerge with lower levels have been exposed to more than an average number of life’s misfortunes, and those who emerge with higher levels have had more of life’s good fortunes. The fortunes and misfortunes are defined more by the family emotional process than by the usual advantages and disadvantages as defined by society. From a strict definition of genetics, this process follows a genetic-like pattern but it has nothing to do with genes as they are currently defined.” (Bowen, M. “An Interview with Murray Bowen” (1976) in Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1978.) p 410

  • “This concept is an adaptation of Toman’s work on the personality profiles of each sibling position . . . The degree to which a personality fits with normal provides a way to understand the level of differentiation and the direction of the projection process from generation to generation . . . I believe that no single piece of data is more important than knowing the sibling position of people in the present and past generations.” (Bowen, M. “Theory in the Practice of Psychotherapy” (1976) in Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1978.) P 385

  • “A regressive process is made up of such a complex group of forces it is not yet possible to know which is first or which is most important. The over-all process is set in motion when man is exposed to a certain kind of sustained anxiety. Man is still an emotional reactive product of nature, and he is responsive to nature, in spite of protestations to the contrary. The anxiety that starts regression appears to be related more to a disharmony between man and nature than to disharmony between man and his fellow man, such as war.” (Bowen, M. “Societal Regression as Viewed Through Family Systems Theory” (1974a) in Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1978.) p 279

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All quotes are from Family Therapy in Clinical Practice (Bowen, M. Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1978.)