Family Systems Theory

Psychologists have taken family systems theory and applied the principles to help families
resolve their problems and get through hard times. The resulting therapy is known as Family
Systems Therapy.
All schools of family therapy share a common epistemology or set of assumptions and rules that
define how and what kind of knowledge it is possible to form about reality. The epistemology of
family theories and therapies is grounded in a systemic paradigm that frames and connects the
fundamental concepts family therapists use to understand human behaviors. This paradigm
developed from the integration of two theoretical frameworks, general systems theory
(Bertalanffy, 1968) and cybernetics or the science of self-correcting systems (Wiener, 1948).
From a systemic perspective, the family is a biopsychosocial system of interconnected
individuals whose relations to one another are defined by recurring patterns. To understand the
family system, one cannot study individual behaviors as separate units of analysis and then
combine the units in order to provide clues into how the family functions. Systemic thinking is
guided by the concept of non-summativity and the idea that the properties of the family as
a whole are different from those of its constituent members (Broderick, 1993; Nichols, 2006;
Stanton, 2009). It gives emphasis to the interactions of individual family members and to the
repetitive patterns that emerge from these interactions.

Bowen’sFamily Systems Theory

Bowen family systems theory was developed by psychiatrist and researcher Dr Murray Bowen
(1913–90). It is a theory backed up by a growing body of empirical research.1 In recent years
Bowen’s concept of ‘differentiation of self’ — which describes differing levels of maturity in
relationships — has been shown by researchers to be related to important areas of well-being,
including marital satisfaction, and the capacity to handle stress, make decisions and manage
social anxiety.
Bowen was a US army physician during World War II who became interested in psychiatry after
seeing the varying effects of trauma on soldiers. Bowen’s theory is invaluable for helping us to
understand the variations in how different people manage similarly stressful circumstances.
He originally trained in Freud’s psychoanalysis (Freud believed that people could be cured by
making conscious their unconscious thoughts and motivations, thus gaining "insight". The aim of
psychoanalysis therapy is to release repressed emotions and experiences, i.e. make the
unconscious conscious)but departed from this theory as he observed that human difficulties
went beyond unresolved issues in the individual’s psyche and were, rather, embedded in
each person’s family system. In researching whole families at the US National Institute of
Mental Health in the late 1950s, Bowen noticed patterns of managing anxiety in families that
were similar to the instinctive ways other species dealt with threats in (or to) their herds and
packs. Bowen saw our personal and relationship problems as coming from exaggerated
responses to sensing a threat to family harmony and that of other groups. For example, the
reaction to a family disagreement can be such an inflated pull for unity that there’s no tolerance
for differences of opinion. Or an upset in a child is responded to with such an intense effort to
protect the child that he or she consequently has no room to develop their own capacity to soothe
themself.

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Bowen’s theory doesn’t focus on mental illness but on the challenges of being human in the
relationships which affect us all.
What Is Family Systems Theory?
Bowen family systems theory which is a relationship system the family exhibits as the
interlocking concepts of familial development and behavior are carefully analyzed. Bowen’s
theory or the Bowen family systems theory view the family as an emotional unit where family
members are intensely emotionally connected.
Definition: Family Systems Theory:
The Bowen family systems theory suggests that a family functions as an emotional ( ಾವ ಾತ ಕ)
system wherein each member plays a specific role and must follow certain rules. Based on
Bowen's theory and his study of the family, roles within the emotional system, patterns develop
within the emotional system, and each member's behavior impacts the other members.
Depending on the specific human relationship systems and how the emotional ( ಾವ ಾತ ಕ)
systems operates the Bowen family systems theory suggests these behavioral patterns can lead to
either balance or dysfunction of the system or both.

Goal of Bowenian therapy:

 to reduce chronic anxiety by
o facilitating awareness of how the emotional system functions; and
o increasing levels of differentiation, where the focus is on making changes for the
self rather than on trying to change others.

 Differentiation of Self
 Triangles
 Nuclear Family Emotional System
 Family Projection Process
 Multigenerational Transmission Process
 Emotional Cutoff
 Sibling Position
 Societal regression ಂಜ ತ

Eight Concepts:
1. Emotional Fusion and Differentiation of Self:
Differentiation of self. Being able to differentiate one’s intellectual processes from one’s feeling
processes represents a clear differentiation of self. Bowen recognizes the importance of
awareness of feelings and thoughts, particularly the ability to distinguish between the two. When
thoughts and feelings are not distinguished, fusion occurs. A person who is highly differentiated
(Bowen, 1966) is well aware of her opinions and has a sense of self. In a family conflict, people
who are able to differentiate their emotions and intellects are able to stand up for themselves and
not be dominated by the feelings of others, whereas those whose feelings and thoughts are fused
may express a pseudoself rather than their true values or opinions. For example, in a family with

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10- and 12-year-old girls, the 10-year-old may have a mind of her own and be clearer about what
she will and will not do (differentiated) than the 12-year-old (fused). The 12-year-old who is not
able to express herself accurately (pseudoself) may cause problems in relating that affect the
whole family. If there is poor differentiation, triangulation is likely to take place.
'Fusion' or 'lack of differentiation'is where individual choices are set aside in the service of
achieving harmony within the system. Fusion can be expressed either as:

 a sense of intense responsibility for another's reactions, or

 by emotional 'cutoff' from the tension within a relationship (Kerr and Bowen, 1988; Herz
Brown, 1991).
2. Triangulation:
When there is stress between two people in a family, they may be likely (Bowen, 1978) to bring
another member in to dilute the anxiety or tension, which is called triangulation. When family
members are getting along and are not upset, there is no reason to bring a third person into an
interaction. Bowen believes that when there is stress in the family, the least-differentiated person
is likely to be drawn into the conflict to reduce tension (Goldenberg & Goldenberg, 2008).
Triangulation is not limited to the family, as friends, relatives, or a therapist may be brought into
a conflict.
For Bowen (1975), a two-person system was unstable, and when there is stress, joining with a
third person reduces the tension in the relationship between the original two people. The larger
the family, the greater the possibility for many different interlocking triangles. Stepfamilies are
likely to have many possibilities for triangles (Cauley, 2008). One problem could involve several
triangles, as more and more family members are brought into the conflict. Bringing a third
family member into a conflict (triangulation) does not always reduce the stress in the family.
Stress reduction depends, in part, on the differentiation level of the members involved. For
example, if two children who are arguing bring in a third member of the family (brother, mother,
or uncle), the tension between the two children diminishes if the other person does not take sides
and helps to solve the problem. If the person becomes excited or acts unfairly, however, stress
between the two children may continue (Nichols, 2008). From a therapeutic point of view, it is
very important that the therapist triangulates in a clear and differentiated way with a couple
while attending to patterns of triangulation in the family

3. Nuclear Family Emotional System

The family as a system—that is, the nuclear family emotional system—is likely to be unstable
unless members of the family are each well differentiated. Because such differentiation is rare,
family conflict is likely to exist. Bowen (1978) believed that spouses are likely to select partners
with similar levels of differentiation. If two people with low levels of differentiation marry, it is
likely that as a couple they will become highly fused, as will their family when they have
children. Bowen focuses on the impact of 'undifferentiation' on the emotional functioning of a
single generation family. He asserts that relationship fusion, which leads to triangling, is the fuel
for symptom formation which is manifested in one of three categories. These are

 COUPLE CONFLICT: The single generation unit usually starts with a equal levels of
differentiation (ie. both have the same degree of need to be validated through the relationship).
Bowen believed that permission to disagree is one of the most important contracts between

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individuals in an intimate relationship (Kerr and Bowen, 1988: 188). In a fused relationship,
partners interpret the emotional state of the other as their responsibility, and the other's stated
disagreement as a personal affront to them. A typical pattern in such emotionally intense
relationships is a cycle of closeness followed by conflict to create distance, which in turn is
followed by the couple making up and resuming the intense closeness. This pattern is a
'conflictual cocoon' (Kerr and Bowen, 1988: 192), where anxiety is bound within the conflict
cycle without spilling over to involve children. Bowen suggested the following three ways in
which couple conflict can be functional for a fused relationship, in which 'each person is
attempting to become more whole through the other' (Lederer and Lewis, 1991).
 Conflict can provide a strong sense of emotional contact with the important other.
 Conflict can justify people's maintaining a comfortable distance from each other without
feeling guilty about it.
 Conflict can allow one person to project anxieties they have about themselves onto the
other, thereby preserving their positive view of self (Kerr and Bowen, 1988: 192).
 SYMPTOMS IN A SPOUSE In a fused relationship, where each partner looks to the
other's qualities to fit his / her learned manner of relating to significant others, a pattern of
reciprocity can be set in motion that pushes each spouse's role to opposite extremes. Drawing
from his analytic background, Bowen described this fusion as 'the reciprocal side of each
spouse's transference' (Kerr and Bowen, 1988: 170). For example, what may start as an overly
responsible spouse feeling compatible with a more dependent partner, can escalate to an
increasingly controlling spouse with the other giving up any sense of contributing to the
relationship. Both are equally undifferentiated in that they are defining themselves according
to the reactions of the other; however the spouse who makes the most adjustments in the self in
order to preserve relationship harmony is said by Bowen to be prone to developing symptoms.
The person who gets polarised in the under functioning position is most vulnerable to symptoms
of helplessness such as depression, substance abuse and chronic pain. The over functioning
person might also be the one to develop symptoms, as s/he becomes overburdened by attempts to
make things 'right' for others.
 SYMPTOMS IN A CHILD
The third symptom of fusion in a family is when a child develops behavioural or emotional
problems. This comes under Bowen's fourth theoretical concept, the Family Projection Process.

4. Family projection process.

In the previous two categories the couple relationship is the focus of anxiety without it
significantly impacting on the functioning of the next generation. By contrast, the family
projection process describes how children develop symptoms when they get caught up in the
previous generation's anxiety about relationships.
When there are relatively low levels of differentiationin the marriage partners, they may project
their stress onto one child—the familyprojection process. In general, the child who is most
emotionally attached to the parents may have the least differentiation between feelings and
intellect and the most difficulty in separating from the family (Papero, 1983, 2000). For example,
achild who refuses to go to school and wants to stay home with his parents can beconsidered to
have fused with his parents. How intense the family projectionprocess is depending on how
undifferentiated the parents are and on the family’sstress level (Bitter, 2009). The “problem

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child” can respond to the stress of hisundifferentiated parents in a variety of ways.As in all of
Bowen's constructs, 'intergenerational projection' is said to occur in all families in varying
degrees. Many intergenerational influences may determine which child becomes the focus of
family anxiety and at what stage of the life cycle this occurs.

5. Emotional ಾವ ಾತ ಕcutoff.
When children receive too much stress because of over-involvementin the family, they may try
to separate themselves from the familythrough emotional cutoff. Adolescents might move away
from home, go tocollege, or run away. For younger children and adolescents, it may mean
withdrawing emotionally from the family and going through the motions of beingin the
family. Their interaction with parents is likely to be brief and superficial.A child
experiencing an emotional cutoff may go to her room not so much to study but to be free of
the family conflict.Such a child may deal with everydaymatters but withdraw when emotionally
charged issues develop between parents.In general, the higher the level of anxiety and emotional
dependence, the morelikely children are to experience an emotional cutoff in a family (Titelman,
2008).
Bowen describes 'emotional cutoff' as the way people manage the intensity of fusion between the
generations. A 'cutoff' can be achieved through physical distance or through forms of emotional
withdrawal. Bowen distinguishes between 'breaking away' from the family and 'growing away'
from the family. 'Growing away' is viewed as part of differentiation - adult family members
follow independent goals while also recognising that they are part of their family system. A
'cutoff' is more like an escape; people 'decide' to be completely different to their family of origin.

6. Multi-generational ಬಹು- ೕ ೆಯTransmission Process

This concept of Bowen's theory describes how patterns, themes and positions (roles) in a triangle
are passed down from generation to generation through the projection from parent to child which
was described earlier. The impact will be different for each child depending on the degree of
triangling they have with their parents. Bowen's focus on at least three generations of a family
when dealing with a presenting symptom is certainly a trademark of his theory. The attention to
family patterns over time is not just an evaluative tool, but an intervention that helps family
members get sufficient distance from their current struggle with symptoms to see how they might
change their own part in the transmission of anxiety over the generations. Bowen (1976) looked
not just at the immediate family but also at previous generations(Kerr, 2003).Inthe concept of the
multigenerational transmission process, the functioning ofgrandparents, great-grandparents,
great-aunts, great-uncles, and other relativesmay play an important role in the pathology of the
family. To give an example,a great-grandfather who was prone to emotional outbursts and
experienceddepression may affect the function of the grandmother, who in turn affects
thefunctioning of the father, who may in turn have an impact on the psychologicalhealth of the
child. Other issues besides differentiation affect family functioning.

7. Sibling ಒಡಹು ದವರು ಾನposition.

Bowen believed that birth order had an impact on the functioning of children within the family.
Relying on the work of WalterToman (1961), he believed that the sibling position of marriage
partners would affect how they perform as parents. Concerned less with actual birth order than
with the way a child functioned in the family, Bowen felt that how one behaved with brothers

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and sisters had an impact on how one acts as a parent. For example, Toman's profiles
describe eldest children as more likely to take on responsibility and leadership, with younger
siblings more comfortable being dependent and allowing others to make decisions. Middle
children are described as having more flexibility to shift between responsibility and dependence
and 'only' children are seen as being responsible, and having greater access to the adult world.
Bowen noted that these generalised traits are not universally applicable and that it is possible for
a younger sibling to become the 'functional eldest'. Bowen was especially interested in which
sibling position in a family is most vulnerable to triangling with parents. It may be that a parent
identifies strongly with a child in the same sibling position as their own, or that a previous cross
generational triangle (eg. an eldest child aligned with a grandparent against a parent) may be
repeated. If one sibling in the previous generation suffered a serious illness or died, it is more
likely that the child of the present generation in the same sibling position will be viewed as more
vulnerable and therefore more likely to detour tensions from the parental dyad.

8. Societal regression.
Bowen extended his model of family systems to societal functioning. Just as families can move
toward undifferentiation or toward individuation, so can societies. If there are stresses on
societies, they are more likely to move toward undifferentiation. Examples of stresses could be
famine, civil uprisings, or population growth. To extend Bowen’s model to societies, leaders and
policymakers should distinguish between intellect and emotion when making decisions and not
act on feelings alone.