The Bowen Family Systems Theory
The Bowen family systems theory is the basic idea that the family acts as one unit. Just as all the parts of our body work together to keep us in order and balanced, so does the family. Each member of the family acts as an integral part of the system and when one part of the family is out of balance, the whole family is. When this happens the family will have to make changes or adjustments to try and regain the balance of the family (The Bowen Center for the Study of the Family).
The inventory of this theory is psychiatrist Dr. Murray Bowen. “He formulated the theory by using systems thinking to integrate knowledge of the human species as a product of evolution and knowledge from family research” (The Bowen Center for the Study of the Family). What got Bowen interested in this idea was his work with schizophrenic patients and their mothers. He saw this relationship as an intense way that we as humans react in an emotional way to each other. In 1954 Bowen moved to the National Institute of Mental Health and started putting entire families in the hospital that contained one member with schizophrenia. What he saw was that the relationship between that child and the mother ended up affecting the whole family (Nichols, 2011 PG 76). …show more content…
The reason for this anxiety driven attachment is that there is no personal autonomy. Bowen found in his work with other families that would be considered normal that all families suffer from the same attachments (Nichols, 2011 pg 76). Bowen’s theory has eight basic concepts, differentiation of self, emotional triangles, multigenerational emotional processes, emotional cutoff, societal emotional process, nuclear family emotional process, family projection process and sibling
The inventory of this theory is psychiatrist Dr. Murray Bowen. “He formulated the theory by using systems thinking to integrate knowledge of the human species as a product of evolution and knowledge from family research” (The Bowen Center for the Study of the Family). What got Bowen interested in this idea was his work with schizophrenic patients and their mothers. He saw this relationship as an intense way that we as humans react in an emotional way to each other. In 1954 Bowen moved to the National Institute of Mental Health and started putting entire families in the hospital that contained one member with schizophrenia. What he saw was that the relationship between that child and the mother ended up affecting the whole family (Nichols, 2011 PG 76). …show more content…
The reason for this anxiety driven attachment is that there is no personal autonomy. Bowen found in his work with other families that would be considered normal that all families suffer from the same attachments (Nichols, 2011 pg 76). Bowen’s theory has eight basic concepts, differentiation of self, emotional triangles, multigenerational emotional processes, emotional cutoff, societal emotional process, nuclear family emotional process, family projection process and sibling