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Bowenian Key Concepts

According to Murray Bowen, anxiety plays a functional role in individuals’ healthy emotional systems. However, prolonged exposure or elevated levels of anxiety creates tension, which if unaddressed can evolve into mental illness (Nims & Duba, 2011). Bowen theory asserts that individuals’ levels of anxiety are inversely related to their ability to manage emotional responses, which corresponds to their levels of differentiation (Gibson & Donigian, 1993; Nichols, 2014; Sohrabi, Asadi, Habibollahzade, & PanaAli, 2013). Bowen identified the interplay of individuality and togetherness within the multigenerational context of family as the focal point of treatment using eight key concepts: differentiation of self, emotional triangles, nuclear family emotional systems, family projection process, multigenerational emotional processes, emotional cutoff, sibling position, and societal emotional process (Kerr, 2000).

Differentiation of Self

Differentiation of self is the core concept of Bowen theory. Differentiation refers to the degree to which an individual is able to distinguish between emotional and intellectual processes. According to Bowen, human beings innately seek emotional connection with others and emotional independence, processes which are negotiated through early attachments to family members (Nims and Duba, 2011). The degree of success individuals attain in negotiating individuality and togetherness within the context of early attachments impacts later development and is never completely resolved (Nims & Duba, 2011).

Differentiation is conceptualized along a continuum on which every individual maintains a position (Gibson and Donigian, 1993). Persons with undifferentiated or fused selves occupy one end of the continuum and have little ability to distinguish emotions from thoughts. Undifferentiated individuals tend to be relatively inflexible, intolerant of anxiety, unable to manage stress, impulsive, emotionally dependent on others and have difficulty maintaining healthy, balanced relationships (Gibson and Donigian, 1993; Nichols, 2014; Nims & Duba, 2011; Sohrabi, Asadi, Habibollahzade, & PanaAli, 2013). At the other end of the continuum are differentiated individuals who maintain high degrees of autonomy and intellectual functioning under periods of great duress, are adaptive, understand and utilize facts to process feelings, and respond independent of the emotional environments around them (Gibson and Donigian, 1993; Nichols, 2014; Nims & Duba, 2011; Sohrabi, Asadi, Habibollahzade, & PanaAli, 2013).

Emotional Triangles

Emotional triangles refer to interactions between three people in which the behavior of each dyad is a reactionary response to the third person (Kerr, 2000; Nichols, 2014). Undifferentiated individuals are less able to resolve conflicts between internal drives for individuality and togetherness than differentiated individuals. Therefore, undifferentiated individuals have higher levels of anxiety and greater anxiety-relieving behaviors than more differentiated individuals (Gibson & Donigian, 1993). Undifferentiated individuals in relationships seek ways to alleviate intra- and interpersonal anxiety by turning to outside, third parties. Undifferentiated individuals may ask outsiders for support, advice, or sympathy, thereby drawing third parties into relationships and creating emotional triangles (Kerr, 2000; Nichols, 2014; Nims & Duba, 2011). Triangulation decreases anxiety in dyadic relationships by providing alternative focal points and distributing tension between three people instead of two (Gibson and Donigian, 1993). However, on-going dependence on third parties to defuse tension prevents the initial dyad from addressing problems and, ultimately, is destructive to the original relationship (Nichols, 2014). It is important to note that not all three-person relationships constitute emotional triangles.

Gibson and Donigian (1993) offer a more expansive definition of emotional triangles that not only defines persons as third parties, but also anxiety-relieving mechanisms, such as physical illnesses, mental disorders, addictions (alcohol, drugs), overeating, overachievement, underachievement, and career.

Nuclear Family Emotional Process

The nuclear family emotional process refers to the manner in which parents or marital units manage anxiety (Gibson & Donigian, 1993). Elevated or prolonged anxiety can lead to the development of clinical problems in family members depending on parental levels of anxiety, abilities to process stress, and connections to social supports (Kerr, 2000). According to Bowen, there are four basic relationship patterns that give rise to problems within family systems (Kerr, 2000):

Marital Conflict: As tensions rise and spouses experience heightened levels of anxiety, spouses project individual stresses onto the marital relationship. Each spouse focuses on the perceived negative behavior of the other while simultaneously attempting to control and resist the other’s actions.
Dysfunction in One Spouse: One spouse dominates the actions of the other spouse who, then, acquiesces under pressure. Harmony is maintained unless the submissive spouse relinquishes so much self-control that anxiety leads to the development of psychological or physical illness.
Impairment in One/More Children: Parents disproportionately project anxiety onto one or more selected children. Selected children, in turn, become hypersensitive to parental attention and the togetherness force at the expense of their individuality, which stifles differentiation of self, fosters hyper-reactivity, and impairs psychosocial functioning.
Emotional distance: Family members emotionally distance themselves from one another in an effort to decrease anxiety associated with stressful intra-family relationships. Overtime, members becoming increasingly more isolated.

The four patterns associated with the nuclear family emotional process are evidenced in a wide variety of family systems—from the archetypal family to single-parent, to step-parent (Kerr, 2000).

Family Projection Process

Family Projection Process describes the mechanism by which parents transmit anxieties and emotional reactivity to selected children in their family systems. Parents project anxiety by nurturing behaviors that integrate anxiety in relationships with selected children (Nims & Duba, 2011). Selected children who are recipients of projected parental anxiety demonstrate impaired psychosocial functioning and increased vulnerability to psychological and physiological illness (Kerr, 2000). The most negatively impactful parental projections involve relationship sensitivities—i.e., increased emotional dependency on others, heightened impulsivity and anxiety-relieving behaviors, and excessive blaming others or oneself. Projection occurs through a three-step process (Kerr, 2000):

Scanning: the parent perceives there is something wrong with the selected child and, therefore, concentrates attention on the child.
Diagnosing: the parent studies the selected child’s behavior and determines there is something wrong with the child, confirming the parent’s fear.
Treating: the parent then cares for the selected child as if there is something actually wrong with the child.

Family projection processes steer children’s development in such a way that selected children grow to embody their parents’ perceptions. Although the family projection process is typically trans-generational, it is important to note there is no link between the amount of parent-child interaction and the degree of projection (Kerr, 2000; Nims & Duba, 2011).

Multigenerational Emotional Processes

Multigenerational emotional process refers to the mechanism by which behavioral and emotional problems are replicated from one generation to another (Kerr, 2000; Nichols, 2014; Nims & Duba, 2011). Bowen theory contends differentiation is a characteristic of relationship as much as it is of the individual (Nichols, 2014; Sohrabi, Asadi, Habibollahzade, & PanaAli, 2013). Individuals tend to select mates with similar levels of differentiation and have children of equal or lesser degrees of differentiation, further compounding the intergenerational replication of emotional patterns (Nims and Duba, 2011). Parents with lower levels of differentiation have limited ability to manage stress and project anxiety onto selected children within the family system. Selected children often manage parental projections by developing a heightened sense of emotional reactivity and, therefore, tend to be less differentiated than un-selected siblings. The variation in differentiation between siblings is increased with each generation as each child enters adulthood and selects respective mates of similar levels of differentiation with whom to have offspring (Kerr, 2000; Nichols, 2004; Nims & Duba, 2011). Emotional patterns that are replicated from generation to generation become increasingly resistance to change (Nims & Duba, 2011).

Emotional Cutoff

Individuals with low levels of differentiation or unresolved emotional attachments tend to manage anxiety in relationships in two ways: 1) excessive emotional dependency and involvement, or 2) emotional cutoff. Bowen noted the greater the emotional fusion between parents and children, the greater the probability of emotional cutoffs (Nims & Duba, 2014). Individuals create emotional cutoffs or emotional distance in three ways: physically removing themselves from intimate relationships, employing psychological barriers, or eliciting third parties to act as emotional buffers (Nichols, 2014). Individuals often mistake emotional cutoffs for independence, erroneously believing emotional distance and emotional maturity are synonymous (Nims & Duba, 2011). However, emotional cutoffs are as great a threat as emotional dependency to differentiation of self. Emotional cutoffs from the family of origin increase the likelihood that anxiety will be replicated with greater intensity in the new nuclear family (Gibson and Donigian, 1993; Nims & Duba, 2011).

Sibling Position

Bowen integrated Walter Toman’s research on sibling position in his examination of family systems. Bowen asserted that sibling position specifically impacts human development and behavior, and noted that people who have identical sibling positions within their respective family systems routinely share common traits (e.g. oldest children demonstrate a propensity for leadership positions, just as youngest children display a tendency to be followers) (Kerr, 2000). Bowen theory details 11 sibling positions, with no greater value given to any one position, and attributes individual differences in persons with similar sibling positions to variations in differentiation (Kerr, 2000; Nims & Duba, 2011).

Societal Emotional Process

Bowen theory contends individuals and families with higher levels of differentiation are better able to process anxiety and stress and, therefore, are better equipped to address harmful societal problems (Kerr, 2000; Nichols, 2014; Nims & Duba, 2011). Bowen identified a societal emotional response to anxiety analogous to family systems’ responses to elevated and continued levels of anxiety (Nims & Duba, 2011). During times of crisis, society wrestles between emotional reactivity and thoughtful deliberation to resolve societal problems (Nims & Duba, 2011).