“Differentiation deals with working on one’s own self, with controlling self, with becoming a more responsible person, and permitting others to be themselves”

- Murray Bowen

There may be a biological necessity for family members to be cohesive and cooperate to survive by protecting, feeding, nurturing, and sheltering one another. Stressors of any kind can increase the tension and make it more difficult for a family to work together in harmony. This is when complex family dynamics emerge, and one or more family members can become symptomatic. Family members can either assume too much responsibility to reduce the anxiety in others, or they can equally accommodate others by giving up control and their own decision-making.

The family member who absorbs most of the anxiety within the system is the most vulnerable to psychological and physical symptoms.

TO BE ALIVE IS TO BE ANXIOUS

Dr. Bowen believed that anxiety is generated not within individuals but from our relationship systems. In brief, Dr. Bowen stressed that to feel calmer we need to look at our relationships. When we are anxious, we often focus on wanting to change other people, because if we can calm the people around us, we can relax too. This attempt often fails (or it only works in the short term) and, in contrast, makes you (and others) more anxious.

Dr. Bowen believed that when we can manage ourselves better in our own relationships (e.g., with our partners, family, co-workers, etc.), we will calm down and most likely others around us will too (anxiety is contagious after all!). If a person can think and act for him or herself in an anxious environment, this person’s sense of self will be less dependent on others for approval and acceptance.

To work on yourself to be a better, more mature human being in your hardest relationships is what ultimately brings down your own (and others’) anxiety.

Contact me for more information!

I have been studying Bowen Family Systems Theory for well over a decade. It is a theory within Family Therapy that informs much of my thinking as a therapist when working with clients. It also serves as a guide through my own life and relationships. It has led me on a path to never quit working on myself, always with the intention to be a more responsible and mature person.

Bowen Family Systems Theory is a theory of human behavior that views the family as an emotional unit. Systems thinking is used to describe the complex interactions in the family unit. This theory was originated by Dr. Murray Bowen, a psychiatrist, who used systems thinking by combining the biology of the human species with knowledge from family research. Dr. Bowen viewed humans as a product of evolution. Humans, like all other living systems, are governed by an emotional system, or an automatic “feeling system.”

Humans, unlike many other forms of life, also have a complex “thinking system” that covers language, psychology, and culture. Most clinical symptoms arise from the emotional system…the automatic feeling system. Problem solving and developing effective solutions happen when one can gain an understanding of how the emotional system operates in one’s family, organization, and social systems.

THE FAMILY OPERATES AS AN EMOTIONAL UNIT

Families are intensely connected emotionally. Members within a family seek each other’s attention, approval, and love and react equally as profoundly to family members’ needs, expectations, and disappointment. There is a constant pull between connection and reactivity, which makes families emotionally interdependent in the functioning of their members. The degree of interdependence varies within families, but a change in one member’s functioning will invariably change the functioning of other members.