Bowen Flashcards
Feeling system
Link between emotional and intellectual systems through which certain emotional states are represented in conscious awareness
Responsible “I”
When one assumes responsibility for their own happiness; avoids thinking that blames others
Family emotional system
Triangular emotional patterns that operate in all close relationships
Governed by the same laws that govern all living things
System thinking
Fusions
Overlap between emotional and intellectual self
Solid self
Clearly defined beliefs; process of intellectual reasoning where beliefs and principles are consistent; stable
Immature separation of people from one another
Cut off
Intellectual system
ability to think, reason, and reflect and enables a man to govern his life; intellect and reason
Basic self
Not changed by coercion or pressure, or to gain approval
Anxiety
Organism’s response to threat, real or imagined
Individuality
Built in life growth force toward a separate self
Emotional reactivity
Emotional reflex that occurs automatically without awareness; observable in moderate levels of tension
Differentiation is the process of managing…
…individuality and togetherness within a relationship system, ability to distinguish between feeling and intellectual states.
In nuclear families, Bowen says these four symptomatic patterns occur from their lack of differentiation
Emotional distance, marital conflict, symptoms in one spouse,emotional impairment in a child
Lower differentiated people are r—– and higher differentiated people are r—-
Responsive, reactive
The root cause of family dysfunction according to Bowen is,
Emotional distress as a part of natural processes
According to Bowen theory, An individual develops symptoms when life events
Threatens his emotional connection with others, increases the anxious focus of others on himself, increases his dependence on others
The emotional system incorporates
Only instinct and reproduction
The role of a bowenian therapist is
Coach
Pseudo self
Beliefs created by emotional pressure, random and inconsistent not in the individuals awareness, unstable; the way people lend or borrow self to another.
Goals of bowenian therapy
Decreasing anxiety, developing factual more objective perspective, increase differentiation
Bowenian therapy ends when
Client decides when they are good to work on differentiation on their own and may have check in visits
