Bowen/Intergenerational Flashcards
Theorists of Intergenerational/Bowen:
- Bowen
- Fogarty
- Guerin
Major Concepts of Intergenerational/Bowen:
- Chronic Anxiety
- Emotional System
- Family Projection Process
- Nuclear Family Emotional System
- Sibling Position
- Societal Regression
Theory of Dysfunction in Intergenerational/Bowen:
Symptoms develop when the level of anxiety exceeds the system’s ability to handle it.
Lack of differentiation results in marital conflict, dysfunction in a spouse, or symptoms of dysfunction in one or more children
Theory of Change in Intergenerational/Bowen:
Lowering anxiety and increasing self-focus – the ability to see one’s role in interpersonal processes, distinguish between thoughts and feelings of self and others
=
Better ability to direct one’s life and solve problems
Stages of Therapy in Intergenerational/Bowen:
- Emphasis on the extended family, presence of entire family not required.
- Creation of a genogram through questioning designed to tease out patterns of relationships.
- Reduce anxiety levels and increase differentiation.
- Open currently closed communication, and resolve triangles in the extended family.
Stance of Therapist in Intergenerational/Bowen:
- Neutral and objective teacher
- Coach (not telling people what to do but helping people figure out their role in family problems; growth model over solving problems)
Methods/Techniques in Intergenerational/Bowen:
- Focus on process not content (what’s going on inside and between people).
- Genogram, extensive history taking
- “I” position
- Detriangulate
- Create therapy triangle
- Relationship experiment
Therapy is often long-term, includes trips home to FOO especially during times of upheaval when the family will be more open to change
Diagnosis/Assessment in Intergenerational/Bowen:
- Extensive self-report data on family history
- Level of differentiation of family members
- Degree of cut-off
- Level of family anxiety and emotional reactivity
- Triangles
- Differentiation of Self Scale (0-100)
What are the characteristics of high differentiation? (Bowen)
- Balance thinking and feeling, show restraint and resist the pull of emotional impulses.
- Tend to be autonomous, stating “I” beliefs in the midst of “we” demands
- Can tolerate natural small degree of fusion in relationships while retaining essential self as differentiated
- Person-to-person interactions absent of triangulation
What are the characteristics of low differentiation? (Bowen)
- Cannot think clearly for themselves and emotionally reactive.
- Lack autonomous identity and tend to parrot the views they have heard
- In relationships, their objective is to seek love, approval, security and comfort, and they tend to be fused with the other person while having little energy for other goal-directed activities
What are the characteristics of triangles? (Bowen normal development)
- Smallest unit of family system, homeostasis
- Form out of the anxiety caused by two-person system, to stabilize relationship must bring in an outsider (triggered by least-differentiated partner)
- Sibling rivalry is an outgrowth of triangular family structure
- Triangles lessen anxiety but do not solve the basic problem (predictable patterns over time)
- Can cross generational boundaries
What is the Nuclear Family Emotional Process? (Bowen, normal AND dysfunctional development)
Families evolve their own specific organization and develop a set of rules and patterns that are stable over time.
Dysfunction:
Undifferentiated individuals tend to cut themselves off emotionally and sometimes geographically from FOO (undifferentiated ego mass)
What is Family Projection Process? (Bowen)
Undifferentiated parents transmit their immaturity to their children through fusion/distance.
Usually one child is selected to be triangulated to reduce anxiety at the cost of the child’s differentiation.
Ex. Distant husband causes anxious wife to overly fuse with child
What is Multigenerational Transmission Process? (Bowen)
Part of Family Projection Process.
Continuous natural process where emotional responses are passed down between generations, tending to move towards a lower level of differentiation with each generation until unresolved emotional attachments and fusion are successfully resolved.
Ex. Most fused child tends to marry someone that also lacks differentiation and may cut off from FOO.
Describe the importance of sibling position in Bowen:
Birth order tends to influence the characteristics that children develop and thus impact their level of differentiation
First= identify with power authority Later= identify with the oppressed, question the status quo, and more open to experience