Bowen - Key Concepts Flashcards
Triangles
A triangle is a three-person relationship system. It is considered the building block or “molecule” of larger emotional systems because a triangle is the smallest stable relationship system.
Differentiation of Self:
Families and other social groups tremendously affect how people think, feel, and act, but individuals vary in their susceptibility to a “group think” and groups vary in the amount of pressure they exert for conformity. These differences between individuals and between groups reflect differences in people’s levels of differentiation of self.
Nuclear Family Emotional System
The concept of the nuclear family emotional system describes four basic relationship patterns that govern where problems develop in a family. People’s attitudes and beliefs about relationships play a role in the patterns, but the forces primarily driving them are part of the emotional system.
Family Projection Process
The family projection process describes the primary way parents transmit their emotional problems to a child. The projection process can impair the functioning of one or more children and increase their vulnerability to clinical symptoms.
Multigenerational Transmission Process
The concept of the multigenerational transmission process describes how small differences in the levels of differentiation between parents and their offspring lead over many generations to marked differences in
differentiation among the members of a multigenerational family.
Emotional Cutof
The concept of emotional cutoff describes people managing their
unresolved emotional issues with parents, siblings, and other family members by
reducing or totally cutting off emotional contact with them.
Genogram
Extensive study of family’s history. Acts both as an assessment and
treatment tool.
Reframing
The presenting problem as a *multigenerational problem that is caused by factors beyond the individual.
Teaching “I” Statements:
Increases differentiation.
