Precise Overview Of Murray Bowen's Theory Of Family Systems

Bowen Definitions Paper.
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Bowen Definitions Paper
The family systems theory by Murray Bowen, usually shortened to 'Bowen Theory' from 1974, was one of the most detailed, comprehensive and functioning methods of family systems developed in 1966, 1978 and 1988 and although it has received impeccable and sporadic attention in New Zealand and Australia, the concepts, in theory, have perpetuated their central influence in North America and many other parts of the world in the practice of family therapy. This only means that many therapists, specifically family therapists, have had an articulate connection and influenced by the ideas of Bowen. Famous therapists have talked about their experience with the model, including McGoldrick, Carter, Lerner, and Schnarch, saying that Bowen's designs have been the heart and meaning of their professions. This paper will give a precise overview of Murray Bowen's theory of family systems. It seeks to describe the concepts in the model, their definitions and applications in the modern family systems.
Triangles
A triangle is a relationship system between three persons. This is the smallest relationship system which is being considered as the basic beginning block of larger emotional systems. A triangle is a better relationship system than two persons in terms of tension because the tension will shift between three relationships, making it more stable and reasonable. Actions of people in a triangle entail too much attachment to one side, having more importance on another and picking sides during a fight, a typical instance where one might feel neglected, biased and being an 'odd outsider' (Haefner, 2014). This is why the patterns in a triangle change with an increase in tension wherein calm situations, two people who are comfortable with each other grow close together to becoming insiders while the third person is left as an uncomfortable outsider. To push for change, the outsider works on getting closer to the solidified insiders by making a mild tension between winning the attention of the most uncomfortable insider.
The terms stably apply to my family. Firstly, I have a brother and a very close cousin who lives with us, for the better part, making the three of us. My older sister has her friend, who is our neighbor, but she has a female relative, our aunt, who lives with us, making the three of them and my day-to-day observation reveal that the term wholly applies to them too. Finally, my entire family is an extended family, and we live with our grandmother who the mother to our father. In this instance, my father, my mother, and my grandmother make a triangle where the relationship is affected by the patterns of the term mentioned above. Therefore, my entire family has three triangles.
Example one is in the relationship between my cousin, my brother and I. Our relationship has never been mutual, in that there are always two close people and one outsider. The closeness is often determined by our actions and the way we treat each other, but in my point of view, the one person who has always been standard is our cousin, an individual whom my brother and I are still working for his attention and friendship. My sister loves to talk about her life, issues, and problems. She usually tells them to my aunt, and that makes our female neighbor bothered being left off the conversation. However, my aunt does not like hearing about her life issues, and when our neighbor gives a listening ear to my sister, our aunt begins to feel the tension of being an outsider and always attempts to restore the relationship by causing rumor tensions between the two. The same pattern applies to the three-person relationship between our parents and our grandmother.
Fusion-emotional cutoff and enmeshment
This concept describes the activities of an individual in the management of their unresolved emotional issues with their parents, siblings, and other members of the family by minimizing or completely cutting off emotional contact with them. There are two ways to this concept. The first one is that a person may decide to reduce emotional connection by moving away, living in their different place and rarely going home, or staying at home with their parents and family members but avoiding individual discussions of particular emotional issues (Erdem & Safi, 2018). Although people may think that they are making their relationships better by cutting off ties with their families and origins, the issues that made them do so will remain dormant and unresolved. This is because the more an individual stays away from their families, the more they have the urge and yearning of seeing them, and this makes them vulnerable to specific pressures that alter their behaviors and eventually jeopardizing their relationships.
This term does not apply to my entire but a part of my family. Neither John nor his wife, Mary, wanted to live near their families. Therefore, when John got a well-paying job to move in town, they were eager to move and live there, gladly welcoming the physical distance between them and their parents. However, his mother was not happy about the phenomenon and always told him to convince his company to move him within the home so they can see each other. John never agreed to the concerns and instead blamed his mother for their attachment issues.
Mary followed a similar pattern to John's in dealing with her family. However, her family visited them often in their home in the city, and her mother would get more and more worried about her drinking problem and how she was raising Sasha, their daughter. Although Mary always felt that she was to blame for her deficiencies and relapses, she would complain to her mother of still scrutinizing and monitoring her life, bringing forth her emotional cutoff from her family. The third example as to how the term applies to my family is about my brother who stays at home, not because he likes being home, but because he does not have the money to rent an apartment in the city. My brother has had unresolved issues with my father concerning the latter's dissatisfaction on my brother's college grade, and that is why he always evades the topic. The three examples from my family represent Bowen’s pattern of the term in his explanation.
Nuclear family emotional system
Bowen defines the concept of a nuclear emotional family system using four basic relationship patterns that are used to govern the family when problems develop. These patterns are determined by the attitudes and beliefs of the people, but the forces that play an essential role in driving the designs are part of the family's emotional system. These basic relationship patterns are; marital conflict, dysfunction in one's spouse, impairment of one or more children, and emotional distance (Haefner, 2014). Marital tension is when there is a joint tension in the family, but each spouse focuses on their anxieties by identifying and addressing what is wrong with each other. Dysfunction in one spouse is when one spouse pressures the other, in a dictatorial way, to behave and act in a certain kind of, and the other agrees to it. Impairment of one or more children is when both spouses focus their anxieties on one or all of their children whereas emotional distance is when people create range from each other to reduce contact and relationship but risk becoming too detached.
This term relates to my family in such a way that the emotional involvement of a parent with his or her family shapes them in to have the same capacity of emotional attachment and to react intensely and intimately to any signs of real or imagined withdrawal and detachment. For example, the family tensions manifested by the interactions of John and Mary led to emotional distance between them and the immediate focus of their anxieties on Sasha. Sasha, subsequently, takes advantage of the intense emotional involvement of her parents by demanding more than what she needed from them, especial...