What Is Bowenian Family Therapy?
Bowenian family therapy is an approach to treatment that was developed by the psychiatrist Murray Bowen. Bowen believed that patterns persist in families across generations, and problematic behaviors can be passed down and create similar conflicts.
Bowen created this approach to therapy aimed at fostering healthy communication between family members, breaking toxic or harmful patterns, and developing healthy differentiation and autonomy among each individual within the family unit. Bowenian family therapy uses an intergenerational lens to identify these patterns and communication techniques to promote healthy boundaries and relationships within the family.
Types of Bowenian Family Therapy
As the name implies, Bowenian family therapy typically involves multiple family members working together to address family conflicts and improve relationships within the family unit.
Family therapy can include couple’s work, parent and child relationship work, work with blended families, or work with multiple generations of a family.
However, a Bowenian therapist can also work with individuals. Individual talk therapy can include an emphasis on identifying intergenerational conflicts and patterns, setting appropriate boundaries and differentiation between the individual and their family members, and communication skills. If an individual wants to work on these issues and including additional family members is not possible, they can still benefit from techniques of Bowenian family therapy.
Techniques of Bowenian Family Therapy
Practitioners of Bowenian family therapy have several interventions that are specific to this approach to treatment, including:
- Genograms: A genogram is a graphic of a family that includes information about history, relationships, psychology, and patterns. It allows the therapist and client to explore these patterns and connections to guide treatment. Bowenian therapists will typically create a genogram at the start of therapy but continue to add information throughout the course of treatment.
- Differentiating emotions and self-differentiation: Bowenian therapists will help clients identify the emotions occurring within the family unit and note when they are taking on the emotions of other family members. This technique involves helping each family member recognize their individual emotions and identities alongside their role in the family unit.
- I-statements: An “I-statement” is a communication technique that emphasizes the emotions of the speaker rather than the attributes of the other person. It aims to communicate the emotion behind the statement rather than bringing up defensiveness or feelings of blame in the listener. For example, instead of, “You never help around the house,” the client would be encouraged to rephrase as, “I feel overwhelmed with chores and would like more help from you.”
- Triangles: While triangulation in family therapy refers to a form of manipulation in which members are pitted against each other, Bowenian family therapy uses the concept of emotional triangles to symbolize stable relationship networks. In Bowenian family therapy, families work to create healthy balance and support in these emotional triangles.
- Intergenerational patterns: Using the genogram, a Bowenian family therapist will work to identify patterns persisting between generations and help families identify which patterns benefit them and which patterns they want to challenge and break out of.
- Normalizing challenges: Bowenian family therapists emphasize that challenges and conflicts will occur even after therapy terminates. They prepare clients to face future difficulties before they arise.
What Bowenian Family Therapy Can Help With
Bowenian family therapy can help families who are experiencing conflict or communication difficulties. It can also help individuals experiencing anxiety and stress. It is particularly helpful if you want to address the impact of previous generations and current family dynamics on your mental health and current symptoms.
Couples can also benefit from Bowenian family therapy when working to identify how each person’s family history informs their approach to communication and conflict resolution.
Benefits of Bowenian Family Therapy
Because Bowenian family therapy emphasizes healthy communication skills and conflict resolution, participating in this type of therapy can help foster healthy relationships and appropriate boundaries. Clients develop insight into their behaviors and develop a deeper understanding of why they make the choices they make, the impact of these choices on their relationships, and how to make healthy and lasting changes.
Families that engage in Bowenian family therapy together learn to identify the triangles within the unit and utilize these interconnected relationships to make relationships stronger. They are taught healthy and appropriate communication styles that foster productive conflict resolution rather than defensiveness and arguments. Members can also understand each other on a deeper level by identifying intergenerational patterns.
Finally, each family member learns a healthy balance between connectedness and personal identity within the family unit.
Effectiveness of Bowenian Family Therapy
There is limited empirical evidence for Bowenian family therapy at this time. However, the Bowenian technique of self-differentiation can be effective in alleviating anxiety symptoms. In couple’s therapy, Bowenian family therapy can improve feelings of happiness and empathy between partners due to improved communication skills and increased understanding of both the self and the other.
Additionally, research has shown that Bowenian family therapy can aid in family reunification when child protection has been involved, as parents can learn to identify abusive patterns in their family genogram and work to break these patterns.
Things to Consider
Because Bowenian family therapy can be used individually, with couples, or with a larger family unit, it is an option for many people seeking therapy support. Clients need to be prepared to put in the work to practice making changes to communication styles and boundaries, especially if other family members are not directly involved in treatment.
Disrupting long-standing patterns is stressful and challenging even if it is beneficial in the long run.
Additionally, this approach includes exploring transgenerational patterns and behaviors, and as such, it may bring up intergenerational trauma. Prior to starting treatment, clients should be prepared for this possibility and have coping skills in place to address difficult emotions that might come up over the course of treatment.
As with all forms of therapy, Bowenian family therapy is not a “magic pill” that will suddenly fix problems. It takes significant client engagement and willingness to make needed changes.
How to Get Started
If Bowenian family therapy seems to be a good fit for your therapy goals and mental health needs, you can begin looking for therapists who offer this approach. Many therapists will note that they are trained in Bowenian family therapy on their directory profiles.
You can also contact your insurance company to get information about what services are covered. Although specific theoretical orientations typically are not excluded by insurance plans, the company can give you information about what your out-of-pocket cost might be as well as the names of in-network providers.
If you feel like current family dynamics and intergenerational patterns are impacting your mental health and family relationships, Bowenian family therapy might help you address these concerns in a healthy way.
What is Bowenian Family Therapy: Definition and Techniques 
Initially it was believed that our society and culture has an influence on our values systems. Which is true, but it only has a small influence on us. According to Murray Bowen, a psychiatrist stated that most of our values are shaped by the history of our family.
Bowenian Family Therapy works on the same belief. The belief that with all the pleasant attributes we also inherit the unpleasant ones. Those conflicts and problematic behavior that has been persistent across generations are dealt with in this therapy.
Let’s understand Bowenian Family Therapy in detail…
What Is Bowenian Family Therapy?
Bowenian Family Therapy is a treatment that focuses on family conflicts. This approach to treating problematic behavior within families has been developed by Murray Bowen, a pioneering psychiatrist in family therapy.
Bowen believed that some of the family conflicts and problematic behaviors are passed down to us by generations. These problems and issues within the family have to be sorted out so that interpersonal relationships are maintained.
The main aim for Murray Bowen for the Bowenian Family Therapy was to:
- Reduce toxic communication
- Foster healthy communication
- Breaking harmful patterns
- Developing healthy differentiation in growth and development
- Practice health autonomy with the family members
Also Read: An Overview of Family Systems Therapy
Bowenian Family System Theory
Murray Bowen began his practice as a psychoanalyst and in the process of investigating schizophrenic patients he came across the idea of family patterns and dimensions of family systems.
Bowenian Family System Theory as known as Bowen Theory (1974) states that a perception among family members of being too close or too apart from each other in their relationship can induce chronic anxiety within the family.
Bowen believes that the intensity of anxiety depends upon the external stress and the problematic behavioral patterns that have been passed down by generations. He even stated that if the family is sensitive towards emotional stress, chronic stress is most likely to set in place within all family members.
The main aim of the bowen theory as to reduce the chronic stress within families and he aimed to do it through:
- Making family members aware as to how emotional systems functions
- Increasing acceptance of the individual differences among the family members
- Focusing on changes that make the self better rather than pestering the other person to change.
The salient features of this theory are togetherness and individuality. If there is too much of closeness with the family members, the sense of self is compromised. On the other hand if you focus a lot on individuality, there’s a high chance that you’ll be distant and the family might fall apart.
Also Read: 7 Most Common Family Problems And What To Do To Resolve Those Issues
The Concepts Of Bowenian Family system Theory
There are some basic concepts that complete the bowen theory. These concepts explain family development and functioning properly.
1. Emotional fusion and differentiation of self: emotional fusion is when a family member chooses to put his/her needs aside so that there is harmony within the family. Differentiation to self is one’s inability to separate their feelings from their thoughts.
2. Triangles: triangles is basically when two members of the family are having some issues either because of individuality or togetherness, ask a third party to intervene.
3. Nuclear family Emotional system: these are the emotional patterns that are actually passed down to generations to come. For example, if a father suffers from a phobia, he will try to keep his kids away from the triggers of his phobia and eventually the children might as well grow up thinking that the fear is not irrational. They might develop the same or similar phobia.
4. Family projection process: This is a part of the nuclear family emotional system because the family member who has the problem (father with phobia) has to stabilize the family and not transfer the anxiety and problematic behavior to the next generation.
5. Emotional cutoff: according to Bowen’s theory an emotional cutoff is when a family member decides to move away and cut himself off from the family completely.
6. Multigenerational transmission process: Bowen theory here states that the patterns, themes and roles in the family are passed down to generations to come depending on how much traingaling has happened between the parents and the child.
7. Sibling positions: Here Bowen has focused on the position of each sibling (i.e. eldest, middle or youngest), their relationship and which sibling position triangles with the parents the most.
Also Read: The Stress Of Family Conflicts: How To Resolve
Bowenian Family Therapy Techniques
Those of practice Bowenian Family Therapy may have specific and similar approach to different intervention that have been introduced in Bowenian Family Therapy such as:
1. Differentiating emotions and self-differentiation: in this technique of Bowenian Family Therapy, each family member is taught to identify the emotions of a family unit and also identify when you are mirroring other family members’ emotions as yours.
2. Genograms: Genograms are graphs that show different patterns, relationships, history and psychology of the family. This makes it easy for you and the therapist to find the link between a particular problematic behavior.
3. I-Statements: I-statements is a technique which is used in many therapies. In Bowenian Family Therapy it is used so that whenever you are expressing your emotions you put it on you rather than projecting it onto the other family members.
4. Triangles: this is a rather weird technique of Bowenian Family Therapy but according to the practitioners, it does work. In this each family member is turned against the other. This emotional triangling is done to create balance in their relationship.
5. Intergenerational patterns: this technique of Bowenian Family Therapy uses the genogram to identify the healthy patterns which have been inherited as well as the faulty patterns so that they can be cured.
6. Normalizing challenges: it is natural for a family to have conflicts within them. Even after therapy you might face it so as to prepare the family to react in a healthy way when in conflict, they use normalizing challenges.
Also Read: How To Improve Family Relationships
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Endnote
Bowenian Family Therapy is being used to resolve conflicts and problematic behaviors with family units. The Bowenian theory of family systems is being used in the techniques that help the Bowenian Family Therapy execute properly.
I hope you found this blog informative and all your doubts about Bowenian Family Therapy, Bowen theory and Bowenian Family Therapy Techniques are clear now!
Thanks for reading!
Take care and stay safe.
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About The Author
I am an English literature (major) and psychology (minor) graduate from St. Bede’s College, Shimla. Postgraduate in Clinical psychology from IIS University, Jaipur. She has published a Research paper on Music therapy in the military population and Workplace stress in a national seminar conducted by Fortis hospital (gurugram) and international seminar conducted by St. Bede’s College, Shimla, Respectively. Authored a dissertation work on ‘effect of social media addiction on the mental and physical well-being in adolescents’ Currently working at calm sage as a writer.
