February 27, 2017
BOWEN FAMILY THERAPY
Theory Handout ~ Megan Silva
Theory
Bowen Family
Systems Therapy
Murray Bowen
(1913-1990)
* Iconic in the development
of transgenerational
models of family theory.
* One of the original
developers of mainstream
family therapy.
* Evolved from
psychoanalytical
principles and practices.
* His approach referred to
as family systems theory,
transgenerational, or
Bowenian
* Views the family as an
emotional unit and uses
systems thinking to
describe the complex
interactions within the
family.
* Within every family
system there are various
processes that either tie
families together or
separate them.
Nature of Persons
Family systems approaches focus on the
relational aspects of human problems.
People are best understood through
assessing their interactions between and
among family members. 



Bowen believed families can be best understood when analyzed
from a three generations perspective, because patterns of
interpersonal relationships connect family members across
generations.
Values, religious behavior, dysfunction, gender roles, and similar
occupations can be viewed across generations to give a better
understanding of the presenting family.
Model of Mental Health
Family members strive to develop a rational, nonreactive
approach to living (called differentiation of self) and to de-tangle
family interactions that involve two people involving a third
member in problems or arguments.
Optimal developed is thought to take place when family members
are differentiated, have low anxiety, and are in good emotional
contact with their own family.
Bowen believed that differentiation of autonomous personalities,
typically accomplished in the family of origin, are the description
of normal development and prescription for therapeutic progress.
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Role of Model of Emotional
Counselor Disturbance:
Families exist as unique, collective, emotion systems that often pass
• Guide
 problems down through generations.

Differentiation is a function of a person’s ability to handle stress. In

people who are less differentiated it takes less stress to cause symptoms.
• Objective researcher
 Levels of differentiation have a
significant impact on
multigenerational transmission of
• Teacher
 anxieties and dysfunction within
the family.

According to Bowen the factor in

• Monitor of own psychological problems is
reactivity emotional fusion which is passed
down from one generation to the next.

References:
Corey, G. (2013). Theory and
practice of counseling and
psychotherapy (9th ed.)
 family of origin, three generations.
Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole.
Halbur, D.A. & Halbur, K.V.
(2011) Understanding your
theoretical orientation in
counseling and
psychotherapy.Upper Saddle
River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.
Counseling Process:
Time Focus: Focused on the present and how the past has resurfaced,
Therapy Goals: Change the individual within the context of the
system, help individual family members increase their levels of
differentiate to allow them to mature emotionally and to be more
autonomous, help manage emotions within the family helping members
be able to reduce symptoms and current emotional turmoil and to
provide boundary clarification between members of the family and to
identify “triangles”

Kerr, Michael E. “One Family’s
Story: A Primer on Bowen
Theory.” The Bowen Center for
the Study of the Family. 2000.
http://www.thebowencenter.org.
Process of change: Questions and cognitive processes lead to
differentiation and understanding of family of origin. Increase the
ability to distinguish between feeling and thinking and using this to
solve problems within the family.

Nichols, M/P. (10th edition). Techniques: Family assessment, genograms, processing questions,
Family Therapy: Concepts and relationship experiments, detriangulating relationships. coaching, taking
Methods. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
“I-positions”, displacement stories and sharing hypotheses. *Bowen did
not identify many techniques, as he believed that questioning the family
about their history was important and that by providing hypotheses, the
family would gain a greater knowledge of their emotional system and
family patterns.