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About Our Blog
An online forum to further the discussion of research and applications of systems thinking that continue to emerge from the ongoing study and practice of Bowen theory by family therapists, clergy, business leaders, consultants, and scientists.
Averting a Cutoff in an Inherited Triangle
Summer 2025 has arrived. The beach, hiking trails, travel adventures and more beckon us. Unexpected upheaval and uncertainty gripped many countries around the world this past year. The time for some genuine rest and relaxation is overdue. Though CFC cannot offer you a day or week or month off, we have chosen a topic for our annual one-day Summer Conference this year that may get your mind off of the societal stressors for a day, and redirect your focus inward. While the conference focuses on how one bridges existing generational cutoffs, this essay is an example of a case study of an individual who inherits a position in a triangle after someone has died. The question is, must one inevitably accept that inheritance, and continue to amplify the anxiety in the system, or can one member of the new triangle avert the cutoff, thereby avoiding a downward spiral into a cutoff that will impact future generations of the family?
Read More »Thoughts for Thanksgiving 2024
Thanksgiving may be the one holiday that everyone can celebrate. It is an invitation to be grateful for all of life’s blessings. Well, everyone except Indigenous peoples who may prefer not to, all things considered. When I lived in Dearborn, Michigan, Thanksgiving was a big deal. It was common for the interfaith community to hold an interfaith worship service on the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving. We would all gather in one of the various houses of worship, a church or a mosque, and worship in English and Arabic, with Christian texts and readings from the Quran. And some time in that week, usually Sunday night, we would all share a big holiday meal of giving thanks. The events were spirit-filled, honing our sense of gratitude for the rich diversity of our community life. They were also a lot of work. Any time a group of people holding different values and beliefs gathers for a shared event there are challenges and also moments of joy.
Read More »Healing and Emotional Process in Society
In my thirties, following a career in modern dance and then interior design, I became a stay-at-home mom. After a few years I began looking for something I could do for a little income and to keep me engaged with other adults. At that time massage therapy was emerging as an accredited profession with training and a state license required to practice. I attended a 14-month intensive training. I learned about every muscle, ligament, tendon, and bone in the body, how they moved and worked together. I learned about facia and connective tissue and the idea of referred pain. Sometimes when one has pain in the body the origin of that pain is elsewhere in the body, carried along the facia like a snag in a sweater that runs to a different area. The body communicates in amazing ways and as a massage therapist I loved to follow the path of pain and alleviate it.
Read More »Societal Emotional Process and Cutoff in the Family
Seeing a person in the context of their nuclear and multigenerational family illuminates predicable patterns of thinking, feeling and relating that is the crux of Bowen Family Systems theory. Bowen Family Systems theory elucidates the immeasurable power of thinking systems in the evaluation of symptoms an individual is experiencing. Dr. Bowen began to see in the early 1970’s that thinking systems was not only applicable to the lives of families, but was also relevant in application to society as a whole.
Read More »Bowen Theory, Science, and Research
Murray Bowen’s interest in a science of human behavior didn’t begin with the intention of developing a new theory. His initial effort was to contribute to the then existing paradigm in the field of mental health becoming more scientific. His research and exploration of the sciences across disciplines led to the recognition that psychoanalysis and the various personality theories derived from it lacked the capacity to move toward science.
Read More »Frans de Waal, Our First Symposium Speaker
Frans de Waal, 75, Who Believed Apes Had Cognition, Dies so said the obituary by Alex Traub in the New York Times on Saturday, March 23, 2024.
“Frans de Waal, who used his study of the inner life of animals to build a powerful case that apes think, feel, strategize pass down culture and act on moral sentiments – and that humans are not quite as special as many like to think- died on March 14 at his home in Stone Mountain, Ga.”
Read More »Reflections on the 4th International Conference on Bowen Theory
Bowen theory has certainly come a long way even since the first international conference held in 2015 in Pittsburg, PA at the Western Pennsylvania Family Center. One of its founding members and long-term executive directors, Jim Smith was a pioneer in making theory available worldwide and in organizing this first ever international conference. Since then, international conferences have been held in Hong Kong (2018), Sweden (2022) and most recently, Miami, Florida.
Read More »Why I spent Christmas 2023 in the Mayo Clinic Hospital
Due to the amputation of my husband’s foot, we spent Christmas this past year in the Mayo Clinic hospital. This is the twelfth year of a long story. David has had a pain in his left foot when he walked on it for the last 12 years. Medical opinion assumed the problem was neurological. He was referred to countless doctors who referred him for x-rays, CT and MRI scans. No one could find anything to explain the pain. One pain clinic installed a nerve stimulator in his back that was controlled by a technician at Abbot Labs who determined the dosage and the frequency of the nerve jolts. It didn’t work!
Read More »Reflections on Societal Regression
Murray Bowen’s unique contribution to the science of human behavior was his ability to observe family interaction and to describe the underlying emotional process that governs all families to varying degrees. He went on to describe an analogous emotional process in societies and introduced the concept of emotional regression: “When a family is subjected to chronic, sustained anxiety, the family begins to lose contact with its intellectually-determined principles, to resort more and more to emotionally determined decisions to allay the anxiety of the moment. …The societal concept postulates that the same process is evolving in society.” (Bowen 1978, 386)
Read More »Integration of Research in Practice: Reflections on the CFC Fall Conference
What does the word “research” bring to mind for you? Images of scientists in lab coats, doing things with test tubes? Creating experiments with control groups? Data mapped on charts and graphs? That dreaded required course in college? A formidable enterprise to be sure.
For those who attended the CFC Fall Conference, “Integration of Research in Practice,” the word, “research” took on a larger meaning. Four Bowen theory researchers presented their studies, each illustrating a different and creative approach.
Read More »Multi-generational Transmission Process
Dr. Murray Bowen’s research on the science of family interactions observed that humans have a non-genetic heritability as well as a genetic heritability in regards to their personhood; mentally, emotionally, and relationally. This is to say that over a human’s lifespan there is a process of evolution and adaptation transpiring, as opposed to merely a predestined and limitedly determined existence (stasis). Dr. Bowen’s research established conceptually a parallel theory to biology’s concepts of heritability (genetics) and epigenetics in his description of the multigenerational transmission process. This process encapsulates many of the core tenants of Bowen’s research and clinical observations. The multigenerational transmission process describes the reality that as humans in family systems we are reflexively (automatically and unconsciously) feeling, emulating, and responding with each other. There is an inherited nature to our personhood and ways of being that is passed down through the generations in our families. Bowen highlighted that the multigenerational transmission process involves first, the emotional system, which is felt and experienced, and then the relationship system wherein it is expressed.
Read More »Learning to “Think Systems”
“We continuously admonish ourselves for what we do or do not do and continually implore each other to be different. There appears to be an infinite supply of people available to tell us the “right” way to think and the “right” way to act. The vast majority of the admonitions and directives that swirl around us are hopelessly entangled in subjectivity. Depending on the phenomenon under consideration, we blame some thing, some person, some group, some whatever for its presence. We blame genes, chemicals, parents, schools, a variety of “bad” influences, and certain politicians for what goes wrong. Probably the most important subjectivity determined block to observing human behavior has been the earlier described difficulty in seeing the part oneself plays in the functioning of others. Our conceptualizations of human behavior have consistently deemphasized the process between people and focused on the process within people”.
Read More »A Review of John O’Donohue’s “Bless the Space Between Us”
In his book, To Bless the Space Between Us, John O’Donohue sets out to write a book of blessings that follow what he calls, “the seven rhythms of the human journey: beginnings, desires, thresholds, homecoming, states of the heart, callings, and beyond endings.” In chapter 4, Homecomings, O’Donohue describes the trajectory of human development from birth to adulthood.
Read More »“Fantastic Fungi, The Magic Beneath Us”: A Documentary Film Review
In a vividly pictorial documentary Paul Stamets, mycologist, takes us on an adventure into an understanding of fungi, how they help trees communicate and how they decompose anything that’s natural based and how they contribute to the regeneration of soil and rebirth of life. To Stamets nature is intelligent, and it is humans that lack the ability to understand how nature communicates.
Read More »Differences That Make a Difference: Defining Self in an Intercultural Context
In 2018 and I embarked on a journey of study on intercultural competency, anticipating that Bowen Theory would play a role in this study. The hope was that I, as the Rector, would be able to lead my English-speaking Episcopal congregation, comprised primarily of white people of European descent, into forming an effective partnership with an Arabic speaking congregation of people from Lebanon, Egypt, and Palestine, with whom we were going to share a building. What developed from the study informed my hypothesis that congregational anxiety can be lowered when the congregation establishes its sense of purpose, it’s mission. In particular I have been exploring how commitment to a clearly stated mission of the congregation can function in the emotional process of a congregation in much the same way as a person who defines “one’s-self” functions in a family.
Read More »Opportunities for Ongoing Individual Growth: Bowen Theory in Clinical Work
The COVID-19 pandemic brought with it new alternatives for people seeking help with anxiety. Online platforms became a viable option for therapy resulting in easier access to services. While this shift toward technology has increased the number of providers available, wide variations exist among treatment modalities. For those seeking long-term modifications in their lives, finding a provider who can meet both the immediate need and a goal of lasting change can be a challenge. This dual objective is best met by a provider who has the ability to “think systems” while viewing anxiety and other problems from a broad perspective. Whether you are a social worker, a family therapist, coach, teacher, clergy, or a consultants or leader in business, you can increase your knowledge of how human systems function by participating in a Bowen theory post-graduate training program.
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