The Systems Thinker - Center for Family Consultation's blog

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.

Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There: Emotional Intensity and its Crucial Place in Relationships

Authored by Kelly Matthews-Pluta, M.S.W.

“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe” John Muir

Human life is a complicated business.  We are connected to the world around us in every way imaginable.  Some of that connection is within our conscious awareness and much is outside of it. The relationships we have with family are how most of us work out the complicated nature of being humans in this universe. Often important relationships become intense and …

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The “Techniques” of Bowen Theory and Therapy

Authored by Sydney K. Reed, M.S.W.

Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines technique as “the method or details of procedure essential to the expertness of execution in any art, science.”  At CFC’s last Clinical Application of Bowen Family Theory and Therapy conference a participant, after seeing the video presentation of a Kerr/Bowen interview talking about differentiation of self, asked if there were techniques we could provide to learn how to do this.  I replied that without an understanding of theory, techniques would be useless and might fail. I …

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Ethical Wills: A Tool For Self Definition

Authored By Eric L. Weiner, M.S.W., Ph.D.

As families consider options for the distribution of assets to the next generation, most of the emphasis is on the tangible assets. Many people, however, view wealth as more than money and real estate. Wealth, for them, includes passing on their wisdom, guiding principles, spiritual beliefs, and family heritage to the next generation. One way to do that is by writing an ethical will.

Ethical wills have a long and rich history. They were first described in the Old Testament …

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The Family Emotional System and the Functioning of Slave Owners, Slaves and their Descendants

Authored by Mignonette N. Keller, Ph. D.

(Abstract of paper to be presented at the 35th Midwest Symposium May 4th, 2018)

This study applies Bowen family systems theory to investigate the factors influencing the functioning of slave owners, slaves and their descendants from a systems perspective.  The findings in this investigation reveal the extent to which there is a direct correlation between the quality of a person’s family relationships and how that person functions.  In effect it is an attempt to answer a basic research question asked …

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Patterns of Interaction in Living Systems

Authored by James E. Jones, Ph.D.

For the last 40 years, The Marder Lab at Brandeis University, with principal investigator Eve Marder, Ph.D., Professor of Biology, has studied one small system of 5 neurons from the 30 neuron stomatogastric ganglion in the stomach of crustaceans.  This ganglion produces three rhythmic oscillations needed for operation of that stomach.  The lab has extensive information about the parameters of connection among these 5 neurons that drive the triphasic oscillations produced by the 5 neurons.  But Marder says that while …

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Bowen Family Systems Theory

Authored by Jim Smith, M. S., Executive Director of the Western Pennsylvania Family Center in Pittsburgh, PA  

Dr. Murray Bowen (b. 1913 – d. 1990) was a psychiatrist and professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University in Washington, DC.  He was one of the pioneers of family systems theory.

A Search for Scientific Understanding

Early in his career as a psychoanalyst, Bowen sought to understand human behavior and functioning in a way that would be more scientific and objective than the prevailing views of his time.  He thought …

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Early Stress and Later Disease: Research Shows One Mitigating Factor

Authored by Kelly Matthews-Pluta, MSW

Gregory Miller, PhD, gave one of the many interesting presentations from the 54th Symposium on Bowen Theory and Psychotherapy in Washington, DC, on November 4-5, 2017.  Dr. Miller, a professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL, discussed his research on Adverse Childhood Events/Experiences (ACES) and physical health in adulthood.  He described experiences in childhood being “sticky” in a biological sense and often showing up later in poor physical health outcomes.  The ACES he outlined were the usual suspects: abuse and/or neglect …

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Reacting to a Racist Family Member

Authored by John Bell, M. Div.

As I followed the news about Charlottesville, I came across a story of a family coming to grips with the revelation that their son participated in the organized rally of white nationalists.  I’ve decided not to reprint their names.  The story is about a father who published a letter online in response to his son’s participation in the rally.  In the letter, the father repudiates the son’s beliefs and behavior.  The father tells the son that he is not welcomed …

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The Evolving Relationship between Humans and the Earth

Authored by Stephanie Ferrera, M.S.W.

This blog post is based on Stephanie Ferrera’s presentation at the 32nd Midwest Symposium in May, 2017

Like all of the species on earth, humans depend on the bountiful resources of the planet for our very existence.  Ian Morris titled his book Foragers, Farmers, and Fossil Fuels to delineate the three main ways that humans, over millennia, have made a living, or, in Morris’ terms, the three modes of “energy capture.”

For 90% of homo sapiens’ time on earth, foraging, the hunting of …

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Polarization: What Happened to the Continuum?

Authored by John Bell, M.Div.

The ideas presented in this blog are taken from a new training module that is available to congregations and community stakeholders who are interested in addressing polarization in their communities.  If you’d like more information about the training, contact John Bell at john@thinkingcongregations.com. Reverend Bell also presented these concepts on May 6, 2017 at the 34th Midwest Symposium Theory and Therapy.

Polarization takes a toll on communities and creates additional problems for institutions.  Compromise, collaboration, and cooperation are replaced with confrontation, obstinacy, …

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Blame and Blaming

Authored by Kelly Matthews-Pluta, M.S.W.

One of the central ideas of Bowen Theory is differentiation of self—a concept of how one sees oneself, emotionally, as an individual and in relationship to and with others.  Often people studying Bowen Theory struggle with the idea of separation of self and other.  Of course, it is complicated.  The two, self and other, are at the same time both separate and connected.  It is exactly that paradox which makes the concept challenging for many: “Am I a separate self or …

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Symposia, Science: Why it Matters

Authored by Cecilia Guzman, M.S.

It is clear that one of Dr. Bowen’s primary goals in developing his Family Systems Theory was to merge the understanding of human behavior and functioning from simply a “soft science” or one that has little objectivity towards a more “hard science”, one that incorporates and is consistent with research in biology, evolution, biochemistry, neuroscience, genetics, etc. Indeed, his theory was developed on the assumption “that an understanding of man’s emotional functioning must extend beyond psychological constructs to recognize the human’s …

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Cutoff: The challenge of the parent/child relationship

Authored by John Bell, M. Div.

“The more a nuclear family maintains some kind of viable emotional contact with the past generations, the more orderly and asymptomatic the life process in both generations” Murray Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, 383.

Phillip Klever, LCSW, LMFT recently published the results of a fifteen-year research project on cutoff in the family.  He studied the most extreme cases in his family of high symptomatology and low symptomatology.  He found five couples on either end of the continuum of symptomatology (high …

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Diagnosis is not Destiny

Authored by Sydney Reed, L.C.S.W.

Three months ago after having been diagnosed with cancer, I sat in my living room and marveled at all the beautiful bouquets, orchids, plants and lovely thoughtful cards that surrounded me.    It brought to mind the article I had read some eight years earlier by Elyn Saks in American Prospect.  She commented that she was in the hospital for cancer surgery and was surrounded by flowers and observed,

“When you are in the hospital for cancer everyone sends you flowers, when you …

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How do people work out their differences?

Authored by Kelly Matthews-Pluta, M.S.W.

In his book on Bowen Family Systems Theory, Mike Kerr stated “The main problem is not differences in points of view; it is the emotional reaction to those differences.  When people can listen without reacting emotionally, communication is wide open and differences are an asset, not a liability”.

This applies when working clinically with an individual, couple or family.  The effort is best focused on probing and questioning individuals to elicit their best thinking.  We know that when the pre frontal cortex …

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Understanding Triangles is Key to Conflict Resolution

Authored by John Bell, M.Div.

The concept of the triangle was one of the first concepts added to Bowen Family Systems Theory in 1955.  Dr. Murray Bowen wrote that the triangle, “a three-person emotional configuration, is the molecule or the basic building block of any emotional system, whether it is in the family or any other group.” (Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, 373)

Three examples of triangles

Let’s say you are the chair of the trustees for your congregation.  You’re about to walk into a worship service and …

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The Thinking, Feeling, and Emotional Systems

Authored by Robert J. Noone, Ph.D.

Bowen theory posits that the interdependent functioning of the intellectual, feeling, and emotional systems of an individual are central to an individual’s overall adaptiveness over a life course.

The prolonged development of the human brain takes place in the context of the highly integrated relationship system of the family. The interactive processing of signals from within the brain, body, and family shapes individual development. The strengthening of neural circuits occurs in the context of the relationship circuitry of the family. Thus …

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Highlights from The 53rd Symposium on Family Theory and Family Psychotherapy

Authored by Kelly Mathews-Pluta, M.S.W., and Robert Noone, PhD.

The Symposium on Family Theory and Family Psychotherapy offered by the Bowen Center for the Study of Family in Washington, DC was held November 4th and 5th, 2016. This Annual Symposium brings together the liveliest minds in the Bowen network to present, question, and discuss the latest research and ideas about Bowen theory. As always, the Symposium also features a Distinguished Guest Lecturer from another discipline whose research is relevant to Bowen theory. Bowen theory is not …

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Bridging the Distance

Authored by Kelly Matthews-Pluta, MSW

Aaron Beck, the founder of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, once said “Evolution favors an anxious gene”.  The idea that we humans are biologically built for fight, flight or freeze is commonly known but little understood.  Over the last hundred years’ human life has gotten safer.  Over the last 500 years it has gotten much safer.  However, human evolution has not caught up with our modern, safer world.  Modern life and death can still hinge on how well we respond to an acute …

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The Hospital Visit

Authored by John Bell, M. Div.

Early on in my career, I used to stress over hospital visits.  I didn’t mind going to the hospital.  Growing up, I saw hospitals as helpful and caring places.  My stress about making hospital visits had more to do with my role as clergy.  I worried about encountering the unexpected and having to think on my feet; having to know what to say or do or what not to say or do.

To me, what is challenging about hospital visits is …

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