Bowen Family Systems CA MFT Flashcards

- Psychiatrist
- Among the pioneers of family therapy and founders of systemic therapy

1) Intrapsychic
2) Interpersonal

One diverts a conflict between two people by involving a third

- A complete or almost-complete separation from the family
- The natural mechanisms people use to counter high anxiety or high emotional fusion, from unresolved issues with family
- Can look like physical or emotional withdrawal, avoidance of sensitive topics, physically moving away from family members, and rarely going home

- The ability to separate feelings and thoughts
- The process of freeing yourself from your family's processes to define yourself
- Healthy balance of 2 forces: individuality and togetherness

• - Differentiation of Self (the most important concept)
• - Nuclear Family Emotional System
• - Triangles
• - Family Projection Process
• - Multigenerational Transmission Process
• - Emotional Cutoff
• - Sibling Position
• - Societal Emotional Process

- Whereby levels of differentiation among family members can become progressively lower from one generation to the next
- The way family emotional processes are transferred and maintained over the generations

A family unit whose members possess low differentiation and therefore are emotionally fused

An open relationship

- The basic units of systems
- Two on the inside, one on the outside

The emotional patterns in a family that continue over the generations

- An extension of The Nuclear Family Emotional Process
- The family member who "has" the "problem" is triangulated and serves to stabilize a dyad in the family
- The family member who serves as the "screen" upon which the family "projects" this story will have great trouble differentiating

- Each child has a place in the family hierarchy, and thus is more or less likely to fit some projections
- i.e. the oldest sibling is more likely to be seen as overly responsible and mature, and the youngest as overly irresponsible and immature
- i.e. Think of the oldest sibling who grows up and partners with a person who was also an oldest sibling. They may be drawn to each other because both believe the other is mature and responsible.

More

- Social expectations about racial and class groups, the behaviors for each gender, the nature of sexual orientation... and their effect on the family
- Families that deal with prejudice, discrimination, and persecution must pass on to their children the ways they learned to survive these factors