Family Analysis : Family System Theory

The goal of Bowen’ theory is to review developmental patterns within the familial system and the stress centered around the anxiety caused by closeness or the lack thereof (Penny, 1999). Bowen’s theory works to facilitate a decline in stress and anxiety by enabling the clients with education as to how the emotional system works and focusing on how to modify self perceptional behaviors instead of working to change others within the system (Penny, 1999).

For this assignment, two different theoretical approaches will be discussed, Bowenian family therapy and structural family therapy, and they will be used individually to construct a treatment plan to help clients reach their goals. Within each treatment plan discussed, short-term and long-term goals of therapy will be established and the family’s presenting problems will be defined. Two techniques that will be assigned to help them reach their therapeutic goals and any expected outcome from using those techniques will be discussed.

Family systems theory is useful when working with families who are impacted by an ASD diagnosis. The family systems theory focuses on the shift of an individual perspective to a family systems perspective. Family is the most important support system for a child. Family is looked at as a unit, therefore by using the family systems theory the professionals are able to identify the family’s influences on the individual. The family system impacts a child’s development as family members affect the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of one another (Paylo, 2011).

In conceptualising the development of the family system, Bowenian therapists are past-focused. They believe that emotional fusion that is passed down from one generation to the next is the cause of psychological problems (Nichols, 2010, pp 119-122). Normal family development according to Solution Focused therapist produces families with flexible structures, clear boundaries and well-organised hierarchies. This is quite similar to Bowenian’s concept of normal family development. Differentiated individuals after all need to have clear boundaries. Similarly, flexible structures and well-organised hierarchies do promote low anxiety and therefore generate positive emotional contact between family members. The difference is that instead of being past-focused, Solution Focused therapy assiduously avoids the past and focuses their clients as much as possible on the present and future. (Nichols, 2010, pp 321).

Murray Bowen’s theory of family systems therapy developed as a result of his study of schizophrenic patients. Early in his career, Bowen researched the symbiotic relationship between a mother and child in an effort to discover the possible patterned “causes” of schizophrenia. Bowen quickly concluded that several outside factors may contribute to a family member’s mental illness, and began calling for entire family systems to be treated. This idea led Bowen to develop the concepts of “differentiation of self” and “triangulation”(Nichols 2017, p.19).

This idea however is central to what would later become the practice of family and systemic therapies. Family therapy advocates using practices that specifically address historical, contextual and constitutional factors, including working with all members of the extended family and wider social network as well as coaching people to manage their constraints within their unit (Carr, 2012). Systemic therapy has its roots in family systems theory, which was pioneered by Murray Bowen, an American psychiatrist who originally practiced within the psychoanalytic model, but later shifted his focus to the role of family dynamics and dimensions of the family as a system during

While reading The Family Crucible, the authors made it feel like I was watching a life-time television series. There were several high points and low points during the family therapy session that left me unsure of how the show would end. This book takes you on a journey using family counseling to help a family heal and communicate better with one another. I thought it was interesting how this systematic therapy took place in a time where therapy was looked at as taboo. Many times in that era family therapy was not an option. The main focus was on the family member with the issue and not on the parents or other family members. In the book the authors used different theories and approaches during the counseling sessions which were quite interesting. This process after time enabled the family to look at the journey they were on in order to understand how the family, as a whole, should function.

Prior to establishing his theory post-World War II, Bowen studied the origins of schizophrenia and postulated that transgenerational maternal enmeshment was its cause. Bowen’s thoughts on this were similar to those on individuation. Though he believed psychoanalysis was too individualized for family therapy, the psychoanalytic notion that one’s interactions are driven by unconscious motivation was the theory’s germ of inspiration. Goldenberg & Goldenberg (2012) write that the most essential piece Bowen’s family systems theory is that the individual needs to resolve anxiety arising from their family of origin to find a sense of individuality. This concept is traceable to Bowen’s psychoanalytic roots as a psychiatrist.

In the Structural Family Therapy model, therapy is not focused solely on the individual, but upon the person within the family system (Colapinto, 1982; Minuchin, 1974). The major idea behind viewing the family in this way is that “an individual’s symptoms are best understood when examined in the context of the family interactional patterns,” (Gladding, 1998, p. 210). In SFT, there are two basic assumptions: 1) families possess the skills to solve their own problems; and 2) family members usually are acting with good intentions, and as such, no

The family structure is made up of individuals living together in intimate groups with the purpose of caring and supporting each other. Rules and boundaries, spoken and unspoken, are developed by the family members. Family rules and boundaries change and shift over time in order to evolve and grow as a family unit. Some changes are subtle, but some events force major change within the family system. This paper applies the concepts of systems theory to the family system in the movie Sweet Home Alabama. Reese Witherspoon (Melanie Smooter) and Josh Lucas (Jake Perry) star in this heart-warming film telling a story of a young woman who flees from Alabama to reinvent herself in New York City as a high fashion designer. She leaves behind

People develop problems for a variety of reasons and those problems serve various purposes according to the integrated family systems approach. A person can acquire emotional, behavioral or psychological problems due to family and social environment, abuse or genetics. In addition to that, being influenced by family systems a client’s presenting problem can be contributed to by their family. A person’s problem may serve a specific role in the family’s dynamics, the problem may also be inadvertently encouraged by the family, a family’s incompetence to be constructive especially during “developmental transitions” or be attributed to the family’s dysfunction (Corey, 2013, p.435) .This way of viewing problems is broad and allows to a person to be viewed as part of a family system. It is also beneficial to view problems outside of the individual because it allows the therapist to see the client for than just a medical issue to be solved. A person and their problems do not exist in a vacuum but in a world that who people especially within a family influence and impact each other.

Dr. Murray Bowen, a psychiatrist, offered us the family systems theory. This theory views the family as an emotional unit, further providing a thinking systems approach to describe the complex interactions in the unit. Bowen offered, “A change in one person’s functioning is predictably followed by a reciprocal change in the functioning of others” (Kerr, 2000). If one person within the family unit is having a difficult time, it effects everyone within the family unit. An example of this would be a father who is the primary breadwinner for his family suddenly loosing his job. Prior

This paper will summarize the theory of family systems developed by Murray Bowen. It will describe the eight key components to Bowenian therapy and the techniques used during practice. Strengths and limitations will be exposed, followed by a summary of the importance of integration between psychology and family systems theory.

Murray Bowen was born in 1913 in Tennessee and died in 1990. He was the oldest child in a large cohesive family. He trained as a psychiatrist and originally practiced within the psychoanalytic model. In his practice he involved mothers in the investigation of schizophrenic patients. He thought that the cause of schizophrenia begun in mother-child symbiosis which created an anxious and unhealthy attachment. His devotion to his own psychoanalytic training was set aside after his move to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in 1954 as he begun to shift from an individual focus to an appreciation of the dimensions of families as systems. He began to include more family members in his research and psychotherapy

Structural Family Therapy and Bowen Family Therapy are two useful intervention models that help families with their problems. However, each model addresses these problems in a different way. The Structural Family Therapy model looks at the problem through the relationships within each of the family members and the subsets of the family (Fredricks, 2014). Structural Family Therapy recognizes that the family may operate according to generic or distinctive house rules. The point of Structural Family Therapy is to remodel the family system into a healthier one. Bowen Family Therapy looks at how the family dynamics, values, morals, and relationships are passed down through each generation, and how it affects the overall family unit (Brown, 1999). It looks at the multigenerational