Bowen Family Systems Theory

Bowen family systems theory was developed over many years of groundbreaking clinical research by a brilliant psychiatrist called Murray Bowen.

Through his research Bowen observed that families operate as emotional units, meaning that the emotional functioning of each individual is connected to the other members of the family. Bowen also found that the degree of emotional fusion in a family is generally felt more strongly when stress increases.

It can feel like our central nervous systems are literally connected…

All families experience times of acute stress in response to a temporary challenge or life transition. However, families also have to deal with a certain amount of chronic anxiety, which is generated by ongoing reactivity within the family and focuses on potential or imagined threats. Chronic anxiety often triggers people to feel:

  • insecure about a relationship
  • inhibited within a relationship

In families with a low level of chronic anxiety, there is plenty of connectedness as well as plenty of freedom for people to be themselves. However, in families with a high level of chronic anxiety, people experience increased togetherness, meaning that there isn’t a lot of emotional separation between people. Togetherness can feel really good, but if it isn’t paired with individuality, there isn’t a lot of flexibility for people to follow their own paths.

According to Bowen family systems theory, when chronic anxiety increases in a relationship, we tend to regulate our emotions using four interpersonal patterns: conflict, dominant/deferential functioning in which one person becomes symptomatic, distance, and triangulation. Becoming aware of these patterns can help us to recognize them when they happen and make more thoughtful choices about how to handle relational anxiety.

In a chronically anxious family system, people often have to put a lot of energy into managing their relationships with one another (and the other people in their lives), which limits the amount of energy they have left over for their own goals.

Other kinds of relationship systems can operate in the same way. Have you ever noticed anxiety spreading like a virus through a workplace, organization, school, or place of worship? Maybe you’ve noticed that some people seem to amplify the anxiety and other people absorb it.

Applying Bowen Family Systems Theory

Bowen family systems theory can help people to become aware of how the emotional circuitry in their own family (or other social group) is operating, and to work on making more thoughtful choices about how to act in response to others.

I continue to use what I have learned from Bowen family systems theory every day in my own life. It helps me to become a better observer of:

  • the chronic anxiety in the system
  • the ways people are attempting to manage the anxiety through distance, conflict, triangulation etc.
  • my own part in contributing to the anxiety in the system

Becoming aware of the emotional functioning in my relationship systems helps me to step back from the intensity of what is happening and get a broader perspective. This usually helps me to take things less personally, to calm down, to stop blaming others, and to make thoughtful decisions about how I want to handle things.

When I work with clients, my goal is to provide a space in which they can go through this process themselves—learn, observe, understand, calm down, get perspective, and become more intentional. I don’t think I know what is best for other people so I won’t give advice, but I will ask lots of questions and invite you to think about things differently.

Learn more

If you’d like to learn about Bowen family systems theory, I highly recommend the following books: