MURRAY BOWEN

Critically Evaluate The Contribution of Murray Bowen to the Development of Psychodynamic Approaches within Family Systems Therapy

Critically Evaluate The Contribution of Murray Bowen to the Development of Psychodynamic Approaches within Family Systems Therapy

Introduction

This study critically evaluates the contribution of Murray Bowens to the development of psychodynamic approach within family system therapy. In the end, this study in support of Bowen theory will prove that differentiation and anxiety found to be significantly associated with psychological adjustment and marital satisfaction.

Overview

The more psychodynamically oriented family therapists believe that one must get at historical or causal factors to relieve a symptom or achieve change (Kerr & Bowen 1988, 58-73). Family therapy versions of the psychoanalytic concepts of insight, catharsis, and abreaction seem to be the major avenues of change, and a mature objectivity is, as with most Freudian therapies, the desired end result. Bowen's approach is the most influential of these more historical therapies. Since by his own say-so he does not emphasise symptoms or problems (Bowen 1978, 11-19), he may fairly be placed in the larger movement that includes individual-oriented "growth therapies." His method of coaching family members to go back to their families of origin offers a path for achieving personal individuation and autonomy, albeit via a family route. Many followers have found that his approach does relieve symptoms and problems, and his theory of the multigenerational transmission of emotional illness has laid the conceptual groundwork for an important school of family therapy. (Haber 1984, 11-23)

In explaining the emergence of emotional illness in a family member, Bowen suggests that it has its origin in the difficulty previous family members have had in separating from the core family (Bowen 1978, 14-29). This difficulty is mitigated, if not solved, by involving (or as he calls it, "triangling in") a person from the next generation. As this process unfolds from generation to generation, family members' inability to individuate intensifies until one or more children exhibit the extreme case of undifferentiation known as "symbiosis," (Framo 1976, 193-210) which keeps them stuck forever in the family, and the family stuck forever around them. It is a kind of repetition compulsion applied to the generations, except that each generation pushes more of its trouble onto the next.

Family Therapy

Bowenian family therapy is designed to identify the patterns originating in the past that have such a hold on people in the present, and to help people unlock themselves (Bowen 1978, 22-39). Thus he emphasises searching out clues from living members of the extended family, especially from older generations, to trace a pattern, and if possible alter it. To do this, he uses the genogram, a visual diagram of the family tree going back in time and extending collaterally, with an individual or a couple as the focal point. (Tuason & Friedlander 2000, 27-35)

Bowen's theory of change resembles Freud's dictum: Where id was, there ego shall be if one substitutes the darkly primitive condition of "fusion" (which Bowen equates with being ruled by one's emotions) for "id," ...