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Bowenian Family Therapy
(Beginning to Intermediate Level)
GOALS AND OBJECTIVES:
- Summarize the primary tenants of Bowenian Family Therapy.
- Identify the strengths and weaknesses of this approach.
- Describe the 2 primary concepts that form the fundamental basis of Bowen’s theory.
- Identify the primary goals during the early, intermediate, and long-term stages of therapy.
- Be able to apply at least 2 interventions appropriate to each stage.
- Identify Bowen’s 6 interlocking concepts and describe how these apply to formulating a diagnostic impression.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Context for Bowenian Therapy
- History and Theoretical Underpinnings
- Fundamental Tenets
- Role of the Therapist
- History
- Questions from a Bowenian perspective
- Assessment / Diagnostic Impressions
- Goals
- Interventions
- Case Studies and Sample Questions
- Sample Vignettes #1-4
Introduction to Bowenian Family Therapy
Context for Bowenian Theory
History and Theoretical Underpinnings
After graduating from medical school, Murray Bowen served five years in the military. He witnessed widespread psychopathology as well as ignorance in how to deal with it. Murray Bowen was a medical doctor who was trained in psychoanalysis. During his work with institutionalized schizophrenics at the National Institutes of Health between 1954 and 1959 he studied family dysfunction from the perspective of family systems dynamics combined with psychodynamic theory. Bowen had begun this work eight years earlier at the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas, but this work focused exclusively on mother-child symbiosis. He went on to direct the National Institute of Mental Health and spent 31 years on staff at Georgetown University Psychiatry. His later research incorporated multigenerational family issues and combined his psychodynamic training with systems theory. Bowen died in 1990 following a lengthy illness.
Bowen originally called his theory “natural systems theory,” in that he viewed interlocking relationships within the family as being governed by the same counterbalancing life forces that take place in all natural systems (Kerr & Bowen, 1988). The theory is now commonly referred as to “extended family systems” theory or just “Bowenian Theory.”
Minuchin, 1996, described Bowen as “cerebral, deliberate, and theoretical.” Bowen did not use many techniques or experiential exercises in his work. In this way, his approach with clients was clearly influenced by his training as an analyst. He took a “neutral” stance in session, staying emotionally clear and disconnected from his clients and encouraging them to work their problems out “through” him.
One of the primary benefits to this approach is that it is educational. It is an approach that develops insight while it deemphasizes pathology of the individual. Also, it can be used with an individual, couple or family. Limitations include the fact that it is not “feelings oriented,” it is a long term therapy and it is potentially costly. It is not appropriate for use with children alone, and it does require a certain level of functionality to be useful.
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