Bowen Family Therapy

Introduction

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 with schizophrenic patients. In 1959, he moved to Georgetown University and established the Georgetown Family Centre where he was a director until his death. It was here where his theory was extended to less severe emotional problems (Nichols & Schwartz, 2004, p. 120).

In 1962, he undertook detailed research into families across several generations. Rather than developing a theory about pathology, Bowen focused on what he saw as the common patterns of all ‘human emotional systems’. With such a focus on the qualitative similarities of all families, Bowen was known to say frequently that there is a little schizophrenia in all of us. In 1966, Bowen published a presentation of his developing ideas and around the same time, used his concepts to guide his intervention in an emotional crisis in his own extended family which he described as a spectacular breakthrough (Kerr & Bowen, 1988).

Theory concepts

Bowen introduced eight interlocking concepts to explain family development and functioning. ...

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Bowen, M. (1971). Family therapy and family group therapy. In Comprehensive group psychotherapy, H. Kaplan and B. Sadock, eds. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins.

Bowen, M. (1978). Family therapy in clinical practice. NY and London, Jason Aroson

Brown, J. (1999). Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy (ANZJFT) 20(2), 94-103. Retrieved : http://www.familysystemstraining.com/papers/bowen-illustration-and-critique.html

Guerin, P.J. (1976). Family therapy: Theory and practice. New York: Gardner Press

Kerr, M., & Bowen, M. (1988). Family evaluation. New York: Norton

Nichols, M.P. & Schwartz, R.C. (2004). Family therapy: Concepts and methods (6th ed.). Pearson Education Inc. US

Rabstejnek, C. (2010). Family Systems and Murray Bowen theory. Web. 13 August 2015. http://www.houd.info /bowenTheory.pdf