Bowen family systems theory and genograms

A triangle is a three-person relationship system, which the Bowen Center calls the building block of larger emotional systems. A relationship between two people can tolerate little tension before a third person is drawn in, while a triangle can absorb more, because the tension can shift among its three relationships.

In a calm period two people are comfortable insiders and the third is an uncomfortable outsider, and under moderate tension one side of the triangle is usually in conflict while the other two are calm. Under high tension the outside position becomes the one people want, and an insider may step out by drawing the outsider into a fight with the other insider. Two parents and a child are a common triangle, and the Bowen Center notes that two parents intensely focused on what is wrong with a child can trigger serious rebellion in the child.

On a genogram. Look for a conflict line between two people and a close, fused or focused-on line from one of them to a third person, as between Philip, Gwen and Laura in the example. The triangulation genogram example has a triangle drawn with all three lines.

Differentiation of self is the degree to which a person can think and act for themselves while staying emotionally connected to others. The less developed a person's self, the more their functioning depends on others and the more they try, openly or quietly, to control how others function. Bowen held that the building blocks of self are inborn, that family relationships in childhood and adolescence mainly determine how much self a person develops, and that the level rarely changes later without a structured, long-term effort.

A poorly differentiated person depends on approval and either gives way quickly to please others or presses them to conform, and the Bowen Center counts both the bully and the chameleon at this end of the scale. A well differentiated person stays calm and clear-headed under conflict, criticism and rejection, separates fact-based thinking from emotional reactivity, and can support or disagree with others without becoming a disciple or polarizing.

On a genogram. Differentiation has no symbol of its own, but a reader can infer a low level when most of a person's relationship lines are fused or cutoff lines. The page on fused relationships on a genogram and the enmeshed family genogram example have fusion drawn next to close bonds with healthy boundaries.

Bowen described four relationship patterns in the nuclear family, whether it is intact, single-parent or a stepfamily, and a family's problems develop along whichever of them is most active. Symptoms tend to appear during heightened and prolonged tension, and the higher the tension, the more likely the symptoms are to be severe and to affect several family members. The four patterns are:

• Marital conflict. Each spouse focuses on the other's faults, tries to control the other and resists being controlled.
• Dysfunction in a spouse. One spouse pressures the other, who gives way to keep the peace, and under rising tension the one who gives way can develop psychiatric, medical or social problems.
• Impairment of one or more children. The parents focus their anxiety on a child, who becomes more reactive to them than the siblings are and more prone to acting out or internalizing the tension. Writers on family roles such as the scapegoat describe a similar child.
• Emotional distance. People withdraw from each other to lower the intensity and risk becoming isolated, and distance appears alongside each of the other three patterns.

The more anxiety one person or relationship absorbs, the less the others have to absorb, so some family members keep functioning at the expense of others.

On a genogram. Look for a conflict or hostile line between partners, a condition or note on one partner, or a focused-on arrow to one child who also has a symptom. In the example, the hostile line between Philip and Gwen and the anxiety fill in Laura are two of the four patterns in one family.

The family projection process is the main way parents pass their emotional problems on to a child. What the child inherits are relationship sensitivities, such as a heightened need for attention and approval, difficulty with expectations, blaming oneself or others, and feeling responsible for other people's happiness. When the process is intense, the child develops stronger sensitivities than the parents have.

The Bowen Center describes three steps, in which a parent focuses on the child out of fear that something is wrong, reads the child's behavior as confirming the fear, and then treats the child as if something really is wrong. Parents often invest more time, energy and worry in this child than in the siblings, and the less involved siblings tend to grow up less needy and less reactive.

On a genogram. Look for a focused-on arrow or a fused line from a parent to one child while the siblings have no line, as from Gwen to Laura in the example. The Bowen genogram example has the same process in the Lindgren family.

Bowen used the multigenerational transmission process to explain how small differences in differentiation between parents and their children add up, over many generations, to marked differences within an extended family. Children usually develop a level of differentiation close to their parents', but in each generation one sibling may end up with a little more self and another with a little less, and, Bowen held, people tend to choose partners at about their own level.

Over several generations, one line of a family becomes more differentiated and another less, and the Bowen Center links the level of differentiation to longevity, marital stability, health, education and occupational success.

On a genogram. Look for the same kind of relationship in the same position in more than one generation, such as a mother closely tied to her firstborn daughter in each generation. In the example, Edith is fused with her daughter Gwen, and Gwen's anxiety is focused on her daughter Laura.

Emotional cutoff is the way people manage unresolved emotional issues with parents, siblings and other relatives by reducing or ending contact with them, either by moving away and rarely visiting or by staying in touch while avoiding anything sensitive. A relationship can look better after a cutoff, but in the Bowen Center's words, the problems are dormant, not resolved.

The more a person cuts off from their family, the more they depend on a partner, children and friends to meet their emotional needs, and new relationships often start smoothly until the old patterns appear in them.

On a genogram. Cutoff is drawn as a red dashed line broken by two short bars, often with the year contact stopped, as between Gwen and Roland in the example. The emotional cutoff genogram example and the page on cutoff symbols have more ways to draw it.

Bowen built the psychologist Walter Toman's research on sibling position into his theory. People who grow up in the same sibling position tend to share traits, so oldest children often move toward leadership and youngest children often prefer to follow, and no position is better than another.

Toman found that spouses whose positions complement each other, such as an older brother married to a younger sister, are less likely to divorce than two oldest or two youngest children, who may compete over who is in charge or who leans on whom. Differentiation still matters, and an anxious oldest child can become indecisive while a younger sibling takes on the role of a functional oldest.

On a genogram. Children are drawn oldest on the left, so a reader can compare positions across generations, as with Gwen, Laura and Paige in the example, who are each the older sister of a younger brother. In the Bowen genogram example, Erik is the younger of two brothers and Sofia is the oldest of three sisters.

With the societal emotional process, Bowen extended the theory from the family to society. He first saw the parallel in the families of juvenile delinquents, whose parents gave in more often than they held firm, and in the 1960s he saw the juvenile courts treat offenders the same way, with leniency followed by harsh penalties.

He described periods of societal regression, in which people act to relieve the anxiety of the moment rather than on principle and with a long-term view, and he dated one such regression from the years after the Second World War. Bowen held that societies move through periods of regression and progression, as families do.

On a genogram. This concept has no line or symbol, but a reader can write historical events such as a war, a migration or an economic crisis on a genogram and compare them with the years of cutoffs and symptoms.

To read a genogram with Bowen's concepts, ask four questions:

• What repeats? Look for the same kind of line in the same position across generations, such as a cutoff between siblings or a fused bond between a mother and her daughter.
• Where do symptoms appear? Find the person with the conditions, the notes about problems or the disruptions in their life, and check whether a parent has a focused-on or fused line to them.
• Where are the triangles? Where two people have a conflict line, find the third person with a close or fused line to one of them.
• What is missing? When a generation has no relationship lines, the information may never have been collected, or the family may not talk about that generation.

The guide to genograms in family therapy has the questions a therapist can ask a client while they draw the genogram together.