Couple Conflict and Family Systems

Couple Conflict and Family Systems Theory
By Ed Hird
For The Guided Study DMin Course on Couple Conflict and Family Systems
Instructor and Doctoral Advisor: Dr Paddy Ducklow
In January 2011, I contacted Barbara Mutch and Paddy Ducklow about doing a
guided study elective with Paddy Ducklow in the area of strengthening marriage, as
preparation for my upcoming doctoral project. I commented by e-mail at the time
that
After further negotiations, we settled that my guided study would begin in

mid-August 2011. Paddy Ducklow commented on July 4 th 2011 that Focusing on
conflict, you might wish to focus in on triangles, differentiation and Family Systems
Theory. That makes really good sense.1 On July 5th 2011, Paddy Ducklow further
clarified the parameters, commenting that
your subsections in the chapter would include: an overview of all of the
principles of family systems theory as they might relate to conflict; a
particular focus on triangulation and detriangulation as it relates to couple
conflict; an understanding of differentiation of self; and a thorough
explanation and differentiation of the marriage from the family of origin. 2
From: Paddy Ducklow [mailto:life@theducklows.ca] Sent: Monday, July 04, 2011 1:54 PM To:
Ed Hird Subject: Re: : Thoughts about the guided study elective
2
From: Paddy Ducklow [life@theducklows.ca] Sent: Tuesday, July 05, 2011 10:36 AM To: Ed
Hird Subject: Re: Thoughts about the guided study elective (resent); Gilbert, Extraordinary
Relationships, p. 56 Bowen considers the therapist to have four functions, to: 1. Define and
clarify the relationship between spouses. 2. Keep self de-triangled from the family emotional
system. 3. Teach the functioning of emotional systems. 4. Demonstrate Differentation by
taking 'I position' stands during the course of therapy.
In preparation for the guided study, I visited the North Vancouver Library,
Allison Regent/Carey Library, VST Library and UBC Woodward Library. Richard
Mattiachuk, an Allison Public Services Librarian, was most helpful in helping me finetune my search. In addition to this, I met with Paddy Ducklow and was lent a box of
books and articles on Family Systems Theory.
Reading the original works by Murray Bowen has really opened my eyes to
the intricacies of Bowen Family Systems Theory, removing much observational
blindness.3 I have been struck by Albert Einsteins comment: Never
underestimate your own ignorance."4 Bowen held that one has to be an observer
before it is possible to see.
Kerr and Bowen commented that the closer we get to
ourselves, the greater the pressure to see what we want to see or, at least, to see
what we have always seen.
Observing requires self-regulation of ones emotional
Ron Richardson, Creating a Healthier Church: Family Systems Theory, Leadership, and
Congregational life (Augsburg Fortress, 1996), P.29 It is the emotional system that is the
most difficult to detect and to understand, let alone to try to change.; Papero, p.41 The
closer man comes to himself, the cloudier his vision becomes.; Bowen, Family Therapy in
Clinical Practice, p.355 ...the clues for important discoveries are right in front of our eyes, if
we can only develop the ability to see what we have never seen before.
4
Albert Einstein, http://www.memorable-quotes.com/albert+einstein,a488.html
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p. 402; Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical
Practice, p. 480 ...The process of being able to observe is the slow beginning toward
moving one small step toward getting ones self outside an emotional system. It is only
when one can get a little outside that it is possible to begin to observe and to begin to
modify an emotional system.
6
Michael E Kerr, MD, and Murray Bowen, MD, Family Evaluation: an approach based on
Bowen Theory, the Family Center, Georgetown University Hospital (WW Norton & Company,
New York, London, Penguin Books, Canada, 1988), p. 18
reactivity.7 Gilbert and Bowen compare observing to putting on a lab coat or

watching from a space craft.8
Bowen is widely recognized even by his critics as one of the key founders of
the field of Marriage and Family Therapy 9. I have also valued the opportunity to
read the books and articles of Bowens disciples, including Daniel Papero, Roberta
Gilbert, Michael Kerr, Edwin Friedman, and others. I was initially exposed to Family
Systems Theory before this Guided Study through reading Generation to Generation
and in taking other Carey DMin courses. But this guided study has resulted in a
paradigm shift where I am seeing emotional systems and triangles that before were
mostly invisible to me.10 As Ducklow mentioned in our Conflicted Church/Conflicted
Leader Course, Family Systems Theory (FST) are a pair of lenses, a way of seeing. 11
As a baby boomer who wears graduated glasses, the value of different lenses for
better seeing ones world and emotional systems makes good sense.
7
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p. 480 Observation is not possible until one
can control ones reactions sufficiently to be able to observe.; Roberta M Gilbert, The
Cornerstone Concept: in Leadership, in Life, (Leading Systems Press, Virginia, 2008), p. 71 A
way to think about stepping up in functioning in ones family involves three steps: 1)
Observe 2) Think, plan, rehearse 3) Implement the plan.
8
Roberta M Gilbert MD, The Cornerstone Concept: in Leadership, in Life (Leading Systems
Press, Virginia, 2008), p. 71 Observe: ...Some put on a lab coat....Bowen talked about
watching from a spacecraft. ; Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 18 Probably the
most important subjectively determined block to observing human behaviour has been the
earlier described difficulty in seeing the part oneself plays in the functioning of others.
9
Miller, Anderson, and Keala, IS BOWEN THEORY VALID? A REVIEW OF BASIC RESEARCH
(Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, October 2004,Vol. 30, No. 4,453-466, p. 453); Home
& Hicks, 2002; Nichols & Schwartz, 2001
10
Susan L Jones PhD, Family Therapy: A Comparison of Approaches (Robert Brady Co.,
1980), P.42, quoting Bowen: The term 'emotional' refers to the force that motivates the
system, and relationship to the ways it is expressed.
11
Conflicted Church/Conflicted Leader Course, Carey Theological College, http://www.careyedu.ca/college/images/stories/SYLLABI/appl623_ducklow_11.pdf ; Roberta M Gilbert MD, The
Cornerstone Concept: in Leadership, in Life (Leading Systems Press, Virginia, 2008), p. 50
Bowen theory... can provide a set of constructs, a lens, a new way of seeing the human
phenomenon.; Another analogy might be that of having a psychological cataract operation.
In doing the recommended reading, it became clear to me that I needed to

temporarily put aside most other psychological theories in order to understand the
integrity of the Bowen FST model. Bowen holds that our ability to see Family
Systems Theory will be limited by an incautious, eclectic picking and choosing of
favourite psychological theories. Such eclecticism, says Bowen, may be more for
the benefit of the therapist than the client. 12 Gilbert suggests that eclecticism
hinders our see(ing) a systems way of looking, even inadvertently closing our mind
to new knowledge.13 She describes such eclecticism as oil and water. 14
At the heart of couple conflict is conflict, a concept that I am gradually
becoming less phobic about. Van Yperen notes that
the word conflict is assumed everywhere and stated almost nowhere in
Scripture...Other words, such as dispute, quarrel, strife, and contention are
used more frequently in Scripture to describe biblical conflict. 15
12
Murray Bowen, MD, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice (Jason Aronson, New Jersey, 1985,
1983, 1978, 1992), p. 341 In this present age we have the eclectic, who tells us that there
is no single theory adequate for all situations and he chooses the best part of all the theories
to best fit the clinical situation of the moment...I believe that...the eclectic shifting may be
more for the needs of the therapist than the patient.
13
Roberta M Gilbert, M.D, The Ten Percent Solution http://www.hsystems.org/4.html ...

Often, professors or practitioners are so committed to eclecticism that they cannot see a
systems way of looking. They think they can take a little from this school of thought and a
little from that, depending on what is needed in a specific situation, missing the fact that
systems thinking stands alone and conflicts with other, more individual-based ways of
seeing. It is sufficient for any human dilemma that is brought to it. In fact, it clashes with the
basic axioms of other theories in a way that makes it impossible to combine them in any
coherent or logical way. These people have closed their minds to any new knowledge and
will also leave their work prematurely.
14
Roberta M Gilbert MD, The Cornerstone Concept: in Leadership, in Life (Leading Systems
Press, Virginia, 2008), p. 69, However much writing represents not Bowen theory, but
efforts to combine other theories with someones perception of Bowen theory, like water and
oil.; Papero, p.xii Bowen: As the (family systems) theory passes from one person to another,
it is unwittingly tinged with feelings, which dilute the theory in a process called erosion.
15
Jim Van Yperen, Making Peace: a guide to overcoming church conflict (Moody publisher,
Chicago Illinois, 2002), p.94, 96
None of us are immune to or exempt from conflict. 16 Conflict is redemptive,

necessary, and growth-producing in couples when handled well. 17 Conflict, including
couple conflict, says Van Yperen is about reconciliation, the restoring of broken
relationships.18 For lasting restoration, it will involve repentance and restitution
through the direct facing of couple conflict and the owning of responsibility. 19
Bowen theory is formally made up of eight remarkable cohesive concepts
that deal with the human family and also with the individual. 20 Gilbert states that
the eight concepts of Bowen, in the logical progression that builds on the family as
the emotional unit, are:
1) Nuclear Family Emotional System
2) The Differentation of Self Scale
3) Triangles
4) Cutoff
5) Family Projection Process
16
Van Yperen, p.102 We are all of us conflicted. Rebellion flows through our veins.
17
Van Yperen, p. 106 Conflict is necessary for God to shape us.
18
Van Yperen, p. 99
19
Van Yperen, p. 100, True repentance, reconciliation, and restitution...mean facing conflict
directly and owning fault completely.
20
Roberta M. Gilbert, MD, The Eight Concepts of Bowen Theory: a new way of thinking about
the individual and the group (Leading Systems Press, 2004, 2006), p. 3; Michael Kerr and
Murray Bowen, Family Evaluation: an approach based on Bowen Theory (the Family Center,
Georgetown University Hospital, WW Norton & Company, New York, London, 1988, Penguin
Books Canada, p. 13) None of the concepts were borrowed from psychological theory. The
original six concepts, published in 1966, were as follows: differentation of self, triangles,
nuclear family emotional process, family projection process, multi-generational transmission
process, and sibling position. Two additional concepts, emotional cutoff and societal
emotional process, were added in the 1970s.
6) Multigenerational Transmission Process

7) Sibling Position
8) Societal Emotional Process21
My focus on couple conflict and Family Systems Theory was succinctly expressed by
James Framo:
Bowen deals with the fundamental question of how one can deal with his
familys craziness without giving the family up. 22
We live in a culture that often gives up on the family and on marriage.

Emotional cutoff is the cultural air that we breathe in this socially regressive society.
Bowen acknowledges the craziness or irrationality present in many of our families
and marriages, but teaches us how to stay present without being swallowed by the
anxious fusion. Why do conflicted couples and families affect each other so deeply?
Ducklow comments that
...It is the nature of the family that its members are intensely connected
emotionally. Family members so profoundly affect each other's thoughts,
feelings, and actions that it often seems as if people are living under the
same 'emotional skin'.23
21
Gilbert, Eight Concepts, p. 4; Friedman, Generation to Generation, P. 13, The original six
concepts, published in 1966, were as follows: differentiation of self, triangles, nuclear family
emotional process, family projection process, multi-generational transmission process, and
sibling position. Two additional concepts, emotional cutoff and societal emotional process,
were added in the 1970s (Bowen, 1976)
22
Murray Bowen, MD, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice (Jason Aronson, New Jersey, 1985,
1983, 1978, 1992), p. Commentary by James L. Framo; James L Framo, Family of origin as a
therapeutic resource for adults and marital and family therapy: you can and should go home
again, Family Process, 15:193-210, 1976, P. 347 Bowen is a singular figure in family
therapy who has developed quite sophisticated concepts about the universal question of
how to deal with irrationality in one's family without giving the family up.
23
Paddy Ducklow, Doctoral Project/Thesis: Coaching Church Leaders in Conflict: resolving

strategies using family systems theory (Trinity International University, Deerfield, Illinois,
1) Nuclear Family Emotional System and couple conflict

The heart of Family Systems Theory is clear thinking, what Gilbert calls thinking
systems24 and Ducklow calls thinking in systems. 25 What is a relationship system?
Bowen taught that any relationship with balancing forces and counter forces in
constant operation is a system.
26
Kerr and Bowen commented that
Families, in other words, while they had widely different values, attitudes,
personalities, etc, still played out the same fundamental patterns in
relationships. ...The family system is, at the one and same time, unbelievably
simple and complex. It is simple in that one step predictably follows another,
and complex in that there are a large number of intricately related variables
on many levels.27
Bowen was said to have the ability to think in motion which speaks to me of a
very high level of self-differentiation and morphogenesis. 28 Wouldnt this be
December 2002), P.8

24
Roberta Gilbert, Extraordinary Leadership: Thinking Systems, Making a Difference

(Leading Systems Press, Virginia, 2006), p. 26; Gilbert, Eight Concepts, p. 26 In thinking
systems, the focus is on the whole relationship system, how emotions circulate through it
and the different processes or patterns that arise automatically in the process.
25
Paddy Ducklow, P.15 The word 'system' comes from a Greek word that means 'standing
together' (Stevens and Collins, 1993, page 149) and it is this vision of standing together that
permits its members to ally.
26
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p. 358; Kerr and Bowen, p. 3, In addition to
separating ourselves from nature, we have also been inclined to regard the human as the
most important form of life on Earth, the crowning achievement of Gods creation. (Ed: he
has a point; we could go in each direction out of balance; yes, we are made in Gods image;
but yes, we have commonality with Gods other creatures, and need to humbly learn from
observing them and their systemic interactions)
27
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 10
28
Marriage and Family Therapy: Psychoanalytic, Behavioral and Systems Theory

Perspectives: Systems and Spirituality: Bowen Systems Theory, Faith and Theology -The
Papers and Proceedings of a Conference on Theology held at Washington Theological Union,
July 1987, Edited by Joseph C. Carolin, Ph.D., ACSW, 1990, p. iii Dr Bowen, as one
participant so well said, could think in motion.
wonderful if many more conflicted couples could also learn to think in motion? This
speaks to me of more relational flexibility rather than rigid marital homeostasis.
Gilbert holds that What makes it possible to think systems -- seeing in a
way we never have before is the ability to see the family as an emotional unit. 29
Marriages and families become emotional units by spending time with each other
and thereby becoming important to each other.
30
Friedman holds that Bowen
theory thus is very much a thinking therapists therapy. 31 Given my signature

strengths of ideation, learner and intellection, I resonate with this Family Systems
Theory approach to manage couple conflict through increasing thinking and thereby
reducing marital anxiety and fusion.32 Imagine if more pastors and pastoral
counselors could train couples to be marital systems thinkers. It would certainly
reduce the fog and confusion that often paralyzes many couples. As Gilbert put it,
A systems thinker, able to encompass a great deal of complexity, can easily cut
through peripheral nonessentials to the core of the issue.
33
Becoming a marital
29
Roberta M Gilbert, The Cornerstone Concept: in Leadership, in Life (Leading Systems

Press, Virginia, 2008), p. 4; Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p. 12 A second important
principle for gaining an understanding of human connectedness is that of emotional
systems. Within that concept, thinking systems and observing process become clear.
30
Gilbert, The Cornerstone Concept, p. 4 Their anxieties affect each other. They worry
about each other. They try to please each other. At times, they annoy and fight with each
other. Each triggers the other. They tell each other what to do, or become helpless.
Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p.184 Usually all that is needed for individuals to
become emotionally significant, or related, is for them to spend a significant amount of time
with each other. When individuals spend a significant amount of time with one another, they
will begin, sooner or later, to trigger each other emotionally, and the phenomenon of
passing emotions from one to another, in patterns, can be observed.
31
Friedman, Generation to Generation, p. 136
32
Gilbert, The Cornerstone Concept, p. 32 A second job of leadership as well as any

member of a group (Ed: or marriage) is to keep thinking. Any group needs all the good
thinking it can get.
33
Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, a new way of thinking about human interactions

(Chronimed Publishing, Minneapolis, MN, 1992), p. 31
systems thinker is a big stretch to most people, as we usually think

individualistically and miss the big picture. 34 As Gilbert puts it, people can learn to
think systems, but it does not come naturally to most. 35 As Jones puts it, at times it
is difficult to talk about emotional systems to emotional systems. 36
At the heart of family systems thinking is family systems theory. 37 Gilbert
emphatically states: Learn theory, learn theory, learn theory. 38 There is no
substitute for becoming well-grounded in theory.
39
Becvar states that Bowens
model
is perhaps the only theory in the field. It gives us a method of organizing
and categorizing events, helps us predict future events, explains past events,
gives a sense of understanding about what causes events, and gives us the
potential for control of events.40
34
Michael E Kerr, MD, and Murray Bowen, MD, Family Evaluation, p. ix, Each person was
not an autonomous psychological entity, but instead was strongly influenced by the family
relationship system.; Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p. 11 One important difference
(from its predecessor) is the insistence of the new theory upon seeing the big picture.
Where Freudian theory concerned itself with the delineation of ever more refined detail in
the life of an individual, Bowen theory pursues an ever-broadening scope that incorporates
an entire relationship system.
35
Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p.31; Friedman, Generation to Generation, P.9 It is

this ability to 'step outside oneself' that is required to be able to see the family as an
emotional unit.
36
Susan L Jones PhD, Family Therapy: A Comparison of Approaches (Robert Brady Co.,
1980), P. 57
37
Friedman, Bowen Theory and Therapy, 1991, Chapter 5, p. 152 The theory is not prelude
to the practice; thinking it is the practice!
38
Gilbert, The Cornerstone Concept, p. 69
39
Gilbert, Eight concepts, p. 42-43 The better one is able to understand theory, the more
one can use it and the more it becomes a way of thinking about life.
40
Dorothy Stroh Becvar & Ralph J. Becvar, Family Therapy: A Systemic Integration (2nd
Edition, St. Louis Family Institute, Allyn and Bacon, Boston, 1993, 1998), p. 147
A common misconception is that Family Systems Theory is a subset of

Bertanlanffys general systems theory which I had learned about in 1972 from our
UBC Philosophy Professor and Presbyterian Chaplain, Dr John Ross. 41 Family
Systems Theory does not envision a family system mechanistically but rather as a
living emotional system, a network of interlocking relationships.
42
These living
systems are not a mere sociological invention, but are written in nature. 43 Before I
came to faith at age 17, I naively thought that marriage was just a piece of paper,
a mere sociological invention. I was shocked in first reading the bible (Mark 10:9
What God has joined together) to discover that God invented marriage, that it was
written in nature, Gods own creation.
As Friedman put it, we did not design
human relationships anymore than the elephant or gibbon designed their family
systems.44 Discovering such pre-existing living systems through Family Systems
41
Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, P. 39; Jones quoting Bowen (1976:63) Family systems
theory as I have defined it is a specific theory about human relationship functioning that has
now become confused with general systems and the popular, nonspecific use of the word
'systems'; Jones, Family Therapy: A Comparison of Approaches, P.39 Because of the
confusion between family systems theory and general systems theory, in 1975 Bowen
(1978) formally changed the name of his family therapy approach from 'family systems
theory to the 'Bowen Theory'.; Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. x Family systems
theory is important because it was derived from the direct study of one type of natural
system, the human family. It was not built on analogies, nor was it derived from general
systems theory. ...Bowen may be the first person to have established that it is indeed
possible to develop a systems theory about a living system.
42
Michael E Kerr, MD, and Murray Bowen, MD, Family Evaluation, p.xi Family systems
theory radically departed from previous theories of human emotional functioning by virtue of
its conceptualization of the family as an emotional unit. ...a network of interlocking
relationships.; Michael E Kerr, MD, and Murray Bowen, MD, Family Evaluation, p. ix Bowen
may be the first person to have established that it is indeed possible to develop a systems
theory about a living system.; Bowen, Family Therapy Concepts and Methods, p.354 ...I
therefore chose to use concepts that would be consistent with biology and the natural
sciences...I carefully excluded all concepts that dealt with inanimate things...
43
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 26 Bowen chose to anchor his theory on the
assumption that the human and the human family are driven and guided by processes that
are written in nature.
44
Friedman, Generation to Generation, P.24; Kerr and Bowen, p. 24, Family systems theory
assumes that the principles that govern such things are there in nature for us to discover.;
p. 131 Anxiety, emotional reactivity, and subjectivity are processes that can gradually be
more carefully observed.
10
Theory is similar to discovering a pre-existing tribal system in deepest Africa that no

one imagined existed. It was there all along. We just couldnt see it. Kerr and
Bowen see as
... a cornerstone of family systems theory the assumption that the behaviour
of all forms of life is driven and regulated by the same fundamental life
forces. 45
While I believe, as Genesis 1:26 teaches, that humans are uniquely made in Gods
image, we have much in common with and need to humbly learn from the
emotional systems of Gods other creatures on planet earth. 46 Can we learn to
value the doctrine of being made in Gods image in a way that doesnt separate
ourselves from nature, that doesnt rape and pillage Gods creation, and that
doesnt inappropriately exaggerate our importance? 47 Perhaps this will come from
the humility of being Gods stewards, Gods non-anxious caretakers of all living and
non-living systems, including our sometimes conflicted marriages. I dont believe in
the light of the doctrine of the Fall that nature is morally neutral. 48 The Gospel, and
45
46
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 23 (Bowens) theory was developed on the
assumption that an understanding of mans emotional functioning must extend beyond
psychological constructs to recognize the humans relatedness to all life...In essence, Bowen
proposed...that the systems principles of operation were rooted in nature. Ed: Regardless
of ones view on micro or macro-evolution, this general principle makes sense to me.
Personally I am presently an agnostic regarding macro-evolution, of change from one
species to another, but it is not a first-order issue for me.
47
Kerr and Bowen p. 3, In addition to separating ourselves from nature, we have also been
inclined to regard the human as the most important form of life on Earth, the crowning
achievement of Gods creation. Exaggerating our importance in this way has probably
further hampered our ability to see the extent to which the human is related to all life.
48
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 32 Nature is neutral. There is no right or wrong,
good and bad. Nature is simply a process of interrelated events. But the feeling system and
human subjectivity takes sides in nature and impose on it what should be. Ed: do I believe
that nature is neutral? How does this align with the doctrine of the fall and our experience of
the rawness of nature? Is nature simply a process of interrelated events? Dr John Ross
warned that there is no such thing as a simple thing (Systems Theory, 1972)
11
perhaps Gods creation itself, does have moral imperatives for conflicted couples,
such as love one another as you love yourself.
When couples are convinced that an issue must be resolved to end their
conflict, polarization easily happens. 49 The Family Systems Theory emphasis in
couple conflict is not on the content or subject matter of the conflict as much as the
process of the conflict.50 Concentrating on the content of the discussion, says
Nichols, is a sign that the therapist is emotionally entangled in a couples
problems.51
As Friedman puts it,
The process can continue regardless of content or subject matter discussed.
The critical issue is the emotional reactiveness between the spouses, and the
ability of the therapist to keep self relatively detriangulated from the
emotionality.52
Nichols teaches that we need to pay attention in couple conflict to process

and structure.53 Process, says Nichols, refers to patterns of emotional reactivity and
49
50
Michael E Kerr, MD, and Murray Bowen, MD, Family Evaluation, p. xi ...theory enables a
therapist to distinguish between content and process in evaluating a clinical family. Content
refers to all the various pieces of information; process refers to the way these pieces of
information are related.; Friedman, Generation to Generation, p. 180 The first step
therefore is to help the couple refocus the content issue and to address instead the
emotional processes that are producing the symptom of extreme reaction.
51
Nichols, Family Therapy Concepts and Methods, p. 144 As partners talk, the therapist
concentrates on the process of their interaction, not on the details under discussion...It may
be hard to avoid being drawn in by hot topics like money, sex or discipline, but a therapists
job isnt to settle disputes its to help couples do so. The aim is to get clients to express
ideas, thoughts and opinions to the therapist in the presence of their partners. ..Asking for
detailed descriptions of events is one of the best ways to cool overheated emotions and
make room for reason.
52
12
structure to the interlocking network of triangles. 54 Sometimes the intense chaos of

couple conflict leads people to believe that there are no patterns and no order to be
found. As Friedman noted, Murray Bowen was one researcher who was able to take
this step back and to discover that there was indeed an order and predictability to
human relationship.55 Kerr and Bowen commented that
When a therapists theoretical understanding is inadequate, he can become
so overwhelmed by the mountain of details collected in the evaluation that
the information serves little function. Another way of saying this is that
theory enables a therapist to distinguish content and process in evaluating a
clinical family. Content refers to all the various pieces of information; process
refers to the way these pieces of information are related. 56
In a recent marriage sermon that I gave at my son and daughter-in-laws

wedding, I felt led, in light of my recent Family Systems reading, to speak from 1
Corinthians 13 about marriage as order out of chaos, a reenacting of Genesis 1.
Decently and in order is not the order of the cemetery where nothing moves, but
the order of a healthy chaotic marriage where things are always potentially
morpho-genesising.
53
Congregational life, Augsburg Fortess, 1996, P.81 The word 'process' refers to how we
manage something.
54
Michael P Nichols, Family Therapy Concepts and Methods, ( Pearson Education, Inc.,
2008), p. 136; Friedman, Generation to Generation, P.11 The relationship statement was a
description of what happened, and the emotional system was an explanation for what
happened.; Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 14 ft 9, The term process refers to a
continuous series of actions or changes that result in a given set of circumstances or
phenomena; the term content refers to the circumstances or phenomena out of the context
of those actions or changes.
55
Friedman, Generation to Generation, P.4; Kerr and Bowen, p. 4, Most people are so easily
overwhelmed by the details of family interactions that the assertion that orderly processes
or patterns underlie those details may seem an improbable one. The development of a
family theory, however, stemmed from the ability to discern such processes in the midst of
seemingly random and even chaotic appearing family interactions.
56
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. xi
13
As a former Freudian psychoanalyst, Bowen birthed most of his Family

Systems Theory concepts in the midst of his frustration with the relative
ineffectiveness of Freudian counseling.
57
Friedman comments about the
exaggerated importance of being informed, and the colossal failure of insight to

bring change...58 Self-awareness and new information, while important, do not by
themselves bring morphogenesis in conflicted couples. 59 Bowen was also concerned
about the tendency of Freudianism to blame the parents. 60 Family Systems Theory
in contrast seeks to blame no one.61
When working on the symbiotic relationship between mother and
schizophrenic person, Bowen found that it was no longer necessary or productive to
speculate about the unconscious conflicts and motivations of the mother and
57
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. viii Psychoanalytic theory, for example, which had
been developed through the study of individual patients, had only been able to see the
family as a collection of relatively autonomous people.
58
Friedman, Failure of Nerve, P.25
59
Margaret Carlson, Problem-Solving Family Therapy (Faculty of Social Welfare, University of

Calgary, Models of Family Practice, Chapter 7), Page 17 The repressed material brought to
conscious awareness was more often than not in the order of hatred, fear, and hostility. The
idea that catharsis, or the free expression of emotion, encourages healthy family
functioning, too, is not so in practice. It deflects from a strategic plan of action and disallows
changes in the family organization which is a primary goal of therapy. The theory of
repression did not lead to family success, did not generate hope, dealt with past rather than
present causes and encouraged reflection rather than action.
60
Murray Bowen, 'The Use of Family Theory in Clinical Practice' (Comprehensive Psychiatry,
Vol.7, No. 5, October, 1966), P.346 A conceptual dilemma (in psychoanalysis) when the
most important person in a patient's life was considered to be the cause of his illness, and
pathogenic to him...
61
Paddy Ducklow, Doctoral Thesis, p.14 Family systems theory is a non-blaming theory....It
offers a great opportunity for conflict resolution rather than emotional 'cutoffs' (expulsion or
excommunication or 'missing in action').; Gilbert, Extraordinary Leadership, p.107 Why
does it take so much time and effort to be a systems thinker?....Most of us automatically
think 'cause and effect'. We look for someone to blame.; Kerr and Bowen, Family
Evaluation, p. 192 Awareness of proce ss helps a person get beyond blaming others or
blaming some external force and, as a consequence, he becomes less angry.
14
patient.
62
What becomes important, said Bowen, is not what is in people but what is
in-between people.63 Bowen concluded that many of Freuds followers were more
disciples than scientists.64 He longed for a scientific basis for psychological theory. 65
Bowen moved the attention from what was going on inside the heads of each family
member to instead drawing on other scientific models and analogies to observe the
relationship process itself.66 Nichols commented that when working with conflicted
couples,
...the therapist attempts to explore the process of the couples relationship,
asking both partners to think about whats going on between them, increase
their awareness of their own contributions, and consider what theyre
planning to do to take responsibility to make things better. 67
62
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 5 ...symbiotic relationship between mother and
schizophrenic person... It was not necessary to invoke a concept such as unconscious
motivation to account for it.
63
Edwin Friedman video, quoting Murray Bowen
64
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, 1976: p. 339; Daniel V Papero, Bowen Family
Systems Theory, (A Pearson Education Company, Massachusetts, 1990), p. vii quoting Kerr
...Bowen gradually came to believe that many of Freuds most influential theoretical ideas
were subjective and that the amount of subjectivity effectively precluded Freudian theory
from ever becoming an accepted science; Daniel V Papero, Bowen Family Systems Theory,
A Pearson Education Company, Massachusetts, 1990 , p. vii quoting Kerr: Bowen has
argued that Freud was aware of the uncertain base of many of his theoretical ideas, but that
many students of Freud treated those ideas as if they were facts. Ed: Is this an emotional
reaction to Freudian dominance, showing continued fusion to Freudianism?
65
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p. 411 If we can keep reaching out toward the
sciences, perhaps we will someday make solid conceptual contact with the known sciences,
and then psychiatry will have become a science.; Friedman, Generation to Generation, p.
136 A second major characteristic of Bowens theory that sets it apart from almost all other
theories is its tendency to conceptualize in terms of universal continua rather than discrete
categories...Bowen theory constantly strives to make continuous what other theories
dichotomize..., at times, Bowen theory will appear to belong less to therapy than to the
disciplines of sociology, ethology, or anthropology.
66
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p. 340 ...I believe that research should be
directed at making theoretical contact with other fields, rather than applying the scientific
method to subjective human data.
67
Michael P Nichols, Family Therapy Concepts and Methods (Pearson Education, Inc., 2008),
p. 141 (Ed: the key Family Systems Theory concepts here are thinking, awareness, and
taking personal responsibility.)
15
This relationship process though it is usually not immediately visible, once it

is observed, it is hard to ignore. 68 Bowen is one of those rare individuals with a
genuinely new idea.69 In a rather fused, emotionally reactive but insightful
accolade, Foley has compared Bowen to Emmanuel Kant. 70 As many of Bowens
students were ex-Freudians, they literally had to untrain themselves...from
individual concepts in order to see the family emotional system. 71 Bowen became
to many an ex-Freudian heretic, leading Friedman to comment that Bowen theory
is often so anathema to many therapists that it isn't even mentioned. 72
Friedman analyzes the wedding rite of passage as essential to understanding
martial couple conflict. He believes that weddings are like icebergs in which only
one eighth is visible.
73
Weddings have a major impact on the family homeostasis
and release major generational transmission in terms of the emotional processes in

ones families of origin.74
Merely living together, Friedman suggested, has less
fusion impact on a couple, saying it is as if fusion does not develop as long as they
68
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 9, it is the relationship process that seems to be so
difficult to observe. People have a strong tendency to regard their own thoughts and
feelings as occurring independently of what is transpiring between them. This tendency
appears to be what makes it so difficult for people to get sufficiently free of their own
ruminations to be able to observe a larger process.; Friedman, Generation to Generation,
p.10 The family system is, at one and the same time, unbelievably simple and complex.
69
http://www.thebowencenter.org/pages/murraybowen.html (Murray Bowen) has been

credited as being one of those rare human beings who had a genuinely new idea. He had the
courage to go against the psychiatric and societal mainstream, to stand up for what he
believed about human behavior. Accessed Sept 5th 2011
70
Daniel V Papero, Bowen Family Systems Theory (A Pearson Education Company,

Massachusetts, 1990), p. v Foley: Murray Bowen is to the field (of family therapy) what
Immanuel Kant is to the history of modern philosophy: the one person who is the starting
point on the journey of knowledge...
71
Michael E Kerr, Handbook of family therapy (Gurman and Kniskern, editors, chapter 7,
Family Systems Theory and Therapy), p. 220
72
Edwin Friedman, The Pastoral Care Association of BC 4th Annual Conference, 1991 'Body &
Soul in Family Process' Video
73
16
still have the option to terminate the relationship. 75 The wedding releases major
emotional fusion forces in which the couple can lose their own sense of self and
merge into an undifferentiated ego mass.
76
Friedman said that
the undifferentiated family ego mass is ...an conglomerate emotional

oneness that exists in all levels of intensity from the family in which it is
most intense to the family in which it is almost imperceptible. 77
1a) Coaching and Couple Conflict

Friedman and Bowen describe the maturing of marriages and families as a
natural process that takes time.78 As Friedman indicated in his final book, say no to
the quick fix.79 In western culture, we tend to want fast results, including with
74
Friedman, Generation to Generation, p, 179 Awareness of the emotional processes in

operation during this rite of passage (weddings) can help explain many family
conflicts....Marriage has a major impact on the homeostasis of a family emotional system,
and is in itself always indicative of changes occurring in that balance. A wedding is like an
iceberg: only one-eighth of the moving mass will be visible, but the process and decision
usually have the impetus and momentum of generations of build-up.
75
76
Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p. 35 They fuse, emotionally, two persons into one. A
symptom of that fusion is the ability of one person to stimulate, or trigger, the other person
emotionally. If one is happy, the other is happy. If one is sad, the other is sad.; Bowen,
Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, 1961, p. 92 In marriage to a spouse with an equally poor
differentation of self,...the new spouses fuse together into a new undifferentiated family
ego mass in which ego boundaries between them are obliterated.
77
78
Edwin H. Friedman, Bowen Theory and Therapy, 1991, Chapter 5, p. 162 The second
natural process basic to what Bowen has taught about therapy is that the process of
maturation takes time. It cannot be willed or even speeded up beyond its own time
frame...Since Bowen theory does not equate change with symptom relief or feeling better,
but with an increase in the differentation level of the family, it has a long-range
perspective.; Friedman, Generation to Generation, P.71 It can take years to alter the
emotional processes of a family.
79
Ducklow, Doctoral Thesis, p. 163, Overly quick solutions are often focused displacements
of people's emotions. The answer becomes the problem when we solve one problem with
another problem in mind. The better question is what has gone out of balance?
17
couple conflict.80 Family Systems Theory warns against the quick fix, as the
solution that becomes the problem. While there can be quick symptom relief of
anxiety, this is not the same as long-term systemic change in a conflicted couple. 81
Longevity rather than frequency is the aim in terms of the coaching of the conflicted
couple, as longevity is linked to impacting family of origin issues. 82 The Bowen
model prefers the term coaching 83 , shifting from couch to coach. 84 As Bowen put
it,
Terms such as supervisor, teacher, and coach are probably best in
conveying the connotation of an active expert coaching both individual
players and the team to the best of their abilities. 85
80
Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p. 117 quoting Murray Bowen, 1975: The

individuality force emerges slowly at first, and it takes very little togetherness force to drive
it back underground for fairly long periods.
81
Friedman, Bowen Theory and Therapy, 1991, Chapter 5, p. 149 Much, if not most, of the
change that occurs in families and other institutions does not last. And much of what we
thought was change often recycles either in a different form or in a different location... ;
Edwin Friedman Video: what is fundamental change in contrast to the temporary changes
that keep recycling.
82
Edwin H. Friedman, DD, Bowen Theory and Therapy, 1991, Chapter 5, p. 162 Bowentrained therapists, therefore, tend to be less concerned about the frequency of sessions than
about the length of time a family stays in the process s...Longevity in the therapeutic
contact promotes deeper involvement with multigenerational processes...A coach can be
helpful even with decreasing frequent contact as long as one plays the game.
83
Daniel V Papero, Bowen Family Systems Theory (A Pearson Education Company,

Massachusetts, 1990), p. 77 Like the coach who works with an athlete to improve basic
skills and ability, the therapist coaches the person toward differentation of self. The coach
functions more as a consultant and teacher than a therapist, at least in the conventional
understanding of the term.; Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p.540, The effort to
help or to supervise someone in this effort has been called 'coaching' since it is so similar to
the relationship of a coach to an athlete whom is working to improve his athletic ability;
Paddy Ducklow, Doctoral Project/Thesis Coaching Church Leaders in Conflict: resolving
strategies using family systems theory (Trinity International University, Deerfield, Illinois,
December 2002), p. 138. The task of the...coach is to participate with what God is already
doing. Thus listening is a primary strategy for the systems coach.
84
Edwin H. Friedman, DD, Bowen Theory and Therapy, 1991, Chapter 5, p. 154 Bowen was
shifting the therapy setting, as he put it in an early presentation, from couch to coach
(Bowen, 1978).
85
Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p. 159, quoting Murray Bowen, 1975; Michael P

Nichols, Family Therapy Concepts and Methods (Pearson Education, Inc., 2008), p. 151
Coaching is the Bowenian alternative.
18
Coaching conflicted couples doesnt mean telling them what to do, but rather asking
questions that help them understand their own emotional processes and how they
function within them.86 Coaching is about focusing on the structure rather than the
symptomatic IP-.87 The term coaching symbolizes that most of the self-change
happens out in the field rather than in the counseling office.
88
The coach is a
calming presence who reduces the tendency of the conflicted couple to emotionally
vent and dump on each other. 89 Another benefit of coaching is that it helps
conflicted couples to not regress when there is push back, but rather to stand firm
in their attempts to truly bring marital change and self-definition. 90 While a
86
Michael P Nichols, Family Therapy Concepts and Methods, (Pearson Education, Inc., 2008),
p. 151 Coaching doesnt mean telling people what to do. It means asking questions
designed to help clients figure out family emotional processes and their role in them.; Ron
Richardson, Creating a Healthier Church, p.160 During these times, simply achieving
greater clarity about what is going on, based on the facts, will have a major impact. What is
significant about this are not so much the conclusions one arrived at but the process of
'trying to understand.'
87
Ducklow139 The coach locates the problem in the structure of the system rather than in
the nature of the symptomatic member or 'identified problem'.
88
Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p. 169 Professionals trained in Bowen theory refer to

the consulting process as coaching because so little of the useful work of self-change
actually occurs in the consulting room. It is done instead in the field of the family.; Gilbert,
The Cornerstone Concept: in Leadership, in Life (Leading Systems Press, Virginia, 2008), p.
70 But the work is not done in the coachs office. Rather the actual work of change is
accomplished on site, in the emotional field of the important family of origin relationships.
89
Roberta M. Gilbert, The Eight Concepts of Bowen Journey: a new way of thinking about the
individual and the group ( Leading Systems Press, 2004, 2006),p. 24 Coaching from the
point of view of Bowen theory sees the defeating nature of the emotional process families
are involved in. It also sees the uselessness of continuing venting.; Gilbert, The
Cornerstone Concept, p. 32 Calmer emotions translate to more reliable thinking and better
relationships.; Gilbert, The Cornerstone Concept, p. 58 It is often said, Believe your
position enough to be calm for it.
90
Gilbert, http://www.hsystems.org/4.html The Ten Percent Solution, ...When people make

efforts towards more differentiation of self, the system, or someone in it often, if not always,
reacts. This is often referred to as the change back phenomenon....At this point people can
become discouraged, especially if they are not in coaching with an experienced consultant.
They can conclude that Bowen family systems theory really doesnt work and give up on
further efforts to work on self.
19
conflicted couple by themselves can increase their ability to distinguish between

thinking and emotionally reacting, a coach can greatly improve ones effort.
91
High
level clergy with significant coaching training are more likely to stay thoughtfully
calm when coaching a conflicted couple. 92 Sadly few clergy have received this
coaching.93 Gilbert poignantly asks regarding coaching: Can high level leadership
make a difference in a time of regression? It may be the only thing that can. 94
1b) Symptoms and Couple Conflict

When counseling conflicted couples, it is important to pay close attention to
symptoms, not so much to relieve the symptom, but rather to use the symptom as
a pathway into the emotional system. 95 Gilbert talks about herself
symptomatically coming down with three physical illnesses, including constant
91
Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p. 25 Improving the ability to choose between

thinking and reacting emotionally is possible alone, but a coach or supervisor can greatly
enhance ones efforts.; Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 98 Increasing ones ability to
distinguish between thinking and feeling within self and others and learning to use that
ability to direct ones life and solve problems is the central guiding principle of family
psychotherapy.; Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p. 355 The core of my theory
has to do with the degree to which people are able to distinguish between the feeling
process and the intellectual process.
92
Gilbert, The Cornerstone Concept: in Leadership, in Life (Leading Systems Press, Virginia,
20080, p. 145 High level clergy, on the other hand, often with training and coaching find a
way to keep themselves relatively calm and thinking during the times when the group is
stirred up emotionally. p. 146 Can high level leadership make a difference in a time of
regression? It may be the only thing that can.
93
Gilbert, The Cornerstone Concept, p. 145 People, including clergy persons, are given in
their training little or nothing on thinking systems or managing themselves in an anxious
environment.
94
95
Friedman, Generation to Generation, p.71 Healing occurs when the counsellor is less
anxious to relieve the symptom and instead uses it as a pathway into the emotional
system.; Nichols, Family Therapy Concepts and Methods, p. 146 The symptomatic
expression of a triangle usually takes the form of relationship conflict (or cutoff) or
dysfunction in one of the individuals, such as anxiety, depression, or physical illness.
20
migraine headaches after a tragic family death. 96 What were her old pattern
symptoms telling her about imbalance in her family emotional system?
The Freudian model tends to see symptoms as indications of intrapsychic
diseases within the patient. The Bowen model sees symptoms as indications of a
wider emotional system that transcends the mere individual. 97 The symptomatic
spouse in couple conflict does not necessarily need to be the focus of therapy, as
the aim is to modify the whole unit, acknowledging reciprocity between functions. 98
Ducklow observes that symptoms like marital distress usually develop during
periods of heightened or prolonged family or group tension. 99 Sometimes when one
spouse successfully sets boundaries, the other spouse will reactively develop
physical symptoms.100
96
. Gilbert, The Cornerstone Concept, p. 125 The intensity and depth of my feelings (after
tragic death and brother S and his two grandchildren in a train/car accident) resulted in my
coming down with three physical illnesses over the next year. Physical illness is an old
pattern with me. P. 127 Several weeks after my family deaths, I was having almost
constant migraine headaches.
97
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, 1988, p. 319. "the distinction between viewing a
symptom as reflecting a disease confined within the boundaries of a patient and viewing a
symptom as reflecting an emotional process that transcends the boundaries of a patient
and encompasses the family relationship system is the major distinction between
conventional medical or psychiatric diagnosis and family diagnosis"
98
Papero, Bowen Family Systems Theory, p.viii, Kerr, If this conceptualization of the family
as an emotionally governed system or unit (emotion is synonymous with instinct, not
feeling) is accurate then, therapy directed at any family member, not just the symptomatic
member, can modify the whole unit...It is not necessary to have the symptomatic family
member in therapy for the symptoms to be relieved. It is therapy based on a way of
thinking that conceptualizes reciprocity in functioning between family members.
99
Paddy Ducklow, P. 36
100
Murray Bowen, 'The Use of Family Theory in Clinical Practice', Comprehensive Psychiatry,
Vol.7, No. 5, October, 1966, P.371 They might get depressed and confused and develop a
whole spectrum of physical symptoms. This is the reaction of one's psyche and soma as it
cries out for the old dependence and togetherness.
21
Kerr and Bowen recognize that the relationship between chronic anxiety and
the resulting symptoms may vary significantly 101, saying that
The type of symptom that develops (physical, emotional or social) is
connected both to the particular way an individual manages anxiety and to
what others in the system focus on in that individual when they get anxious.
102
Friedman suggests that marriages should not be measured by longevity or

happiness but rather by being symptom-free in three locations: 1) in the marital
relationship (as conflict, distance or divorce) 2) in the health of one of the partners
(physical or mental), or 3) in one of the children (though this last could also be
placed in the space between the parent and the child). 103
Kerr and Bowen see symptoms like over/under eating, over/under achieving,
excessive alcohol/drug use, and affairs as indicators of having given up too much
self, often absorbing anxiety within the relationship system. 104 Ironically, says Kerr
and Bowen, conflicted couples sometimes have fewer symptoms, because their
conflict can provide a very strong sense of emotional contact with the other
spouse:
101
Friedman 1991, p. 140 "In all events, chronic anxiety is understood to be the primary
promoter of all symptoms from schizophrenia to cancer from anorexia to birth defects.
102
103
Friedman, Generation to Generation, p. 137 Instead of dividing marriages into two basic
categories, those that last and those that do not, or those that are happy and those that are
not, the new criterion based on the above model is that marriages are successful to the
extent that the nuclear family is symptom-free in all three locations (with the understanding
that no marriage achieves a grade better than 70 percent.)...
104
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation: p. 87 ...People who develop a physical illness
frequently are absorbing anxiety based on their functioning position in a relationship system.
They sometimes describe this position as no exit.
22
Mutual projections that are successfully parried give people a sense of having
themselves as individuals under control; it is the relationship that is the
problem. So spouses in a conflictual marriage are less vulnerable to physical,
emotional, or social symptoms. In addition, children of conflictual marriages
are less vulnerable to symptoms. 105
Kerr and Bowen say that chronic symptoms are sometimes a diversion from
the most challenging relationship problems of the conflicted couple and/or family. 106
Many conflicted couples blame all their problems on a lack of communication.
Gilbert suggests that communication is less a problem than a symptom. The
problem is the relationship position or posture itself. 107 Predominant relationship
patterns shape how one symptomatically expresses ones anxiety. Couple conflict is
based on one spouse externalizing their anxiety onto the other spouse; in contrast if
the predominant pattern fosters dysfunction, then high anxiety is characterized by
symptoms in the spouse or child.108
Who is most vulnerable to developing symptoms? Kerr and Bowen suggest
that the compliant or adaptive spouse picks up the anxiety projected from the
dominant spouse, becoming more anxiously at risk for a symptom. 109 The dominant
105
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 192; Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p.
476 Conflict absorbs large quantities of the undifferentiation...which protects other areas
from symptoms.
106
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, P. 87 In some ways it is easier to live with the
presence of a chronic symptom than it is to confront the more basic relationship problems
that exist between family members.
107
Gilbert, Extraordinary Leadership, p.84, p. 104 The complaint heard most frequently
from couples seeking professional help is We have a communication problem!
108
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 163 If the predominant pattern is parents
externalizing their anxieties into their marital relationship, periods of high anxiety are
characterized by marital conflict. If the predominant pattern fosters dysfunction in a spouse
or in a child, periods of high anxiety are characterized by symptoms developing in a spouse
or in a child.
109
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 182, ...the one prone to develop symptoms is the
spouse who adapts most to maintain harmony in the relationship system....The dominant
23
spouse engages in will conflict, trying to will another to adapt to them, resulting in a
loss of self and an increase of symptoms like anorexia, suicide, schizophrenia,
abuse, violence, and many chronic physical diseases.
110
Focusing on the symptoms of the couple conflict tends to obscure the

strengths of the couple.111 By focusing on what is right with the couple rather than
on their pathological symptoms, one decreases the anxious reactivity of the
conflicted couple.112 Symptoms remind us that the human power for preservation,
healing and change are already resident in the (marital couple). 113 The resources
are already there in the emotional system of the conflicted couple. They just need
to be discovered and tapped into. Gilbert holds that we can step out of the anxious
worry loop when major regressive symptoms are adding to the anxiety of the
couples emotional system.114
one projects or sprays his or her anxiety and, in the process, usually feels calmer; the
adaptive one picks up or projects the anxiety and, in the process, becomes more anxious
and more at risk for a symptom.
110
Friedman, Bowen Theory and Therapy, 1991, Chapter 5, P.162, It does not take much
great deal to see that the most intense forms of family at symptomology (anorexia, suicide,
schizophrenia, abuse, violence, and many chromic physical diseases, not to mention a whole
catalogue of marital and parent-child issues) tend to occur in families characterized by
extreme will conflict, by which I mean that members of the family are constantly trying to
will one another to adapt to their own self-differentiation. Willing others to change is, by
definition, loss of self in the relationship.; Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p. 40 In
time, however, borrowing and lending of selves becomes a source of stress.
111
Friedman, Failure of Nerve, p. 2 The emphasis here will be on strength, not pathology; on
challenge, not comfort; on self-differentiation, not herding for togetherness.
112
Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p. 11 But whenever a focus on symptoms obscures

the strengths of people, there may be room for another approach. ...A research focus on the
understanding of human strengths instead of on pathology is rare. Gilbert, Extraordinary
Relationships, p. 160 Ideally a professional can relate to and encourage a persons ability,
focusing on what is right with people: their strengths and those of their families.
113
Ducklow quoting Cosgrove and Hatfield 1994, 124 System theorists presumed that the
human power for preservation, healing and change are already resident in the
congregation"
114
Gilbert, The Cornerstone Concept, p. 61 It can be most easily seen when a family is in a
regression. In other words, someone in the family is showing a major symptom, and it is
24
1c) Emotional Reactivity and Couple Conflict

One of the most important processes to observe in the emotional system of
the conflicted couple is emotional reactivity. 115 Reactivity is the opposite of
thoughtful responsiveness where one retains the power of choice. 116 Emotional
reactivity in conflicted couples is associated with rigid inflexibility and demanding
the other person to change.117 Friedman notes that
When clients first come in, they are way over to the right, meaning that they
are highly anxious, constantly reactive with little self-regulation of their
direction in life.118
Nichols holds that the single greatest impediment to understanding one

another is our tendency to become emotionally reactive. 119 When a conflicted
drawing focus and adding to the anxiety burden of the family...In order for this situation to
come to an end, someone has to step out of the anxious worry loop.
115
Papero, p.53 In the moderately to highly anxious variants of marital conflict, partners
have high emotional reactivity to one another.; Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 127
A successful effort to improve ones level of differentation and reduce anxiety strongly
depends on a persons developing more awareness of and control over his emotional
reactivity.
116
Ducklow, P. 234 Reactivity is the tendency for the person to respond to perceived threats
or the anxiety of others. Responsiveness is the learned skill to choose a response to a threat
or the anxiety of others.
117
Kerr and Bowen, p. 188 The force behind dogmatic convictions about who needs to
change.... the more emotionally reactive people are and the more fixed their thinking about
who needs to change, the less flexible the family.; Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 83
What is compromised in a conflictual relationship is the ability to give in when it is
constructive for all concerned.
118
Edwin H. Friedman, Bowen Theory and Therapy, 1991, Chapter 5, p. 163; The most
blatant characteristic of chronically anxious families is the vicious cycle of intense reactivity
of each member to events and to one another
119
p. 147
25
couple is emotionally fused, they will be controlled by their emotional reactivity to

each other, as well as by their urge for togetherness. 120 Sometimes a spouse, who is
not feeling listened to, will anxiously chase their spouse until they get a reaction. 121
Kerr and Bowen hold that the rugged individualists determination to be
independent stems more from his reaction to other people than from a thoughtfully
determined direction for self.122 Rugged individualism and compliance are often two
sides of the same emotional reactivity. Gilbert gives a helpful word picture for
emotional reactivity, saying that
It is almost as if, in relationship systems, electrical connections link the
individuals of the system, transporting emotions and feelings from one
individual to another continuously. Emotional reactivity passes like a hot
potato between individuals.123
Awareness of the impact of our reactivity on our spouse is an important step

towards breakthrough. We can easily slip into defensiveness or as Christians into
hyper-spiritual language, not acknowledging our own contribution to the couple
conflict. Jesus teaching about first removing the log from our own eyes is very
applicable to reactivity in couple conflict. 124 Kerr and Bowen hold that
120
Ducklow, p. 39 People who are fused are dominated by their emotional reactivity and the
urge for togetherness.; Murray Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice (Aronson, New
York, 1978), p. 371The goal is to rise up out of the emotional togetherness that binds us
all.
121
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 188 Leaving him alone has not worked. She often
feels that her point of view is neither listened to nor understood...If he seems not to react,
she feels worse and prods until he does react.
122
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 64, ft. 3
123
Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p. 40; Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p. 26

quoting Murray Bowen, 1973: Emotional reactiveness in a family, or other group that lives
or works together, goes from one family member to another in a chain reaction.;
124
Matthew 7:3-5, The NIV Study Bible, Zondervan Corporation, Grand Rapids, Michigan,
1985
26
There are two particularly important elements that influence the success of
therapy for conflictual marriages: (1) peoples ability to recognize the effect
of anxiety and emotional reactivity on their own and on their spouses
behaviour, and (2) peoples ability to see that many of the things they use to
justify the rejection and condemnation of the spouse are things they
themselves help create.125
In Bowen theory, the client is coached to gain control over his or her
emotional reactivity.126 The higher the marital conflict, the higher the emotional
reactivity is to each other.
127
Emotionally reactive couples tend to focus on
obstinate, uncaring, unreasonable qualities of the other, painting their own self as
the victim.128 Kerr notes that
Conflictual marriages are extremely intense relationships in which much of
each spouse's emotional reactiveness is focused on the other spouse. Both
partners are usually up to it in that neither buckles under intense pressure
and attack. Each is exquisitely sensitive in giving in to the other, lest he /she
be the loser. ... When they are apart, each is preoccupied with the 'unfair
treatment he/she has received, each feeling his/her point of view has not
been heard.129
125
126
James L Framo, Family of origin as a therapeutic resource for adults and marital and
family therapy: you can and should go home again, Family Process, 15:193-210, 1976. p.
340 A client is coached (by Bowen) to gain control over his emotional reactivity to his family
and to become a more objective observer of the self and his family.
127
Papero, Bowen Family Systems Theory, p.53 In the moderately to highly anxious variants
of marital conflict, partners have high emotional reactivity to one another.
128
Papero, Bowen Family Systems Theory, p. 53; Ronald W. Richardson, Differentation of

Self as a Therapeutic Goal for the Systemic Pastoral Counselor, Journal of Pastoral
Psychotherapy, Vol. 1(1), Fall 1987, The Haworth Press, Inc., p. 36 The emotional reactivity
of fusion means that we are supersensitive to significant others response to us. We are
thrilled when they love and praise us, and hurt, and destroyed, and defensive or aggressive
when they criticize us.
129
Family Systems Theory and Therapy), P.243
27
The better conflicted couples become at observing and learning about

reactivity and their emotional system, the greater reduction of reactivity. 130
Consequentially this reduction of reactivity, says Bowen, allows us to become better
observers of the emotional process. 131 Married couples become better couples the
more that they nonreactively understand how they came to be the way they are. 132
Part of coaching a conflicted couple is teaching them at the right moments about
family emotional systems. When their level of reactivity is too high, they will be
more resistive to this new way of thinking.133 Nichols reminds us that changing
emotional reactivity in a conflicted couple is a long process. 134 Kerr and Bowen
commented that
When people can listen without reacting emotionally, communication is wide
open and differences are an asset to a marriage, not a liability. Nobody is an
expert on everything.135
130
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p.189 The wife reacts when she feels unloved,
ignored, and taken for granted. The husband reacts when he feels unloved, pressured to
change, and unappreciated.
131
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, P.541 The effort to become a better observer
and to learn more about the family reduces the emotional reactivity, and this in turn helps
one become a better observer.
132
Gilbert, Eight concepts, p. 99 The more one understands about how we all came to be
the way we are, the less reactive one becomes to any particular trait.
133
Papero, Bowen Family Systems Theory, p. 75 Teaching about emotional systems is a

natural part of assisting people to think about their situation and to control their reactivity.
Timing plays an important role in the teaching effort. If teaching is attempted when anxiety
is high, there are considerable disadvantages. Anxious people have a hard time listening
fully to what is being said. Concepts are partially heard and greatly misunderstood.
134
P.261 Changing emotional reactiveness and operating as a little more of a self in
relationship to people you live with is a long, very gradual process.
135
28
Bowen sees immunology as a scientific analogy to understand how reactivity can

affect a conflicted couple.136 Emotional reactivity is an auto-immune dysfunction.
As Friedman puts it,
Bowen therapy is about the immunological response. It is a focus on strength
rather than weakness, on the evolution of the self that is necessary for its
expression and on the self-regulation that keeps the opposite extreme autoimmunity (reactivity) in check.137
Friedman sees the leader (i.e. pastor/pastoral counselor) as its immunological

system ...well-defined (meaning, primarily, clear and nonreactive.) 138 By being
nonreactive, we set the thermostat. 139 When working with conflicted couples,
pastors/pastoral counselors are
transformers in an electric system, "dialing down" our fears and "dialing up"
our confidence in God. Leaders who accept their responsibility as system
transformers carry the "load" of reducing reactivity within the charged
system.140
By being nonreactive with conflicted couples, the pastor/pastoral counselor

functions as a catalyst or enzyme for change and morphogenesis. 141 He/she also
136
Kerr and Bowen, p. 78. ft. 16 Two organisms, for example, can be so reactive to the
presence of each other that, if they cannot successfully avoid each other, one will likely kill
the other.
137
Edwin H. Friedman, Bowen Theory and Therapy, 1991, Chapter 5, P. 160
138
Edwin H. Friedman, DD, Bowen Theory and Therapy, 1991, Chapter 5, P.160
139
Ducklow, Conflicted Church/Conflicted Leader Course, Carey Theological College
140
Gilbert, Extraordinary Leadership, P. 167
141
Catalysts are not consumed by the process they enable. See p. 61 on morphoge nesis
29
incarnationally models the process of nonreactivity in a way that can give a

template to the conflicted couple. As Bowen put it,
When any key member of an emotional system can control his own emotional
reactiveness and accurately observe the functioning of the system and his
part in it, and he can avoid counterattacking when he is provoked, and when
he can maintain an active relationship with the other key members without
withdrawing or becoming silent, the entire system will change in a series of
predictable steps.142
What holds us back as pastors from being nonreactive in our ministry to

conflicted couples?143 Perhaps it is the vicious cycle of our personal emotional
reactivity which limits our ability to think clearly, which then limits our ability to be
nonreactive with conflicted couples.144 In order to best help conflicted couples, we
need to become more aware of our own personal reactivity. 145
Friedman said that conflicted couples and others will sabotage our
nonreactivity to see if we really love them/emotionally fuse with their pseudoselves.146 Some will even react to any suggestion of nonreactivity, claiming that
142
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p. 436
143
Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationship, p. 106 a second characteristic of optimal

communication becomes clear: It is nonreactive.
144
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p. 434, Family Systems Theory & Pastoral
Theology: Lawrence Matthews I have come to the conclusion that reactivity plays a major
part in the unwillingness, or perhaps inability, of pastors to think theologically. When anxiety
and reactivity are high, regardless of the cause, clarity of thinking is lower. Theological
reflection requires the ability to think clearly.
145
Family Systems Theory and Therapy), p. 260 From experience, the people who do least well
in the training are the ones who have the hardest time seeing their own problems, their own
emotional reactiveness...
146
Edwin Friedman Video, The Pastoral Care Association of BC 4th Annual Conference, 1991
'Body & Soul in Family Process' VHS: Many people create anxiety in others to see if you love
them. If you are nonreactive, they will doubt that you love them.
30
their feelings are being disregarded and invalidated. 147 If however we stay on track,
the reactivity and sabotage will die down. 148 Time is on our side when we do not
emotionally fuse with the conflicted couple. One of our best ways to stay
nonreactive with conflicted couples is to good-naturedly say no to the urgent,
important and serious.149
1d) Anxiety and Couple Conflict

A second emotional process to observe in the emotional family system is
anxiety.150 Anxiety, said Bowen, is the crucial issue. 151 Friedman teaches that there
is a chronic anxiety in all of life that comes with the territory of living. 152 Papero
147
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 191 ... if a therapist emphasizes the importance of
focusing on oneself rather than on the other, and the importance of toning down emotional
reactivity, the spouse who feels most pressured by the other spouse is more likely to
applaud this point of view than the spouse who feels more isolated and ignored...She feels
her spouse is unfeeling and selfish and hears the therapist as suggesting this is all right.
148
Gilbert, The Cornerstone Concept, p. 145 Bowen theory further predicts that if the leader
stays on track, not reacting back, not retreating, and staying in contact with important
others, the reactivity will die down in time.
149
Friedman, Failure of Nerve, 1959, p. 456 The emotional tone was commonly grim, urgent
and serious and could be imperiously demanding, plaintive, or simple insistent. This feeling
was infectious...
150
Edwin Friedman video: ...the real issue is our anxiety and our failure to grow ourselves.;
Jones, P.41; Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p. 361 The Bowen theory has two
main variables. One is the degree of anxiety, and the other is the degree of integration of
self.
151
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p. 63 I believe anxiety is the crucial issue.
The research families all have a low tolerance for anxiety. Of course, this peace at any
price policy immediately causes greater anxiety for tomorrow...; Friedman, Failure of
Nerve, p.299 In one sense, this entire story is about the management of anxiety...this
overlaps with management of oneself.
152
Edwin H. Friedman, Bowen Theory and Therapy, 1991, Chapter 5, p. 139 ...a premise
that subsumes the entire theory, that there is a chronic anxiety in all of life that comes with
the territory of living.; Paddy Ducklow, p. 52, Emotional systems are, by their very nature,
anxious.
31
uses a snow analogy (fitting for Canadian winters) to help us understand the anxiety
process:
(it) is akin to the situation of the auto driver who, mired in the snow, applies
increasing power to the drive wheels, virtually eliminating the ability of the
tires to grip the surface and provide traction. In the case of a family, the
driving force is anxiety. The higher the anxiety in each person and in the
unit, the greater the tendency (there is) to spin the wheels. 153
We need to get over our phobias over anxiety. Bowen reminds us that
Anxiety does not harm people. It only makes them feel uncomfortable. It can
cause you to shake, or lose sleep, or become confused, or develop physical
symptoms, but it will not kill you and it will subside. People can even grow
and become more mature by having to face and deal with anxiety
situations.154
Gilbert describes anxiety as a powerful teacher, reminding me of Romans

8:28s insight that all things work for the good for those who love the Lord, even
anxiety.
155
Ducklow said that chronic anxiety is sometimes called emotional pain. 156
Of all the relationship patterns, says Gilbert, people caught in conflict are most apt
to seek help because of their awareness of pain. 157 Growth, said Friedman, comes
from increasing the pain threshold, not reducing the pain. 158 That is why Friedman
memorably commented: I am on the side of pain. 159 Emotionally-fused soothing
153
Papero, p.88
154
155
Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, P.40
156
Ducklow, Doctoral Thesis, p.51
157
Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, P.45
158
Edwin Friedman video
159
32
does not help the conflicted couple.160 Neither does dumping our anxious and angry
feelings onto the other person. 161
Anxiety is the most contagious of all emotions, followed by depression. 162
Kerr and Bowen hold that anxiety rubs off on people; it is transmitted and
absorbed without thinking.163 A conflicted couple doesnt have to choose someone
elses anxiety, any more than one choose someone else flu or cold. All that has to
happen is for the other spouse or another person anxiously sneeze on the partner,
while their emotional immune system is low. Gilbert compares this to the response
of a herd under threat, causing them to flock or herd together. 164 Kerr notes that
Anxiety that begins in one person can eventually infect the whole family...As
anxiety subsides, each person recovers some ability to act on thinking, the
emotional boundaries between family members gradually return to baseline
level, and symptoms diminish or disappear. 165
160
Kerr, Handbook of family therapy (Gurman and Kniskern, editors, chapter 7, Family
Systems Theory and Therapy), p. 237 Practically thinking, the more anxious or emotionally
intense a person gets, the greater the tendency for the fusion of the two systems.
161
Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, P.47 Usually people are told that if only they will get
their feelings out, the conflict will disappear. Unhappily, many who take this advice find that
the more they try to get their feelings out, the worse the conflict becomes.
162
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p.362 There is also the phenomena of the
infectiousness of anxiety in which anxiety can spread rapidly through the family, or through
society.; Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 176 ...Anxious reactions to the presence of
the problem can be more of a problem than the problem itself.
163
164
Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p.13 In animals, there is a tendency for anxiety to

ripple instantly through a herd when there is danger. The herd functions as an emotional
unit. The anxiety moves from one individual to the next, causing all the individuals to push
closer together.
165
Chronic Anxiety and Defining a Self, by Michael E Kerr, in The Atlantic Monthly, Sept
1988, Page 151; Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 125 Anxiety converts feared
problems into real problems..
33
Anxiety can seriously reduce our ability to think. 166 It can also reduce the
ability of conflicted couples to see the big picture, the emotional system. As anxiety
increases, conflicted couples tend to focus on linear cause and effect blaming of
each other.167 Gilbert comments that Logic is unavailable. It is as if the cerebral
cortex (the thinking part of the brain) is flooded with anxiety. 168 This creates
groupthink, which is an anxious fused imitation of actual thinking. Groupthink
simulates thinking, using the appearance of reason to whitewash over emotional
reactivity.169 Anxiety also can shut down our curiosity and willingness to learn. 170
Paradoxically, learning reduces anxiety. As Kerr and Bowen stated,
The process by which an individual can reduce his level of chronic anxiety
depends primarily on learning. The learning depends on having the courage
to engage emotionally intense situations repeatedly and to tolerate the
anxiety and internal emotional reactivity associated with that engagement.
171
166
Gilbert, The Cornerstone Concept, p. 91 With less anxiety to carry around, the thinking
brain functions better.; Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, P.36 When anxiety decreases
sufficiently, people can begin to think about their problems. Anxiety impairs the ability to
think...; Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p. 28 ...strong emotion seems to override
logical thought; processing information is logically difficult if not impossible during times of
heightened emotion.
167
Gilbert, Eight concepts, p.112 Under the effects of heightened anxiety, people tend to
not see the big picture or to think systems. (Rather they tend to think cause and effect,
laying blame.); Gilbert, The Eight Concepts, p. 15 Conflict: The favorite and overused word
is you. Projection of blame is the order of the day.; Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical
Practice, p. 263 It is common for young people to get into marriage blaming their parents
for past unhappiness, and expecting to find perfect harmony in the marriage.
168
Gilbert, Eight Concepts, p. 21; JC Wynn, The Family Therapist (Fleming H Revell Company,
Old Tappan, New Jersey, 1987), p. 150 A family subjected to sustained anxiety will lose
contact with their intellectually focused abilities and come to rely more on emotionally
determined decisions. ; Gilbert, The Cornerstone Concept, p. 31 Unfortunately the brain
does not function well in the presence of emotional intensity.
169
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 28 While humans are quick to provide reasons
for their actions and inactions, much of what they do is done by other forms of life
unencumbered by such reasons.
170
Gilbert, The Cornerstone Concept, p. 92 All the world is a lab, waiting to be discovered
and understood. After all, it is anxiety or concern over what people will think, that keeps us
from an interest in others or the world around us.
34
Papero notes that with reduced anxiety, family members become more objective
and calmer.172 Gilbert recommends going to the gym as a way of reducing anxiety,
something I can attest to that I have been doing regularly for the past twelve
years.173 When anxiety is less, says Gilbert, many of lifes problems simply dont
happen.174
Gilbert suggests that we need to be careful observers of the patterns of
anxiety, looking for potential triggers. 175 By addressing the triggers, there will be a
significant reduction in anxiety.176 Ron Richardson teaches that
171
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 130; Kerr and Bowen, P. 131 ...An intellectual
decision to engage people and situations one prefers to avoid and a decision to tolerate the
anxiety associated with not doing things one normally does to reduce anxiety in oneself in
those situations can, if done repeatedly over a long period of time, lead to a reduction in
ones level of chronic anxiety. This is anxiety reduction based on learning rather than on
emotional or physical distance.
172
Papero, Bowen Family Systems Theory, p. 68; Edwin Friedman video, Reducing anxiety in
the system will allow the healing to occur.; Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p.118 If
one bases a life course on feelings, that life will be marked by ups and downs, tangents, and
lack of direction. If anxious feelings can be calmed at will, productive thoughtfulness will
take over.; Randy Roberts, Two Distinct Approaches to Family Therapy: The Ideas of Murray
Bowen and Jay Haley, The Family, Vol 6 No. 2, p. 42 He works towards taking positions and
action stands based on calm inner reflection rather than on the anxiety and pressure of the
moment.
173
Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, Physically relaxed muscles mitigate anxiety and

promote clear-headedness.
174
Gilbert,The Cornerstone Concept, p. 87 Much of the difficulties in life can be laid at the
doorstep of the deleterious effects of an inappropriate amount of anxiety, leading to
symptoms, relationship patterns or bad decisions. So when anxiety is less, many of lifes
problems simply dont happen. Life becomes easier.
175
JC Wynn, The Family Therapist (Fleming H Revell Company, Old Tappan, New Jersey,
1987), p. 144 Bowen and his staff track who talks to whom, and what about; this helps
locate the stress level.
176
Gilbert, Extraordinary Leadership, P.134 If instead of getting involved in the anxious

relationship patterns, we can look for the anxiety behind the patterns, addressing it, we will
be more effective. P.135 ...start looking for what the triggers behind the anxiety might be.
When those are addressed, the anxiety will recede.
35
emotional systems get into trouble and symptoms erupt as a result of some
kind of imbalance in the system. The imbalance is almost always related to a
heightened level of anxiety in the system. 177
Anxiety comes in waves, sometimes feeling like a tsunami. Friedman notes

that Chronic anxiety is given to surges...can have shocking effects...has
'electrifying' potential..., is modifiable by transformers 178 We as pastors/pastoral
counselors can choose to become transformers who reduce the anxiety level rather
than increase it. Bowen holds that
Anything that can interrupt the spiraling anxiety will be helpful. Any one
significant family member who can 'cool' the anxious response, or control
one's anxiety, can make a step towards de-escalation. 179
In our relationally-fragmented culture, we tend to see togetherness as the
cure-all for most of our problems.180 Weddings and marital togetherness are not a
quick-fix for our own personal issues, giving us an automatic happily ever after
card.181 Marriage in no way guarantees emotional maturity. Immaturity with high
177
Congregational life, (Augsburg Fortress, 1996), P. 159
178
Friedman, 1999, p. 117; Toward the Differentation of a Self in one's own Family, by
Anonymous/Bowen, P. 152 In such an anxiety wave, the person with the most vulnerable
heart can have a heart attack, a chronic illness can flare up, a teenage child can wreck a car
or break a bone or any of numerous other symptoms could develop in any member of the
family.
179
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, P.267
180
Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p.5 While relationships solve one kind of anxiety
that of being alone --, they create another. For all the investment that goes into them, the
returns are slim. In spite of all the creativity, perseverance, and insight they require,
relationships often confound and confuse people. They sometimes end in disappointment
and disillusionment.
181
Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p. 15 The pull toward togetherness will increase at

times of intensified anxiety in the emotional system. For example, it is not uncommon for a
marriage to take place soon after the death of an emotionally significant person in a family.
36
anxiety is a difficult combination in couple conflict. 182 Family Systems Theory

teaches us that the wrong kind of togetherness is actually part of the problem, and
leads to greater anxiety.183 Bowen named this the togetherness force (Bowen,
1971). Togetherness and anxiety feed off of each other. 184 Anxiety can cause both
reactive togetherness and reactive apartness. 185 Kerr and Bowen stated that
...the universal problem for all partnership, marital or otherwise, was not getting
closer; it was preserving self in a close relationship, something that no one made of
flesh and blood seems to do well. (I eventually came to define my marriage
counseling as trying to help people separate so that they would not have to
'separate.)186
The togetherness force, says Gilbert, urges us toward others, for attachment, for
affiliation, and for approval.187 Anxious togetherness will bring more rigid
boundaries and less morphogenetic flexibility in conflicted couples. 188 Papero
comments:
Togetherness operates in the name of love, kinship, and loyalty. If greater
togetherness prevails, the family moves toward increased emotional
182
Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p. 113 Emotional immaturity carries with it chronic

anxiety, which, when expressed in relationships, wreak havoc.
183
p. 126 At the heart of the problem was anxious attachment, a pathological form of
closeness driven by anxiety.; Ducklow, p. 229, Anxiety often results in the togetherness pull
within the organization and increased rigidity in boundaries.
184
Papero, Bowen Family Systems Theory, p. 43 When anxiety is low, family members
automatically display autonomy.; Paddy Ducklow, Doctoral Thesis, p. 39 Bowen's family
system theory is best understood in the balance/imbalance of the two forces, togetherness
and individuality.
185
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p.535 When anxiety is higher, they become
more reserved and more isolated from each other.
186
187
Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p. 13 Togetherness is sometimes called fusion. This

refers to the taking on or giving up of self in a relationship.
188
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p.74 The more actions people feel compelled to take
to reduce anxiety and to avoid triggering anxiety, the less the flexibility of a relationship...
37
functioning and less individual autonomy. A by-product is increased chronic

anxiety.189
Anxiety can be defined simply as fear of a real or imagined threat.
190
On a
somewhat different level it can be defined as physiological arousal preparatory to

action to preserve the safety of the individual. The greater the level of anxiety, the
more behaviour becomes automatic or instinctual.... 191 Gilbert observes that
Anxious people are not easy to be around...People instinctively flee anxious
people. And so they distance themselves.192
The avoidance of anxiety explains why many conflicted couples are

connected by a rubber band where they pull away during high anxiety, only to
snap back into fused togetherness. 193 Gossip and anxiety are very closely
189
Papero, Bowen Family Systems Theory, p. 44; Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice,
p. 438 ...the feeling orientation which strives for an immediate short-term feeling solution
to the anxiety of the moment
190
Ducklow, P229 anxiety (or heightened reactivity) defined as the response of the person
(or organism) to real or imagined threat...may be acute (short term) or chronic (passed
through the family system for generations).
191
Papero, p. 67; Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p. 438 ...the feeling
orientation which strives for an immediate short-term feeling solution to the anxiety of the
moment; Papero, p. 41 The more intense an interaction, the greater the likelihood that
individuals involved will behave automatically, that is, in response to the emotional system
with the intellectual system being overridden; Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p.
404 They make life decisions to relieve the anxiety of the moment when they could know, if
they could think at the time, that serious life complications would result from the decisions.
Family life becomes a mass of complications from years of feeling-determined decisions.
192
Roberta M Gilbert, The Ten Percent Solution, http://www.hsystems.org/4.html (accessed

Oct 15th 2011); Gilbert, Extraordinary Leadership, p.105 Anxiety is difficult to be around.
When people find a calm person, they want to be near them.
193
Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p. 19, emotional reactivity = rubber band; Paddy

Ducklow, P. 51 Chronic anxiety constricts (limits) and constructs (forms) a person or
system's daily life. While acute anxiety is fed by fear of what is (for example learning how to
cope when one's spouse leaves or when one's child's dies, chronic anxiety is fed by fear
what might or might never happen (for example, fear of how to cope if one's spouses leaves
or if one's child dies (Kerr and Bowen 1988, 113 ... in chronic anxiety, one is anxious about
38
connected, feeding on each other194. Bowen found that the higher the anxiety, the
more those conflicted couples isolate from each other, which in turn lowers
responsible communication and increases underground gossip. 195
Kerr holds that when acute or chronic tension/anxiety builds in a marriage,
people have four options in responding to it:
1)They can distance from each other; 2) they can get into conflict with each
other; 3) one can compromise his/her own functioning to preserve
relationship harmony; or 4) the couple can band together over a common
concern, for example, a child. When any of these options is overused, it can
lead to the category of problems that families commonly seek help for,
namely, marital conflict, impaired functioning of a spouse, or problems with a
child. ....196
The more fusion in the conflicted couple, the more anxiety and this makes
these four dysfunctional mechanisms more normative. 197 One of the dangers of
what is not happening and may never occur.
194
Ducklow, Doctoral Thesis, p. 229,Anxiety is heightened by 'secrets
195
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, 1975: p. 291 From family research, we have
learned that the higher the level of anxiety and symptoms in the family, the more the family
members are emotionally isolated from each other. The greater the isolation, the lower the
level of responsible communication between family members, and the higher the level of
irresponsible underground gossip about each other in the family, and the confiding of secrets
to those outside the family...A goal in family therapy is to reduce the level of anxiety, to
improve the level of responsible open communication within the family, and to reduce the
irresponsible, underground communication of secrets and gossip to others.
196
Family Systems Theory and Therapy), p. 242; Gilbert
http://www.creatormagazine.com/dnn/CreatorLeadershipNetwork/InterviewswithLeaders/Rob
ertaGilbert.aspx
..if there is anxiety present, we find that relationships start to break down in one of four
different ways. People start to fight with each other. They start to distance. They start telling
each other what to do, or acting hopeless, "Oh, please tell me what to do," or they start
talking to other people behind the leader's back in a thing, a phenomenon we call
triangling.
197
Paddy Ducklow,
https://www.vista.ubc.ca/webct/RelativeResourceManager/Template/Manual
%202011%20Appendices.pdf Fusion or emotional interlock. This is to be stuck in the tar
39
empathy, an important trait, is that it can easily slip into emotional fusion and
collusion. We care so much either as the conflicted spouse or the pastor/pastoral
counselor that we lose the big picture. I have done that a number of times over the
years. Sometimes when listening separately to a conflicted couple, I have become
convinced that they are both right, but their stories dont add up. It is as if they
were talking about two completely different marriages, which perhaps they were in
a strange sense. Friedman states that clarity is more important than empathy,
because it brings objectivity and reduces anxiety. 198 The danger of this insight is
that it could potentially leave us being non-empathetic and cold, which was likely
not Friedmans intent.199
What should be our watchwords during times of high anxiety? Gilbert
recommends
1)observing, listening, being curious 2) Managing self, not taking on anxiety
3) keeping in contact 4) thinking systems, defining self factually, with logic
and principles.200
of a symbiotic or parasitic relationship. It means that you are incapable of reacting

independently to another person. It means that you are always reacting in predictable
ways.
198
Edwin H. Friedman, Bowen Theory and Therapy, 1991, Chapter 5, p. 155 ...when it
comes to promoting change, clarity may be more important than empathy, not only because
helping people to be objective about their position in life automatically contributes to their
healing, but also because it is only when a therapists orientation is concerned with clarity
that he or she may distinguish empathy from anxiety.; Friedman, Failure of Nerve, P.23
...working at being well-defined (ing) takes precedence over trying to understand one
another. Clarity, in other words, becomes more important than empathy.
199
Nichols, Family Therapy Concepts and Methods, p.144 Staying detriangled requires a
calm tone of voice and talking about facts more than about feelings. (Ed: this could end up
feeling cold and impersonal if not done well.)
200
Gilbert, Extraordinary Leadership, p.138; Gilbert, The Cornerstone Concept, p. 93 People

who are working on differentation find their innate curiosity returns. (...after its thorough
squashing in most of us by the eighth grade)
40
I remember a very conflicted couple with whom I had some sessions. What
struck me was that they thought more about each other, almost nonstop, than I did
about my wife to whom I am happily married.201 Anxiety can cause conflicted
couples to fixate on each other. One of the benefits of anxiety is that it can be
motivational for having the conflicted couple goes for counseling. One of the
dangers of short-term reduction of anxiety is that many conflicted couples lose their
motivation to continue with therapy in order to bring lasting morphogenetic change.
202
Anxiety can lead us to unfairly blame our spouse for problems in the
marriage.203 Bowen advocated stepping back and getting beyond anger and
blame.204 I have been guilty of this at times. My wife challenged me in this area; so I
began thinking deeply about what this blaming behaviour was about. As Ron
Richardson put it,
201
Vol.7, No. 5, October, 1966, p.370 I believe that the conflicted marriage is an enduring one
because of the energy investment. The amount of thinking time that goes into the other is
probably greater than calm marriages.; Gilbert, The Cornerstone Concept, p. 7, They will
go to another room, hang up the phone, divorce, or sometimes move away geographically.
They have minimal communication. They still think about each other, however. And that
plays a part in keeping the anxiety alive.
202
Gilbert, http://www.hsystems.org/4.html The Ten Percent Solution, ...Therapists, too,

often note that a certain amount of anxiety is necessary in order for people to seek help in
the first place....Those are the people who, after the first initial lowering of the anxiety, or
the loss of a symptom of someone in the nuclear family, will disappear from the office of the
helping professional.
203
Papero, Bowen Family Systems Theory, p.78 When one can understand emotionally that
everyone plays a part, including oneself, it is hard to be angry at anyone.
204
Michael P Nichols, Family Therapy Concepts and Methods, p. 146 Its natural to get angry
and blame people when things go wrong. The differentiated person, however, is capable of
stepping back, controlling emotional responsiveness, and reflecting on how to improve
things. Bowen (1974) called this getting beyond blame and anger and said that, once
learned in the family, this ability is useful for handling emotional snarls throughout life.
41
When we begin to feel anxious, one of the first questions we usually ask is
whose fault it is...most people decide that the fault lies with the other person
when significant, anxiety-stirring difference is discovered. 205
Friedman holds that communication is itself an emotional phenomenon,

depending on three inter-relational variables: direction, distance and anxiety.
206
Anxiety, said Friedman, is the static in any communication system and can distort or
scramble any message.207 Richardson recommends that we never pursue those who
repeatedly distance from us. Distancers can always outdistance pursuers. In their
anxiety, they run faster.
208
Pursuing others ensures that they will not be able to
hear you. Only if people move towards you can your message crack through the
anxiety communication wall.209 With anxious couples in conflict, Fogarty
recommends that they try a relationship experiment 210:
205
Ron Richardson, Creating a Healthier Church, P.91; Paddy Ducklow, P. 37 One partner
becomes a dumping ground for the anxiety of other partners as he or she projects his or her
anxiety in blame. Each focuses on what is wrong with the other, each tries to control the
other, and each resists the other's efforts at control.
206
Friedman, Failure of Nerve, p. 305
207
Friedman, Failure of Nerve, p. 305
208
Ron Richardson, Creating a Healthier Church, p.69; Ed: this insight has been pastorally
significant to me, particularly when I learnt in the Conflicted Church/Conflicted Leader course
about the K.I.T. alternative.
209
Friedman, Failure of Nerve, p.305 Others can only hear you when they're moving
towards you, no matter how eloquently you phrase the message. In other words, as long as
you're in a pursuing, rescuing, coercive position, your message no matter how eloquently
broadcast will never catch up.; Jones, three mechanisms in marital conflict P. 49 In a
marital conflict, the pursuer tends to blame, accuse, and attack, while the distancer tends to
defend.
210
Nichols, Family Therapy Concepts and Methods, p. 141 The second major technique in
Bowenian therapy is the relationship experiment...Relationship experiments are designed to
help clients experience what its like to act counter to their usual emotionally driven
responses. ...Their primary purpose is to help people discover their ability to move against
the ways their emotions are driving them.
42
Pursuers are encouraged to restrain their pursuit, stop making demands, and
decrease pressure for emotional connection and see what happens, in
themselves, and in the relationship. ...Distancers are encouraged to move
towards their partners and communicate personal thoughts and feelings in
other words, to find an alternative to either avoiding or capitulating to the
other persons demands.211
1e) Objectivity and Couple Conflict

When ministering to conflicted couples, objectivity is vital as it helps protect
us against fusion and collusion, out of our compassion for others. 212 Bowen
commented that
...when I find myself inwardly cheering the hero, or hating the villain in the
family drama, or pulling for the family victim to assert himself, I consider it
time for me to work on my own functioning...Note-taking has been an
efficient device to help me remain detached. 213
211
quoting Fogarty, p. 151; Nichols, p. 144,Fogarty (1976b) described the pursuer-distancer
dynamic. The more one presses for communication and togetherness, the more the other
distances watches TV, works late, or goes off with the kids...Men commonly distance
themselves emotionally but pursue sexually. The trick, according to Fogarty, is Never
pursue a distancer. Instead help the pursuer explore his or her own inner emptiness.
212
Murray Bowen, Theory in the Practice of Psychotherapy, p. ?, The effort of being outside
the family emotional system, or remaining workably objective in an intense emotional
field...; Murray Bowen, Theory in the Practice of Psychotherapy, p. ? I believe that the best
version of objectivity is possible with significant others who know triangles. (note from Ed: I
will save my comments on triangles for later in this article)
213
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p. 83; Randy Roberts, Two Distinct
Approaches to Family Therapy: The Ideas of Murray Bowen and Jay Haley, The Family, p. 42
Taking sides, seeing a certain family member as a victim or hero, being distant or cold,
getting involved in content, and not knowing what to say are some of the many
manifestations of emotional overinvolvement on the part of the therapist.
43
Gilbert compares this therapeutic practice to the objectivity of a scientist. 214

Friedman affirmed ...Bowens lifelong effort to maintain objectivity (a scientific
attitude), which he has always seen as crucial to effective change. 215 When we
maintain objectivity, said Kerr and Bowen, we are able to think about subjectivity,
feelings, and emotions without triggering more subjectivity, feelings, and
emotions.216 Papero says that objectivity will be lost if we focus with conflicted
couples on content issues like sex, money and children, especially on issues of right
or wrong, fairness and rights. 217 In order to see the conflicted couples emotional
process clearly, the pastor/pastoral counselor needs
a relatively objective, neutral position...From such a position, like the quiet
observer of a mountain pond, the therapist can see the ripples and vortices of
emotionality that characterize family reactivity... 218
Objectivity in couple conflict is not about asking
214
Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p. 121 The best results come from staying
emotionally calm so that one can see as objectively as possible what emotional patterns
occur in the family, as well as what triggers them. People sometimes think of the calm,
objective attitude of the scientist.
215
Friedman, Bowen Theory and Therapy, 1991, Chapter 5, p. 153; Kerr and Bowen, Family
Evaluation, p. 150 The ability to see systems or process seems to foster a more emotionally
neutral attitude about human behaviour and the clinical dysfunctions than that fostered by
cause and effect thinking.; Kerr and Bowen, p. 150 In essence, neutrality is reflected in the
ability to define self without being emotionally invested in ones own viewpoint or in
changing the viewpoints of others.
216
Kerr and Bowen, p. 67
217
Papero, p. 74 The effort to remain neutral is essentially impossible if the clinician focuses
upon the surface or content issues in the family. ...General themes of content include sex,
money, and children and focus on issues of right or wrong, fairness, and rights....
218
Papero, p. 74; Kerr and Bowen, p. 154 The more intense the emotional situation, the
more important it is that a persons thinking is neutral and his reactivity under reasonable
control.
44
How can I change this troublesome partner of mine? Instead the question is,
What is my contribution to this relationship pattern? 219
Changing oneself is very challenging.220 If I can discover and correct the part
I play, said Bowen, all the others will automatically correct their parts. 221
It requires intentionally thinking and objective watching to understand the
relationship patterns, what ones contribution to the pattern is and how to change
that.222 It is very easy to lose objectivity, either as a spouse or as the
pastor/pastoral counselor.223 Friedman says that to maintain objectivity, we

must be careful what we promise as results.224 Kerr states that
The therapist's task is to stay objective and accurately assess what is
occurring. Objectivity is what the family needs. 225
219
Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p. 72
220
Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p. 28 Clinically it seems that in order to change an

emotional pattern, the thinking brain must work hard, sometimes for a long time.; Bowen,
Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p. 448 If the goal is toward long term stability and the
differentation of self, this eventually becomes the effort of one person who can give primary
attention to self. ...It is never really possible to change another person but it is possible to
change the part that self plays.
221
Papero, Bowen Family Systems Theory, p. xi, quoting Bowen
222
. Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, P.37; Papero, p. 2 For man to observe and study
himself has been the most difficult task of all...Subjectivity colours, clouds, and distorts
mans ability to view himself. It is extremely difficult for the human to think about or
observe human behaviour without automatically responding.
223
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 203 Objectivity about ones parents (the ultimate
resolution of the transference or unresolved emotional attachment to ones family) promotes
objectivity about oneself. A reasonable amount of objectivity about self and others, coupled
with the ability to act on that basis of objectivity when it is important to do so, is the essence
of differentation of self.
224
Friedman, Generation to Generation, p. 293 ...promising no benefits except those from

the familys own effort to learn about itself and change itself.
225
Kerr, Handbook of family therapy, P. 250
45
Effective treatment for conflicted couples depends on thorough and objective

assessment.226 Friedman names key ways that we can foster that objectivity
in helping conflicted couples:

There are a variety of methods that Bowenian therapists have learned to use
to foster an objective state: mischievous , paradoxical responses; avoiding
interpretations; diagramming the family on a blackboard; telling (disguised)
stories about other clients as projective techniques; and making clear ones
own positions. But the major technique that Bowen and his disciples have
taught as the way to maintain such objectivity and a differentiationpromoting position- is simply to ask questions. 227
1f) The Question technique and Couple Conflict

Unlike many family therapy pioneers, Bowen was not a technique-oriented
pragmatist.228 Ducklow comments that questioning is the closest thing to an
intervention or technique in Bowen's family Systems Theory. 229 There is a
significant ambivalence in Family Systems Thinking regarding its having either few
techniques vs. having the most important technique vs. having no techniques at
all.230
226
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. vii Whenever a clinician begins to treat a clinical
problem, his first step must always be to assess the nature of that problem...Effective
therapy depends on assessment.; Nichols, Family Therapy Concepts and Methods, Pearson
Education, Inc., 2008, p. 137; Nichols, p. 138 Dates of important events, such as deaths,
marriages, and divorces deserve careful study. These events send emotional shock waves
throughout the family...
227
Edwin H. Friedman, DD, Bowen Theory and Therapy, 1991, Chapter 5, p. 155
228
Nichols, Family Therapy Concepts and Methods (Pearson Education, Inc., 2008) p. 127
Most of family therapys pioneers were pragmatists, more concerned with action than
insight, more interested in technique than theory. Bowen was the exception.
229
Ducklow, Doctoral Thesis, p. 234; Nichols, p.140 Bowen himself spoke of technique with
disdain, and he was distressed to see therapists relying on formulaic interventions. If there
were a magic bullet in Bowenian therapy one essential technique it would be the process
question.
46
Process questions with conflicted couples include Who? What? Where? When?
and How? Why is a much less helpful question to ask as it leads to cause and
effect thinking.231 Systems thinking carefully avoids our automatic preoccupation
with why it happened. The conclusion of why thinking into systems thinking
automatically results in a reversion to conventional theory, and the loss of the
unique advantage in systems concepts. Systems thinking focuses on what one does
and not on his/her verbal explanations about why he/she does it. 232
The use of why questions cause us to lose our focus on the relationship of
the conflicted couple.233 Nichols states that
230
Michael E Kerr, Chronic Anxiety and Defining a Self, in The Atlantic Monthly, Sept 1988,
P. 146, Differentiation is not a therapeutic technique. Techniques are born of efforts to
change others.; Kerr and Bowen, p. 108 Differentation is not a therapeutic technique.
Techniques are born of an effort to change others; Friedman, DD, Bowen Theory and
Therapy, 1991, Chapter 5, p. 152 Within the therapeutic encounter, there are not actually a
lot of specific techniques to be taught. Coaching couples to be more self-defined, teaching
people to be more objective about themselves in relation to their environment, tutoring
about the principles of triangles, encouraging people to learn about their multi-generational
emotional histories and to go back and face issues they have fled, reworking family cutoffs,
and teasing out, and challenging or encouraging the emergence of self are the basic
pathways...; Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 150 Detriangling is probably the most
important technique in family systems therapy.; Nichols, Family Therapy Concepts and
Methods, p. 137 The major techniques in Bowenian therapy include genograms, process
questions, relationship experiments, detriangling, coaching, taking I positions, and
displacement stories.
231
Gilbert, Eight concepts: p. 82 Research questions, as in all good science, include: who?
What? Where? When? How? Why is not as useful a question to ask.; Ron Richardson, p.175
Questions that begin with who, where, when, what, and how are the most useful questions.
('Why questions don't usually produce much useful information for understanding the
functioning of emotional systems.)
232
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, 1973, p. 416; Dennis D. Morgan, Dale H
Levandowski, and Martha L Rogers, The Apostle Paul: problem formation and problem
resolution from a Systems perspective, Journal of Psychology and Theology, Summer 1981,
9(2), 136-143, P.143 ...focusing on the why of the problem state vs a focus on the what of
human interactions...
233
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 61 ...When one person asks the other, Why do
you do what you do?, focus on the relationship process is immediately lost.; Bowen, Family
Therapy in Clinical Practice, p. 360 When anxiety is high, even the most disciplined systems
thinker will automatically revert to cause and effect thinking and why explanations.
47
Process questions are queries designed to explore whats going on inside

people and between them... Process questions are designed to slow people
down, diminish reactive anxiety, and start them thinking -- not just about how
others are upsetting them but about how they participate in interpersonal
problems. 234
Thoughtful questions help protect the pastor/pastoral counselor from acting like a
dependency-causing expert/rescuer with conflicted couples. 235 Friedman observed
that 80% of his Family Systems Theory counseling was asking questions. 236 The
therapist, said Bowen, is always in control of the sessions, asking hundreds of
questions and avoiding interpretations. 237 Questions are intended to be low-key and
calm.238 Rather than being advice-giving, process questions help the conflicted
couple see their role in the emotional system. 239 Kerr states that
When seeing a couple together, the therapist has two basic goals. One is to
ask questions about the emotional process that exists in the family and the
second is to stay detriangled from that emotional process him/herself... A
successful session is one in which one or both spouses have been able to
think about the emotional process, describing it accurately instead of just
continuing to react to each other. 240
234
Nichols, Family Therapy Concepts and Methods, p.140
235
Friedman, Generation to Generation, P.72 An approach that primarily asks questions,

sometimes consciously naive, also keeps the counselor out of the dependency-encouraging,
expert position that fosters wise advice. Further it is hard to give answers if you are the one
asking the questions.
236
237
238
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p. 226 The overall plan is to keep the
sessions active with clearly expressed thoughts, always keeping questions calm and lowkeyed. ;Ron Richardson, Creating a Healthier Church, p. 51 They did not tell others to 'be
calm'. They simply bring their own calmness to the situation.
239
Nichols, Family Therapy Concepts and Methods, p. 150 Bowenian therapists rarely give
advice. They just keep asking questions. The goal isnt to solve peoples problems but to
help them learn to see their own role in how their family systems operate.; Gilbert, The
Cornerstone Concept, p. 120 ...To ask questions rather than dictate outcomes (which would
be my tendency).
240
Kerr, Handbook of family therapy, p. 255
48
As many conflicted couples want you to take sides, Bowen used

nonconfrontational questions to avoid taking sides. Bowens goal was to stimulate
thinking more than to encourage expression of feelings.
241
When feelings or tears
emerged, Bowen encouraged the therapist to calmly ask what was the thought
that stimulated the tears, or asking the other what they were thinking when the
feeling started.242 Friedman described this as being a catalyst, using questions to
allow the conflicted couple to bounce off you to each other. 243 Process questions
reduce the conflicted couples reactive anxiety, increase their self-awareness, and
enable them to think more clearly. 244 Process questions help us have a non-anxious
presence and to self-differentiate.245 Process questions can also challenge conflicted
couples, particularly when the questions are paradoxical and mischievous. The
pastor/pastoral counselor holds his/her questions lightly. 246 Process questions help
us overcome the denial that affects conflicted couples. 247
241
Nichols, Family Therapy Concepts and Methods, p. 142 (Bowen) would ask
nonconfrontational questions, verify facts, and hear feelings. But he would frame each
question to stimulate thinking rather than encourage expression of feelings. His objective
was to explore the perceptions and opinions of each partner, without siding emotionally with
either one. Its taking sides that keeps people from learning to deal with each other.;
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p. 314 The therapist asks for thoughts, ideas,
and opinions, and avoids asking for feelings or subjective responses...
242
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice,, p. 314; Jones, p. 57 If feelings are stirred up,
he asks the individual to talk about his feelings rather than express them.
243
Edwin Friedman video: You allow each one of you to bounce off you to each other
through asking questions. This is being a catalyst.
244
Nichols, Family Therapy Concepts and Methods, p. 151 Process questions are used to
invite clients to reduce their reactive anxiety and become more aware of how they are
responding to the stresses that drive that anxiety. Process questions work by decreasing
anxiety and enabling people to think more clearly.
245
Friedman, Generation to Generation, p.72 Asking questions is a great way to be both

nonanxious and present....the basic approach is to ask questions designed to stimulate each
partner to differentiate his or her self better.
246
Gilbert, Extraordinary Leadership, p. 130 The leader is neither married to his or her ideas
nor averse to modifications that may be needed. ...This is how I'm looking at the question at
present. What do you think?
247
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, 1988, p. 284, "A therapist who asks questions about
process can help a family member overcome whatever denial or lack of awareness exists 49
1g) Over/under-functioning and Couple Conflict

Friedman noted that nothing fuses conflicted couples like one spouse overfunctioning in the other's space whereas nothing creates emotional space like selfdefinition.248 Therapists joke that every overfunctioner deserves his/her
underfunctioner. Some of their attraction to each other as a conflicted couple is
their similar level of relative maturity. 249
Ducklow defines over-functioning as doing too much to satisfy ones need to
be somebody. Such do-er people attract underfunctioners. 250 As a self-confessed
overfunctioner, this is an area where I need more self-awareness and
morphogenesis.251 Otherwise I will overfunction in my pastoral counseling with
conflicted couples, and try to rescue them, causing them to underfunction and see
themselves as passive victims. Gilbert, a pastors daughter, notes that
Many people in leadership go there because they are overfunctioners and the
organization rewards the overfunctioning (doing things for them that they
could do and should have done by themselves)...when they stop doing for the
about his part in the family process.

248
Friedman, Bowen Theory and Therapy, 1991, Chapter 5, p. 156; Edwin Friedman video: I
know how to destroy another person, by overfunctioning in their space. Ed: more will be
said about self-definition later in the section on self-differentation.
249
250
Ducklow, https://www.vista.ubc.ca/webct/RelativeResourceManager/Template/Manual
%202011%20Appendices.pdf
251
Richardson, Creating a Healthier Church, p.134: The church is famous for nurturing the
over/under functioning reciprocity.... Overfunctioners can see the dilemma they are in but
they try to address it in their characteristic way - by doing more.
50
group (Ed: or the conflicted couple) what it needs to do for itself, its
functioning usually improves automatically. 252
I have a strong desire to strengthen marriages, as I have seen so much
marital trauma on the North Shore. My pastoral empathy for conflicted couples is
both strength and a weakness, as it connects with my anxious overfunctioning,
which Ducklow defined as my trying to be somebody. Ouch. Perhaps it is not a
coincidence that as a child, I would dress up as Superman during Halloween. 253
Unless I learn to stop overfunctioning, my overfunctioning helpfulness will be
unhelpful. This will create helplessness in the conflicted couple. 254 Overfunctioning
may cause dis-integr-ation in the underfunctioners, inducing auto-destruction. 255.
Freeman warns against accepting responsibility for insoluble problems. If we
overfunctioners accept responsibility for the conflicted couples solutions, then we
must also accept responsibility for the outcome of their conflict. 256 What does overand under-functioning look like in conflicted couples? Gilbert says that
252
253
Ed: Perhaps, instead of being like Superman (overfunctioner) or Clark Kent

(underfunctioner) on the North Shore, I could choose the Philippians 2 path of making
myself small, of Christ-like servanthood, of washing the feet of conflicted couples.
254
Richardson, Creating a Healthier Church, p. 135 quoting Friedman: Overfunctioners too

easily take on the anxiety that belongs to others. They need to learn how not to do this or
how to let the anxiety go when they have taken it on. Overfunctioners need to learn to
distinguish between what is their responsibility and what is the responsibility of others, and
then they need to let go of the things that they are not really responsible for. They can't
make others more responsible but they can make themselves less responsible.
255
Friedman, Bowen Theory and Therapy, p. 157 ...responses from helping professionals
such as rescuing and supporting not only may be counterproductive, 'enabling ', or
codependent, but may, if the helper overfunctions enough, actually induce auto-destruction,
that is, dis-'integr'-ation in the client.
256
David S Freeman, Family systems Thinking and the helping process: misconceptions and
basic assumptions, School of Social Work, University of BC, from Perspectives on Disability
and the Helping Process, Chapter 12. , p.187 ...much of the anxiety that professionals have
about their work lies in accepting responsibility for solving problems that probably are
insoluble as they are presented.; Freeman, p.188 If the therapist takes responsibility for
the solution of the problems, then he must take responsibility also for the outcome.
51
Underfunctioning behaviours observed included whining, weeping, (and)

presentation of self as inadequate, hopeless, or in a corner with no options.
Some of the overfunctioning behaviours of the physician or consultant were
advising, overteaching (knowing what someone else should think), preaching
(knowing what someone else should do), and overhelping (to the point of
overprescribing).257
One of the most helpful skills that I learnt in my Social Work training was the
art of delegating. Without delegating, I doubt that I would still be involved in
pastoral ministry almost thirty-years later. While I have helped many marriages on
the North Shore, I have intentionally delegated much to clinical counselors like
Bonnie Chatwin.258 Despite my overfunctioning tendencies, I do value church as
team, rather than as the solo pastor or solo congregation trying to endlessly do
more, even in helping conflicted couples. If I accept responsibility for the anxiety of
the conflicted couple, says Richardson, I am actually being uncaring and robbing the
couple of their opportunity for growth. Such overfunctioning also increases the
possibility of my own dysfunctioning.259 Kerr and Bowen contend that
An overfunctioning person may get sick by virtue of being required by others
and requiring of himself more than he can realistically accomplish... In time,
the overfunctioning one can absorb a disproportionate amount of the family
problem. As the process progresses, she/(he) feels increasingly overloaded,
overwhelmed, and unsupported...260
257
258
Bonnie Chatwin, Counselling and Consultation, http://bc.-cc.ca
259
Richardson, Creating a Healthier Church, p.140 The more leaders accept responsibility
for anxiety that is not theirs, the greater the possibility that they themselves may become
dysfunctional.; Richardson, P.151 He began to recognize how uncaring it was, in fact to
take responsibility for others. he saw how that could rob people of their own growth
challenges and opportunities for creative leadership.
260
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 56, p. 57
52
Bowen recommends that we turn the conflicted couple into the systems experts so
that they dont need us when future anxiety and stress hits their emotional
system.261
I find great personal encouragement from Bowens comment that ...recovery
can begin with the slightest decrease of the overfunctioning...
262
It is much easier
to get the overfunctioner to reduce their overfunctioning than the other way
around.263 The challenge, as Friedman put it, is to make oneself small.
264
Two of my
favorite overfunctioning biblical characters are the older brother in Luke 15 and
Martha of Luke 10:38-42 Martha, Martha, you are worried/anxious and upset about
many things.265 With conflicted couples, one is often an overfunctioner and the
other a dependent underfunctioner, with reciprocal intensity depending on the
floating anxiety in the emotional system. 266 Kerr notes that
261
Murray Bowen, The Use of Family Theory in Clinical Practice, Comprehensive Psychiatry
7:345-374, 1966, p. 168 The overall goal was to help family members become system
experts who could know the family system so well that the family could adjust itself without
the help of an outside expert, if and when the family system was again stressed....
262
Vol.7, No. 5, October, 1966, P.352
263
Murray Bowen, Comprehensive Psychiatry 7:345-374, 1966, p. 168 It was far easier for
the overfunctioning one to tone down the overfunctioning than for the poorly functioning
one to pull up.
264
Friedman, Bowen Theory and Therapy, 1991, Chapter 5, p.157 For as Bowen has taught,
it is very difficult to get the underfunctioner to move until the overfunctioner (who luckily
also tends to be the more motivated one) can reduce his or her overfunctioning, that is
"make himself or herself smaller.; Friedman, Bowen Theory and Therapy, 1991, Chapter 5,
p. 154 quoting Bowen ...And his guideline to the therapist who became too active, itself
often a manifestation of anxiety, was, Make yourself as small as possible in the session.
265
Today's New International Version (TNIV), Biblica, 2001, 2005
266
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation: As chronic anxiety increases, the one inclined to
overfunction becomes stronger and more dominant, and the one inclined to underfunction
becomes weaker and more subordinate.
53
The 'dependent' one can be most compromised, feeling an increasing

discomfort with a sense of loss of control over his/her life, or the 'strong' one
can feel compromised by the increasing burden of the other's
underfunctioning.267
When a couple has unrealistic expectations of themselves, it fosters

unhealthy conflict. These can include the expectation that one spouse has to
preserve the peace and harmony, or the expectation that one spouse knows what is
best for the other spouse. This can lead to an anxious hovering which impairs the
other spouses ability to function.
268
Gilbert says that we will stop overfunctioning
when we take responsibility for the self and only for the self, communicate for the
self and only for the self269
1h) Calm Connecting, Distance, and Couple Conflict

Distance and fusion play off of each other. 270 Bowen admitted that he used
distance and silence to cover up his emotional fusion.
271
Gilbert self-disclosed
267
Kerr, Handbook of family therapy (Gurman and Kniskern, editors, chapter 7, Family
Systems Theory and Therapy), p. 240
268
Kerr, Handbook of family therapy, p.244 When there is fusion of intellectual and
emotional functioning, people are characteristically expecting too much or too little of
themselves and others. In a marriage, unrealistic expectations can be reflected in one
spouse feeling it is his/her responsibility to preserve harmony in family relationships and
preserve a sense of emotional well-being in other family members. Another variant of
overresponsibility is feeling that he/she knows what is best for the other spouse and
anxiously monitoring the functioning of the other to keep him/her on a certain track. This
kind of anxious hovering can impair the other's ability to function.
269
270
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, P.377 The most universal mechanism is
emotional distance from each other. (...ways spouses deal with fusion symptoms)
271
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p. 491 Actually I (Bowen) was as emotionally
involved as ever, and I was using emotional distance and silence to create an illusion of
nonresponsiveness. Distance and silence do not fool an emotional system.
54
distance as her old pattern in her family. 272 She recommends, instead of distancing,
that one must develop better boundaries.273 Better self-boundaries allow us to
connect with people openly, equally, and with self-definition. In couple conflict,
better boundaries allow people to stay in touch when we are tempted to distance. 274
Gilbert notes that one doesnt learn much from the easy relationships. 275
Emotional fusion first relieves anxiety for the conflicted couple, then it
increases anxiety because of the loss of self, which then in turn causes one of them
to use distance as an anxiety-reducer. 276 When we were first married thirty-four
years ago, my wife told me that she sometimes found me overwhelming, and
would emotionally distance from me.277 For some reason (i.e. Family Systems
Theory), my pursuing her never worked. While distance temporarily reduces
anxiety, it brings loneliness which causes anxiety. 278 When I stopped pursuing my
272
Gilbert, The Cornerstone Concept, p. 120 Not to distance, my old pattern in the family.;
Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, P.53 The distance was a pattern--an unspoken rule by
which they lived.; Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, P.59 ...Learning how to make
meaningful contact after a lifetime of distancing is no easy task.
273
274
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 76 (differentation scale 30-40) ...As the
undifferentation in a relationship increases, the emotional boundaries between people
become progressively blurred. As boundaries dissolve, anxiety becomes an increasingly
infectious agent.
275
276
Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p. 14 While fusion can alleviate anxiety, it can also
produce discomfort, and it may consequently push people in the direction of relationship
aversion.; Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p. 102 The distance is a reaction to the loss
of self that has occurred in the original closeness.
277
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 72 The perception (or misperception) of lack of
sufficient separation can trigger feelings of being crowded, trapped, controlled, smothered,
or absorbed.; Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p. 98 quoting Murray Bowen, 1976:
The marriage is a functioning partnership. The spouses can enjoy the full range of
emotional intimacy without either being de-selfed by the other. (Ed: When I overwhelmed
my wife in the early years of our marriage, I was de-selfing her. I had no idea in my naivety
and insensitivity to her need to have her own emotional space. Mea Culpa.)
278
Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p.55 Distance can provide some temporary
emotional calm, but over time distancing actually increases feelings.; Kerr and Bowen,
55
wife and became the victim, she would usually feel sorry for me, and restore
closeness/emotional fusion. Kerr and Bowen describe the two polarities as
crowdedness and loneliness. 279 How do we help conflicted couples be comfortably
connected with sufficient space to be themselves? 280 Friedman observed that the
basic problem in families may not be to maintain relationships but to maintain the
self that permits non-disintegrative relationships. 281 Anxiety pops up with every
dysfunctional response.282 Only healthy, calm connecting brings lasting reduction of
anxiety.283
I have often wondered why some people ran away and hid, particularly from
me (smile). Kerr holds that what conflicted couples are avoiding with emotional
Family Evaluation, p. 128 ...when people use distance or denial to manage anxiety, they
may lower it in themselves, but raise it in others.;
279
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 72 The perception (or misperception) of lack of
sufficient connection can trigger feelings of being isolated, unsupported, unloved, or
rejected.
280
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 194 In a heavy atmosphere, family members are
prone to feeling crowded by the intense pressure of one anothers needs for contact and
reassurance and/or prone to feeling lonely because of the marked distance created by one
anothers allergies to too much involvement. In a light atmosphere, family members rarely
feel crowded or lonely except during periods of very high stress. They are comfortably
connected and have sufficient space to be themselves
281
Edwin H. Friedman, DD, Bowen Theory and Therapy, 1991, Chapter 5, Page 156, (Ed:
Togetherness is not enough. The two become one, but must be twoas my new boring
uncle/ordained minister pedantically said at our wedding reception 34 years ago. He had
probably been influenced by Friedmans Generation to Generation book, but I was not ready
to really hear his wisdom. I was more into the two becoming one. But had I done enough
leaving to be cleaving? God had mercy on me, as at age 22 I was intellectually maturer but
emotionally immature, with a lot to learn.)
282
Jones, Family Therapy: A Comparison of Approaches, p. 49 Undifferentation within a

family creates anxiety...The most universal mechanism for dealing with such anxiety is
emotional distance between the spouses. Ed: more will be said about this in the selfdifferentation section.
283
Gilbert, The Cornerstone Concept, p. 61 At the same time he or she does not distance,
but stays in good communication with everyone... (Ed: This is essentially the K.I.T. principle
recommended in the Conflicted Church/Conflicted Leader class by Ducklow, an alternative to
pursuing or distancing.)
56
distance is their own reactivity to each other.
284
Resentful badgering over the
distance increases the lonely distance.285 Distance serves as an emotional

insulation.286 Wynn calls emotional distance a high price for tense peace. 287 A lot of
couple conflict is fostered by attempts to avoid conflict. 288
Conflicted couples often suffer from a repeating cycle of too much closeness
and too much distance.289 Kerr and Bowen hold that
a hallmark of a conflictual marriage is that husband and wife are angry and
dissatisfied with one another...Their relationship is like an exhausting,
draining, and strangely invigorating roller coaster ride; people threaten never
to buy another ticket, but they usually do....Each is apprehensive about the
next ride, but each is aware of doing the very things that bring it about. 290
284
Kerr, Handbook of family therapy, (Gurman and Kniskern, editors, chapter 7, Family
Systems Theory and Therapy), P.243; Papero, p. 53, Characteristically however, they tend
to view the other, rather than their own reactivity, as the cause of their discomfort. (Kerr,
1981)
285
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 188 In the (common) stalemate, the wife feels
insufficiently cared about and inadequately responded to. She perceives her husband to be
more interested in other people or in projects than he is in her. She resents him for it,
badgers him about it, and loads issues with emotional charge in order to get him to respond.
It is difficult to cope with the isolation and lack of support she often feels.
286
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 81 Emotional distance provides some emotional
insulation from peoples impact on one another.; Papero, p. 53 (Emotional distance) is, in
effect, a safety valve built into the relationship to bleed off tension...What people are
actually avoiding is their own discomfort or reactivity to another.
287
JC Wynn, The Family Therapist (Fleming H Revell Company, Old Tappan, New Jersey,
1987), p. 148 The lower the degree of differentation, the more intense will be the fusion in
marriage, hence, greater emotional outbursts can be expected. Such couples typically learn
to handle this problem through establishing emotional distance a high price to pay for their
tense peace.
288
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 189 People act 'surprised' as if the eruption came
out of nowhere, but unspoken resentments had been building for days, weeks, or months.
289
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 8 another phenomenon in the families that
supported the concept of the family as a unit was the existence of cycles of distance and
closeness. People would move together, move apart, move together, move apart like an
accordion; Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p.45 These people are locked in a pattern
of emotional pingpong typical of relationships in crisis.
290
57
In a phrase that reminds me of Scarlet OHara and Red Butler in Gone with the
Wind, Bowen speaks of
...marital conflict which permits them to keep reasonable emotional distance
most of the time and intense closeness during makeups. 291
One conflicted couple put it this way:
Our life was a cycle of too much closeness, too much distance, and fights.
We fought when we got too close. Then we stayed mad and spoke only when
necessary. One would start to make up. Then there would be a good period
of a few hours or a few days until there would again be a cycle of too much
closeness, a fight, and another cycle.292
Even when distant, conflicted couples are usually thinking of each other. Gilbert
observes that distancing partners often take refuge in overwork, substance abuse,
or jobs requiring travel.293 Sometimes one spouse distances from the other by
anxiously focusing on their child.294 Because of the lack of an adaptive role,
conflicted couples often have the most overtly intense of all relationships. The
loss of flexibility or emotional reserve causes the relationship to become an
emotional cocoon.295 Friedman said that with conflicted couples, the intensity of
291
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p. 433; Friedman, Generation to Generation, p.

177 The most common mechanism is the use of sufficient emotional distance for each to
function with a reasonable level of pseudo self. (Ed: I will write more about the pseudo-self
in the self-differentation section)
292
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, 1960, p. 54; Murray Bowen, 1976, p.43 The
basic pattern in conflictual marriages is one in which neither gives in to the other or in which
neither is capable of an adaptive role...The relationship cycles through times of intense
closeness, conflict that provides a period of emotional distance, and making up, which starts
another cycle of intense closeness.
293
Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, P.55 ...Ultimate forms of distance are cutoff, divorce,
or suicide.; Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 81 ft 22 The more people use emotional
distance to reduce anxiety in their relationship, for example, the more likely it is that one or
both people will invest energy in another relationship or project that has emotional
significance. (Ed: more will be said about this in the Emotional Cutoff section.)
294
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation: My section on the nuclear family emotional system
and couple conflict, p. 197 Emotional distance between the parents increases a mothers
vulnerability to overinvolvement with her children. Ed: this can cause mother/child
emotional fusion and underfunctioning in the child.
295
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 82 ...as the balance shifts, the relationship loses
some of its emotional reserve or flexibility...To reduce stress, people may limit contact with
58
the anger and negative feeling in the conflict is as intense as the positive feeling. 296
Bowen describes the common syndrome of too much closeness as weekend
neurosis or cabin fever.297
To reduce symptoms in a conflicted couple, balance is essential, as too little
or too much distance creates anxiety. 298 Unless the distance is right, conflicted
couples cannot hear each other. The right amount of emotional space increases
accurate hearing.299
1i) Homeostasis, morphogenesis, and couple conflict
Ministering to conflicted couples is about enabling them to make lasting
change, morphogenesis. Homeostasis keeps conflicted couples stuck. 300 It is the
preference for sameness or security vs. the risks of a new definition. 301 Bowen
notes that people treat families with great caution, lest the equilibrium be upset. 302
Becvar & Becvar define morphogenesis as the system-enhancing behaviour that
allows for growth, creativity, innovation, and change. 303
others and the relationship will become an emotional cocoon.
296
297
298
299
Friedman, Failure of Nerve, p.305
300
Ducklow, Doctoral Thesis, p. 232
301
Ducklow, Carey College Online, accessed Nov 25th 2011,

%202011%20Appendices ; Kerr, Handbook of family therapy, p.263 ...forces are relentlessly
pushing for agreement, for sameness, 'if you're not like us, then we reject you.' Such
rejection can be subtle and not so subtle and, when one is not one's own, extremely difficult
to deal with.
302

Dorothy Stroh Becvar & Ralph J. Becvar, Family Therapy: A Systemic Integration (2nd
Edition, , St. Louis Family Institute, Allyn and Bacon, Boston, 1993, 1998), p.72
303
59
2) Differentation of self and Couple Conflict

Gilbert believes that the first and most important concept in understanding and
changing relationships is differentation of self. 304 Ducklow calls differentation the
cornerstone and goal of Bowen's family systems theory. 305 No other concept in
Bowen Family Systems Theory, says Papero, is so often discussed and associated
with Bowens work.306 Bowen saw differentation as equivalent to identity and
individuality.
307
Ducklow sees differentation as discipleship. 308 Russell and
Richardson both view differentation in light of the biblical wisdom literature. 309
According to Leroy T Howe,
Of all the concepts that family therapy literature has contributed to our
understanding of family structures and processes, none may continue to
304
Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p. 12; Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p. 18 If

any single idea in Bowen family systems theory is central in importance, it is the idea of
differentation of self. It is essential to understanding of relationships.; Kerr and Bowen,
Family Evaluation: p. 126 The approach to anxiety based on the principles of family
systems theory is indirect in the sense that the reduction of chronic anxiety is a byproduct of
increasing ones basic level of differentation.
305
Paddy Ducklow, Doctoral Thesis, P.230
306
Papero, Bowen Family Systems Theory p. 45; Jones, Family Therapy: A Comparison of
Approaches, P.44 The concept most basic to Bowen's theory is that of differentation of self.
307
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, P.109 I would consider 'differentation of self'
to be equivalent to 'identity' or 'individuality'...
308
Paddy Ducklow, Doctoral Thesis, p. 191, John 13:1-3: Differentiation was not the 'new
panacea' but a psychological avenue to make an informed and nonanxious decision about
discipleship after Jesus Christ. Christian self-differentiation was understood as making
differentiated decisions following after Jesus Christ.
309
Daniel Charles Russell A Family Systems understanding of Transition: leadership

succession in a faith-based organization, Doctor of Ministry project May 2009, Carey
Theological College, p.49, Ronald Richardson, Creating a Healthier Church p. 85
Differentiation is equivalent to the biblical concept of wisdom which is a quality
independent of intelligence and degrees. Wisdom has to do with people's ability to
effectively use what they know. Genuinely wise people tend to be better differentiated; they
have a more solid sense of self... calm, cool, and collected. ;Richardson, p. 85 wisdom and
differentation vs foolishness and fusion (paraphrase)
60
influence our discussion and practice more deeply than the concept of selfdifferentation.310
Ducklow says that this is the goal of Family Systems Theory, a maturity goal that is
never fully realized.
Papero holds that the concept of self differentiation is generally the most
difficult one for people to grasp and apply.
311
Friedman taught that
The transcendent notion always is self-differentation, which is understood to

be the decisive variable in the etiology and cure of all emotional problems
and the conduct of successful therapy (or supervision)... 312
Differentation means to distinguish between emotion and reason, between
relationship orientation (less mature) and goal orientation (more mature) 313 A
person with a high IQ may have low self-differentation, if they are emotionally fused
to their family of origin.314
310
Leroy T. Howe, Self-Differentation in Christian Perspective (Pastoral Psychology, Vol. 46,

No. 5, 1998), p. 347; Leroy T. Howe, p. 355 From the standpoint of the Christian vision,
self-differentation is an indispensable means to a healthy soul and to healthy relationships.
311
Daniel V. Papero, The Functional Level of Differentiation

http://www.thebowencenter.org/pages/48symposium.pdf Bowen himself once described
the effort as using the cognitive to control the twitch that results from automatic reactions
to others. (Accessed Sept 5th 2011); Edwin Friedman video, The concept of differentiation
as devised by Murray Bowen is a most difficult thing to understand.
312
Friedman, Bowen Theory and Therapy, 1991, Chapter 5, p. 164
313
Ducklow, Carey Online,

%202011%20Appendices.pdf; Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p. 58 Differentation of
self: ...a freeing of oneself from the family of origin and nuclear family, as well as a
separation of inner intellect and emotional function.; Paddy Ducklow, p. 39, Selfdifferentiation describes people in terms of their ability to keep their intellectual and
emotional systems from coalescing into what Bowen called 'fusion.'; Jones, Family Therapy:
A Comparison of Approaches, P.57 Therapist behaviours are directed toward having spouses
talk in a low-keyed, calm manner about highly emotion-laden topics, so that they can
separate emotion from intellectual functioning.
314
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 71 ft 9 People who have very high IQs may have
their functioning totally dominated by their emotional system. A schizophrenic person, for
example, can have a high IQ.; Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p. 20 The effort to
make a complete self out of two undifferentiated selfs results in a fusion of selves. It is based
on the need for attachment, or togetherness that was not resolved in the original family.
61
The term differentation, said Bowen, was chosen because of its specific
meanings in the biological sciences. 315 Bowens theory theorizes
two opposing basic life forces. One is a built-in life growth force toward
individuality and the differentation of a separate self and the other an
equally intense emotional closeness. 316
Getting married can bring with it a major loss of self. 317 Papero notes that in
the closeness of an intense relationship, the emotional selves of each blend or fuse
together into a common self, a we-ness. 318 The tendency, says Freeman, in fused
relationships is to work toward agreement, we-ness, togetherness.
319
Togetherness, we-ness is uncomfortable with ones spouses differences, seeking

sameness as an anxiety reducer. 320
We-ness is undifferentation or fusion which will bring about three
dysfunctions in couples: (1) marital conflict (2) symptoms in a spouse, including
315
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p.354 When we speak of the differentation
of self, we mean a process similar to the differentation of cells from each other. The same
applies to the term fusion.
316
Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, quoting Murray Bowen, 1973: p. 12
317
Friedman, Generation to Generation, p. 93 It is almost impossible for couples before

marriage to appreciate the loss of self that marriage fusion will promote...; Edwin H.
Friedman, Bowen Theory and Therapy, 1991, Chapter 5, P. 156 A woman client said: the
day I got married, I disappeared.
318
Papero, Bowen Family Systems Theory, p. 51; Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice,
p. 494 The forces constantly emphasize the togetherness by using we to define what we
think or feel, or the forces define the self of another such as, My wife thinks that... or the
forces use the indefinite it to define common values, as in It is wrong or It is the thing to
do. ...
319
Freeman, Family Therapy with Couples, p. 50

Freeman, Family Therapy with Couples, p. 50 Fused partners have tremendous difficulty
in being comfortable with differences. A fused person equates differences with deprivation.
Freeman, Family Therapy with Couples, p. 16 To be intimate in a marriage, one has to be
able to embrace the partners differences.
320
62
sickness or (3) dysfunction in a child.321 These three dysfunctions are primary

reasons for conflicted couples seeking counseling. 322
Defining self is life-giving and foundational. 323 Differentation, says Bowen,
deals with working on ones self, with controlling self, with becoming a more
responsible person, and permitting others to be themselves. 324
Differentation of self is a lifelong process which involves knowing the boundaries of
where your self begins and ends. 325 Friedman said that the problem is how to
preserve self in close relationships. That's the critical issue. 326 Differentation allows
couple closeness, allowing your relationship to shine like a diamond. 327 Self-defining
reduces emotional reactivity, protecting conflicted couples from the domino
321
322
323
Randy Roberts, Ph.D. Two Distinct Approaches to Family Therapy: The Ideas of Murray
Bowen and Jay Haley, The Family, Vol 6 No. 2, p. 40 The concept of differentation centers
on ones ability to exist as a distinct, complete, and thinking individual.; Gilbert, The
Cornerstone Concept, p. 45 ...one of the most important questions a person can
settle...What do I think of myself?
324
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p. 409; Gilbert, The Cornerstone Concept, p.
58 ...defining self says This is how I think about it, or This is what I would like, or This is
what you can expect from me from now on. It does not explain, justify, defend or punish. It
is simply a statement that defines self to the other.
325
Edwin Friedman video, Differentation is the lifelong process of striving to keep one's
being in balance through the reciprocal external and internal processes of self-definition and
self-regulation. The external perspective is about self-definition, being able to see where you
end and others begin, being able to emotionally define yourself to others.
326
Edwin Friedman Video

Ronald W. Richardson, Differentation of Self as a Therapeutic Goal for the Systemic
Pastoral Counselor, , Journal of Pastoral Psychotherapy, Vol. 1(1), Fall 1987, The Haworth
Press, Inc., p. 36 ...the level of ones differentation comes out most clearly in the ability to
be emotionally close to significant others and still be a self.; Gilbert, Extraordinary
Relationships, p. 102 If the emotional separateness of selves can be maintained over time,
the relationship takes on a radiance that can be compared to that of a diamond.
327
63
effect.328 Self-defining may seem counterintuitive to some conflicted couples. 329

Differentation for conflicted couples is about greater awareness of themselves in the
context of their family emotional systems.330 A self, as Friedman put it, is more
attractive than a no-self.331 Margaret Carlson teaches that the most powerful
therapeutic tool is the use of self.332 Focusing on self is the healthy alternative to
blaming the other partner.333 Gilbert holds, in a telos of hope/almost navesounding way, that
...if each partner would stop focusing on the other and begin focusing on self
and the contribution of self to the problem, the first step to solving the
problem would be behind them.... If one of the conflicted parties in a
relationship could learn to remain calm and thoughtful in the face of the
anxiety of the other, there would be no conflict. 334
Roberts holds that changes in differentiation of just one spouse can alter the entire
emotional system of the conflicted couple:335
328
Friedman, Generation to Generation, p. 138 ...ones ability to regulate ones reactivity,

that is, differentation. Edwin Friedman Video: Differentation means the capacity to become
oneself out of one's self with minimum reactivity to the positions and reactivity of others.;
Edwin Friedman video,...to being able to cease automatically being one of the system's
dominoes.
329
Gilbert, Extraordinary Leadership, p.114 Some people react intensely to anything new or
different. Listeners can find someone defining self difficult for many reasons.... Defining
oneself may then be experienced by the listeners as counterintuitive.
330
Edwin Friedman video, When a person becomes more aware of themselves in relation to
the emotional fields they are in, that is differentiation.
331
Friedman, Generation to Generation, P. 86; Ducklow, P.40 Undifferentiated people find it
difficult to separate their own experience from other people's experience. Their sense of self
is more amorphous and other-determined.
332
Margaret Carlson, Problem-Solving Family Therapy, (Faculty of Social Welfare, University
of Calgary, Models of Family Practice, Chapter 7), p. 121
333
Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p. 101 In the conflict pattern, each person in the
relationship is absorbed in projecting blame and criticism on the other. Each invades the
334
others
boundary.
If focusLeadership,
on the self P.47
can be regained, the conflict will cease.
Gilbert,
Extraordinary
335
Roberts, The Family, p. 44
64
One spouse will make the first move as he begins to define, in a self-directed
way, where he stands and how he will act on major issues between himself and his
spouse. If the differentiating one can maintain his position without attacking or
distancing, the family will settle down at a new higher level of differentation. 336
As mentioned in the Conflicted Church/Conflicted Leader course, reaching
70 in the self-differentation scale is the new 100. 337 This is true as well for our
marriages, as Friedman noted that in reality, no human marriage gets a rating of
more than 70%.338 Perfectionism in seeking to be self-differentiated is a sign of
anxious fusion. I can humorously imagine the Galatians trying in the flesh
(performance oriented) to be more self-differentiated than each other. 339 Gilbert
holds that the more people understand (the concept of the scale of differentation of
self), the more they often seem to turn a corner in their lives, continuing to do
better and better as time goes by.340
Friedman observed that
336
Roberts, The Family, p. 42; Gilbert, The Cornerstone Concept, p.86 In hindsight, ones life
becomes totally unrecognizable. (Ft2 A phrase used by Bowen to describe what happens
when people truly increase their amount of basic self, even a little.)
337
Ducklow, Conflicted Church/Conflicted Leader Course; Gilbert, Eight Concepts, p. 30 Most

of the population scatters below 30. If one ever met a 50, it would be unusual. A 75 would
come along only once in several hundred years.; Edwin Friedman Video, Differentiation is a
lifetime project with no one getting more than 70%.; Kerr and Bowen, p. 70 ft 8 A very
poorly differentiated person, for example, would be in the 0 to 10 range (out of 0 to
100)...The average human being is not very autonomous and 40 might be considered a
median for the species...
338
Friedman, Generation to Generation, P. 69
339
Galatians 3:2-3, Eugene Peterson, The Message, 2-4 Let me put this question to you:
How did your new life begin? Was it by working your heads off to please God? Or was it by
responding to God's Message to you? Are you going to continue this craziness? For only
crazy people would think they could complete by their own efforts what was begun by God.
If you weren't smart enough or strong enough to begin it, how do you suppose you could
perfect it?
340
65
As the saying goes, no good deed goes unpunished.... Self-differentation

always triggers reactivity. This is the aspect of leadership that is not
emphasized enough... This is the moment when a leader is most likely to
have a failure of nerve. This is the moment when the leader will find it
tempting to seek a quick fix.... The important thing to remember about the
phenomena of sabotage is that it is a systemic part of leadership. 341
This means that when either the pastor/pastoral counselor self-differentiates
with the conflicted couple, there will be pushback and even sabotage. 342 He/she will
be criticized as cold, distant, rigid, and non-feeling when he/she either selfdifferentiates or detriangulates. 343 When a spouse in a conflicted relationship selfdifferentiates, there will be pressure to cave in, and go back to the existing
homeostasis. 344 Bowen taught that
341
Friedman, Failure of Nerve, P. 303
342
Murray Bowen, Family Systems Theory, first published in Family Therapy: Theory and
Practice, edited by Philip J. Guerin, New York: Gardner Press, 1976, pp. 65-90 The
togetherness forces are so strong in maintaining the status quo that any small step toward
differentation is met with vigorous disapproval of the group.; Murray Bowen, Family
Systems Theory, first published in Family Therapy: Theory and Practice, edited by Philip J.
Guerin, New York: Gardner Press, 1976, pp. 65-90. It is difficult to assess differentation
during calm periods in ones life. The real test of the stability of differentation comes when
the person is again subjected to chronic severe stress.
343
Friedman, Generation to Generation, p.282; Toward the Differentation of a Self in one's

own Family, by Anonymous,Bowen?, P.140 The togetherness forces treat differentation as
selfish and hostile.; Edwin Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: leadership in an age of the quickfix, The Edwin Friedman Estate/Trust, Bethseda, Maryland, 1999, P. 2 ...weather the storm
of protest that inevitably surrounds a leader's self-definition.; Kerr and Bowen, Family
Evaluation, p. 154 When attempting to detriangle from highly charged emotional issues,
however, even a reasonably neutral person might be accused not only of being disloyal but
of being unfeeling and uncaring. People might be told that they will never be spoken to
again, that they will be cut out of the will, or that their disloyalty will kill someone. The
accusations are both a reaction to the detriangling persons achieving some emotional
separation and an attempt to pull the person back into the triangles previous level of
togetherness.
344
Vol.7, No. 5, October, 1966,p. 371 If they are successful ( in defining 'self' and containing
the critical actions, words, and thoughts that have been trying to direct the life of their
spouse, the first reaction will be a version of 'You're mean, selfish and vicious; you do not
understand, you do not love, and you are trying to hurt the other...Then they can expect a
withdrawal from the other which emphasizes 'To heck with you. I do not need you.' This will
be the most difficult stage. They might get depressed and confused and develop a whole
spectrum of physical symptoms.
66
Differentation begins when one family member begins to more clearly define
and openly state his own inner life principles and convictions, and he begins
to take responsible action based on convictions. ...The remainder of the
family opposes this differentiating effort with a powerful emotional
counterforce, which goes in successful steps: (1) You are wrong with
volumes of reason to support this; (2) Change back and we will accept you
again; and (3) If you dont, these are the consequences, which are then
listed. The accusations commonly list indifference, meanness, lack of love,
selfishness, coldness, the sadistic disregard for others, etc. 345
There is a close connection between self-differentation and triangles. 346

Bowen held that there was a solid theoretical basis for saying that 'differentation of
self', as described by this theory, takes place only in a triangle, and the most
effective method was in the triangle consisting of the two closest family members
(the two spouses) and the therapist. 347
Gilbert sees listening as the heart of differentiation, with minimal verbal input
to the conflicted couple. My plan, says Gilbert, for differentiation would be to
mostly listen. When I did say anything, it would be with understanding, logic and
patience.348 Self-differentation is already inside of the conflicted couple. It is just
345
346
Paddy Ducklow, Doctoral Thesis, p. 69 This is a familiar paradigm in marriage therapy

when one member of the marital dyad hopes that the independent counselor will collude
with him or her. Should this occurs, the second member of the marital dyad stops the
counseling sessions due to being "triangled out". The client and counselor commiserate in a
newly formed Dyads but little productive occurs for the marriage because of the prior
triangulation.
347
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, 1974 P.530 (I will be discussing triangles in a
later section of this paper)
348
67
covered over by other peoples baggage. 349 Gilbert comments regarding conflicted
couples that
If two partners in a relationship work on their own levels of differentation,
their relationship will automatically improve. If even one of the partners
works to raise his or her level of differentation, the relationship will do better
over the long term. This is because, in time, the other partner will almost
always raise his or her level of the former emotional fusions with their
parents.350
Friedman held that the self-differentation of the therapist or pastor is
foundational to helping a conflicted couple.
351
High level leaders, says Gilbert, see
working on self in their family relationship systems, both in their original and in their
nuclear families, as the most important work they do.
352
The best way to help
conflicted couples is for the pastor or therapist to keep working on him/herself. 353
There is a significant correlation between greater awareness of our own emotional
system and a growing awareness of the conflicted couples emotions. 354 In the
349
Kerr, Handbook of family therapy, Family Systems Theory and Therapy, p. 215 The
therapist does not have to instill differentiation into the family. The force for differentation is
there, just submerged in the overriding together.; Michael E Kerr, Handbook of family
therapy, p. 250 The family members rarely need to be told what to do because somewhere
within themselves, they know what to do. It is just that they have had a hard time doing it.
350
Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p. 42; Paddy Ducklow, p. 64 Family systems theory

hypothesizes that people tend to marry and match with people who have an equivalent level
of differentiation. (Kerr and Bowen 1988, 225)
351
Friedman, Bowen Theory and Therapy, 1991, Chapter 5, p. 152 The assumption is that
the therapist will be able to promote differentation in a family (the ultimate aim of all Bowen
therapy) to the extent that the therapist has promoted his or her own... ...It is the being of
the therapist, the therapists presence rather than any specific behaviour, that is the agent
of change.
352
Gilbert, Extraordinary Leadership, P.107; Friedman, Generation to Generation, p.138...an

essential part of training in the Bowen school involves the therapists working on his or her
own differentation.
353
Ed: I have greatly benefited from a number of counseling sessions that I have had over
the years, including more recently, with Bonnie Chatwin, a clinical counselor on the North
Shore. She has also been powerfully used in the breakthroughs in several marriages at St.
Simons NV. Sometimes I have been invited in to these sessions to co-counsel.
http://www.bc-cc.ca
354
Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p. 99 Acute awareness of the emotions of other

people grows out of the immense work of understanding and taking responsibility for ones
own emotions.
68
words of Luke 4:23, the emphasis is on Physician, heal thyself. 355 This is about the
Serenity Prayers courage to change the things I can (our selves). 356 Worry is an
indication of undifferentation.357 The therapist or pastor seeks to be calm, cool, and
collected.358 Family Systems Theory is not about fixing a conflicted couple. 359
Rather it is about
engaging without being reactive, stimulating without rescuing, and teaching
a way of thinking and observing without willing the others head to change.
The power of the therapist is based more on the nature of the connectedness
that comes with being human, that is, the nature of emotional systems, than
on specific skills at fixing families.360
Self differentiation is based on well-thought-through guiding principles. 361 Gilbert

stated that
355
Nichols, Family Therapy Concepts and Methods (Pearson Education, Inc., 2008), p. 136
Bowenians dont try to change people; nor are they much interested in solving problems.
Instead they see therapy as an opportunity for people to learn more about themselves and
their relationships, so that they can assume responsibility for their own problems.
356
Gilbert, Extraordinary Leadership, p.88 The emotional responsibility for self means not
taking responsibility for the emotions of the others ....each is responsible for self.
357
Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p. 24 They have an inordinate concern over being

loved and accepted, which may take the form of worrying about what people think about
them or the opposite rebelling against accepted behaviour or standards.
358
JC Wynn, The Family Therapist, 1987 , p. 143 ...as therapist, he must keep his cool and
hold himself detriangulated, differentiating himself from the emotional system of the family
he is interviewing as well as from his own family at home.; Friedman, Generation to
Generation, p. 294 ...a calm, low-key, detriangling approach...
359
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 109 The fixers Achilles heel is underestimating
the resources of the people he intends to help. In the process he can create a dependence
in others that undermines their functioning...
360
361
Gilbert, The Cornerstone Concept, p. 9 The basic self is guided by principles that are well
thought through, based on fact, logic and experience. Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical
Practice, p. 364 A poorly differentiated person is trapped within a feeling world.
69
Well thought-out beliefs about the self, others, and the world, to the extent
they are used for guidance, become the core of the thinking inner guidance
system of the basic self.362
Such principles are not rigidly held but are open to new data. 363 Guiding
principles are inherently calming for conflicted couples. 364 Guiding principles help us
discover and mature our basic self as opposed to our pseudo or functional self. 365
Pseudo-self, says Gilbert, is where most of us live most of the time. 366 Without
guiding principles, the conflicted couple will default during anxiety to groupthink. 367
Bowen said that
362
Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p. 21; Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p.

449 Most people operate on poorly defined principles and have never devoted much time
to their own beliefs.
363
Gilbert, The Cornerstone Concept, p. 48 Given new data, (guiding principles) can be
modified.
364
Gilbert, The Cornerstone Concept, p. 47 Guiding principles are calming....Thinking

inhibits emotion...; Gilbert, The Cornerstone Concept, p. 52 Guiding principles, the
hallmark of a high level life, go into the, making of high level leaders. They calm anxiety,
stabilize, organize, and energize toward goals.
365
Paddy Ducklow, Doctoral Thesis, p. 229, Basic self: The core of the person including his
values, purpose, thoughtfulness, as well as emotions and automatic parts. Considered to be
the person of the person. Often referred to as the principled part of the person or his inner
guidance system... The basic self is considered to have non-permeable boundaries. It is
distinguished from the pseudo-self or the functional self.; Dorothy Stroh Becvar & Ralph J.
Becvar, Family Therapy, p. 148, The notion of a pseudo-self is consistent with the idea of
emotional fusion in that it is characteristic of the person who makes choices on the basis of
emotional pressures rather than on the basis of reasoned principles...Bowen (1976)
described the pseudo-self as a pretend self, which to the person may feel real.
366
Gilbert, Eight concepts, p. 39 Pseudo- or functional self is where most of us live, most of
the time. It is the part that participates in the relationship exchange involved in fusions. It
is the immature, automatic, thoughtless reactivity in us. It lets in the anxiety from the
system, functions on borrowed self from another, or conversely, give up self to another in an
instant. It is the togetherness force within us.
367
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 105 ...Anxiety can propel people into groupthink
which is usually inconsistent within itself and molded more by subjectivity than by facts.
Pseudo-self can be shaped by a groupthink. The consistent and well-thought-out beliefs of
solid self, in contrast, can withstand a groupthink.; Gilbert, The Cornerstone Concept, p. 94
Most people go along with the group. They want to be well thought of. They want to stay
below the radar screen.
70
differentation begins when one family member begins to more clearly define
and openly state his own life principles and convictions, and he begins to take
responsible action based on convictions... 368
Gilbert seems to me to overstate the strength of the basic self: The basic
self needs no support. It is sure, unshakable and nonnegotiable. 369 As I know that
Gilbert is a committed Christian and pastors daughter, my question is where does
the attack of the evil one fit into this assessment? Where is our need for Christ the
Rock, if the basic self needs no support?
Such guiding principles, says Gilbert, only become part of a conflicted
couples basic selves through a labour-intensive process, which include steps such
as
1)Thinking it through 2) Researching the principle if necessary 3) Trying it
on, and trying it out in life 4) Acceptance or rejection as a guiding
principle in life 5) Re-evaluation from time to time. 370
The pastor/pastoral counselor can model for the conflicted couple how guiding
principles operate to direct basis self.371 In self-differentation, we echo Martin
Luthers statement Here I stand.
372
Gilbert observes that well-defined people
368
Ron Richardson, Differentation of Self as a Therapeutic Goal for the Systemic Pastoral
Counselor, Journal of Pastoral Psychotherapy, Vol. 1(1), Fall 1987, The Haworth Press, Inc., p.
41 quoting Bowen, p. 437
369
370
371
Friedman, Bowen Theory and Therapy, 1991, Chapter 5, p. 164 ...unless therapists are
committed to the ongoing process of their own growth, they are not likely to have the
emotional stamina to endure.
372
Gilbert, Eight concepts, p. 40 Martin Luthers famous statement, Here I stand! would be
an example of how the guiding principles operate to direct basic self.; Michael P Nichols,
Family Therapy Concepts and Methods, p. 127 Undifferentiated people...Asked what they
think, they say what they feel; asked what they believe, they echo what theyve heard.
They either agree with whatever you say or argue with everything. In contrast,
71
show, above all else, two prominent attributes: Well-defined self boundaries and a
well-developed thinking inner guidance system. 373 For conflicted couples to break
through, the pastor/pastoral counselor has to express self-differentiated leadership
that doesnt show failure of nerve when the conflicted couple expresses emotional
reactivity and even sabotage. 374 When conflicted couples resist or sabotage the
pastor/pastoral counselor, it may be tempting to quit, but that is usually when a
breakthrough is near.375
There is a temptation to believe the myth that being loving and being kind by
itself will cure all of our couple conflicts. 376 If we do not speak up, we lose identity,
self, and self-awareness of our thinking and core convictions.
377
Our I statements
differentiated people are able to take stands on issues because theyre able to think things
through, decide what they believe, and then act on those beliefs.
373
Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, : p. 117
374
Friedman, Failure of Nerve, P.38 But for that kind of change to occur, the system in turn
must produce leaders who can both take the first step and maintain the stamina to follow
through in the face of predictable resistance and sabotage. Any resistance, anywhere,
whether in a marriage or a business, depends primarily not only on new data and techniques
but on the capacity of leader's to separate themselves from the surrounding emotional
climate so that they can break through the barriers that are keeping everyone from 'going
the other way.
375
Friedman, Bowen Theory and Therapy, 1991, Chapter 5, p. 164 ...The track record of
many healers, marriage counselors, or oncologists shows too much willingness to quit when
the going gets rough. Sometimes it appears to be a lack of persistence, sometimes a failure
to realize that one has the most power in a relationship precisely when one is ready to quit,
and sometimes it just seems to be a morbid fatalism (disguising anxiety).
376
Freidman, Failure of Nerve, P.11 A widespread misunderstanding...that toxic forces can

be regulated through reasonableness, love, insight, role-modeling, inculcation of values, and
striving for consensus rather than by taking the kind of stands that set limits to the
invasiveness of those that lack self-regulation.
377
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, 1961, p. 78 ...the ones who give in have
described a loss of identity, loss of part of myself, and inability to know what I think and
believe. Speaking up seems to be a way of maintaining identity.
72
as a pastor/pastoral counselor enable I statements from the conflicted couple

being counseled.
378
Papero holds that
When a person can state his or her convictions and principles clearly and
then act in accordance with such beliefs, it is possible for the togetherness
pressures to abate...In the early therapy sessions, when anxiety is high, the
therapist relies frequently on the I-position to define him- or herself to the
family... An 'I-position' can be as simple as stating Im listening to your
words, but I dont agree with what youre saying... 379
Learning to use I-statements as a conflicted couple takes both time and
courage.380 Sadly it is often our families that resist such self-definition. 381 When a
spouse in a conflicted marriage uses I statements rather than just we statements,
it helps him/her take responsibility for his/her own growth and health. 382 Through
self-defining I statements, a spouse avoids blaming or taking responsibility for the
other spouses emotions and actions.
383
As Kerr and Bowen put it,
378
Paddy Ducklow, Doctoral Thesis, p.68 The self-differentiated leader is capable of being in
touch with or connected to a complainant without fused into his or her anxiety. Self
differentiation is the capacity to maintain an "I" stance all the while empowering the other to
have an equally valid "I" stance. This works against the fusion of a coerced "we".
379
Papero, Bowen Family Systems Theory, p. 75
380
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 132 It takes time to learn to act upon the courage
of ones convictions rather than on the power of ones feelings.
381
James L Framo, Family of origin as a therapeutic resource for adults and marital and
family therapy: you can and should go home again, Family Process, 15:193-210, 1976. p.
340 Since these individuals will inevitably run into nearly overwhelming emotional
roadblocks from the family, Bowen, often over years, helps them develop strategies for
detriangulating themselves and take 'I' positions with their parents, siblings and other
relatives.
382
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p. 495 It is the responsible I that assumes
responsibility for ones own happiness and comfort, and it avoids thinking that tends to
blame and hold others responsible for ones own unhappiness or failures. The responsible I
avoids the irrresponsible I which makes demands on others with I want, or I deserve, or
this is my right, or my privilege.
383
Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p. 99 Emotional responsibility for self also involves

not taking responsibility for the emotions of the other.
73
defining a self does not necessarily involve a strong statement of where one
stands on a particular issue. A self is sometimes communicated most
effectively by what is not said or done.384
Kerr and Bowen commented that when self-differentation is low, more energy is
bound in the relationship.385 Such a conflicted spouse is a complete emotional
prisoner of the relationship.386 People with low differentation often default to
emotional distance and cutoff as their anxiety reducer. 387 I have found many people
on the North Shore to be relational nomads both in marriages and in churches.
388
When differentation is higher, more energy is available to use in ones effective

functioning.
389
Differentation for conflicted couples is about becoming more fully
human.390 Higher differentation in conflicted couples enables more flexible change
384
385
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p.534 Less differentiated people are moved
around like pawns by emotional tensions.
386
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 69 ...He is so responsive to cues from the other
and his internal reactions are so intense that he is a complete emotional prisoner of the
relationship.
387
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 75 Very poorly differentiated people may
eventually shun all relationships to avoid the discomfort that is associated with them. The
street people are in this category. They avoid and are avoided by others because of the
problems generated by enduring relationships. Insulation from their exquisite sensitivity to
the emotional environment is achieved through chronic psychosis, alcoholism, and drug
addictions. (Ed: I do a number of AA/NA 5th Steps with people from UGM who often use the
geographic cure to reduce relational anxiety)
388
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 75 Slightly better differentiated people may
become relationship nomads. When the process gets too intense, they change
relationships.
389
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 68; Paddy Ducklow, Doctoral Thesis, p. 43 It has
to do with clarity of internal systems. It focuses on the internal horizons. (1) The ability to
perceive more accurately the reality of situations (2) The ability to identify his or her own
opinions, beliefs, values and commitments (3) The ability to think clearly and wisely about
possible options for action and the likely consequences for each of these options. (4) The
ability to act flexibly. "
390
Paddy Ducklow, Doctoral Thesis, p. 43 These are the qualities of maturity and the
highest definition of what it is to be human in Bowen systems thought.
74
and morphogenesis, in contrast to rigid homeostasis.
391
Gilbert observes that the
highly differentiated person, able to select emotional states, can actually greatly
enjoy them.
392
Boredom with conflicted couples is often a sign of undifferentation. 393
Undifferentiated couples in conflict are often both addictively drawn to each other
and simultaneously drawn to flee from each other. 394 The lower the differentation,
the more likely that one spouse will become more dominant, taking self and the
other one more adaptive/compliant, losing self.395 The more adaptive/compliant we
are, the less that we have the energy and creativity for lasting transformation. 396
391
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 71 The higher the degree of differentation, the
more capable the relationship is of responding to or conforming with changing situations.
The lower the degree of differentation, the greater the instability of the relationship balance
and the less its capacity to adapt to change.; Nichols, Family Therapy Concepts and
Methods, p. 127 Differentation of self...is the ability to be flexible and act wisely, even in the
face of anxiety.; Richardson, Creating a Healthier Church, p. 89 Adaptability and flexibility
are other ways to talk about the level of differentiation...
392
Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p. 24; Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p. 116 It

is irresponsible to say, Why do I have to do all the work? Of course, one has to do all the
work on the self, and relationship improvements spring from that source: it takes two to fuse
but only one to begin unraveling the threads of lost self entangled with the other.
393
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 77 People begin to feel bored and dissatisfied with
many aspects of the relationship while simultaneously feeling bound to it.
394
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 77 The lower the level of differentation, the more
prone people are to becoming addicted to one another and yet also having a chronic urge to
flee one another.
395
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 104 If one person gets the upper hand, that
persons belief, attitudes, and values become dominant in the relationship...One becomes
the strong self (really pseudo-self) and the other the weak self.; Bowen, Family Systems
Theory, Family Therapy, p. 295, The dominant one gains self at the expense of the more
adaptive one who loses self...From my experience, there are as many dominant females as
males, and as many adaptive males as females...
396
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 80 Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 80
These accommodations/adaptations...mean devoting less energy to being an individual and
more energy to focusing on and responding to others.; Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation:
p. 85 The person may become compliant but also chronically fatigued and sleep
excessively.; Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p. 111 When both spouses fight
for their rights, a conflictual marriage results. The conflicts subsides whenever either 'gives
in', but the one who 'gives in' 'loses self' to the other who 'gains self'.
75
Couple relationships, which naturally deteriorate anyways, deteriorate more quickly

and dramatically when self-differentation is low. 397
Higher-differentiated spouses are less needy and therefore less threatened
by variations in closeness and distance by their partner. 398 Differentation, said
Friedman, was about how to leave without leaving. 399 Intimacy and love is not the
higher-differentiated couples drug without which they cannot function or exist. 400
Because a poorly differentiated spouse lacks a sense of self,
His emotional reactions are easily triggered, intense, and prolonged, and he
has almost no psychological development that permits him to be a separate
person. The togetherness needs of a very poorly differentiated person, which
are overriding in their influence, are felt as deep yearnings to be loved,
accepted and guided through life.401
Humour is a key strategy in self-differentation for conflicted couples, which

sometimes included irony and a sense of the tragic/comic. 402 Some marriages dont
know how to de-stress, hence tending to self-medicate. Humour reduces fusion in
397
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 80 Relationships, like unstable chemical elements,
tend to deteriorate. The time of onset, the rate, and the magnitude of the deterioration are
strongly influenced by the level of differentation.
398
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 74 Two very well differentiated people are not
easily threatened by one another; as a consequence, their relationship is remarkably
flexible. Periods of closeness and distance are tolerated equally well. Each person is free to
move toward or away from the other and to have the other move toward or away from
oneself without being threatened.
399
400
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 109 An approach based on a systems principle is
one that says, People who feel unloved are addicted to love.
401
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 68; Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p. 24 ...at
lower levels on the scale have difficulty with decision-making...they may freeze into
indecision when a choice must be made; Murray Bowen, Family Systems Theory, first
published in Family Therapy: Theory and Practice (edited by Philip J. Guerin, New York:
Gardner Press, 1976) pp. 65-90. People whose emotions and intellect are so fused that
their lives are dominated by the automatic emotional system...are the people who are less
flexible, less adaptable, and more emotionally dependent on those about them.
76
marriages. Collusion in marriages is when conflicted couples are so fused that they
treat others as the IP-(Identified Person Negative) and project their intimacy anxiety
onto them. The pastor/pastoral counselor sets the tone through self-effacing
humour keeping it loose.403 Often a casual comment lightly stressing light humour,
says Papero, can dissolve the tension of an overly serious presentation. 404 Freeman
said that humour may easily be one of the most helpful mechanisms for helping a
family get some distance from its own misery. 405 Friedman noted that
A clergy's capacity to be playful or paradoxical at serious moments can be
just the right antidote....litmus test for determining the emotional acidity of
the system. Sometimes it will bring hidden issues to light more quickly than
the most seriously prepared questionnaire... 406
At the heart of self-differentation is a non-anxious presence. 407 Some

conflicted couples slip between an anxious presence to an anxious non-presence.
402
Nichols, Family Therapy Concepts and Methods, p. 143 Armed with a knowledge of
triangles, the therapist endeavours to remain neutral and objective. This requires an
optimal level of emotional distance, which Bowen (1975) said is the point where a therapist
can see both the tragic and comic aspects of a couples interaction. ...a sense of irony may
be preferable to the unctuous earnestness so popular in some quarters.
403
Gilbert, Extraordinary Leadership, High level leaders know, or learn, how to relax.;
Friedman, Failure of Nerve, P. 299 ...injecting humour and keeping it loose...The looser your
presence is, the looser everyone's relationships will be with you and one another.
404
405
David S Freeman, 'A Model for Teaching a Beginner's Course on Family Therapy', Models
of Family Practice School of Social Work, UBC, Chapter 8; Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical
Practice, p. 313 If the family goes too serious, I have an appropriate humorous remark to
defuse the seriousness. If the family starts to kid and joke, I have an appropriate serious
remark to restore neutrality.
406
Friedman, Generation to Generation, P.183; Edwin Friedman video, You can differentiate
in playful ways as well in serious ways.; Friedman, Bowen Theory and Therapy, 1991,
Chapter 5, p. 153 Paradox is aimed at the paradoxer, to help keep him or her out of that
pernicious triangle that subverts all well-intentioned therapeutic efforts: the triangle in which
the therapist winds up stuck with the responsibility for the clients problem or destiny.
407
Edwin Friedman video: ...nonanxious, challenging presence...
77
Through avoidance, substance abuse or workaholism, they temporarily achieve a

non-anxious absence. What is desired is presence, present to oneself, ones
marriage, ones family, others, and God. Being present without being swallowed is
the key. It is so easy to not be there.
Bowen became so emphatic about this insight that he became known as Dr.
Presence.
408
As pastors/pastoral counselors, learning to practice a non-anxious
presence is challenging but indispensable. I have made progress this fall, but am
aware of a number of times when anxiety caused me to be less gentle and more
emotionally reactive. Howe says that
The possibility of pastors becoming a non-anxious presence and guide in
such a process of family and congregational self-discovery will depend
heavily upon their becoming a non-anxious presence to themselves through
the power of their own personal faith and of the spirit of God at work within
them.409
As Richardson puts it, becoming a more differentiated self might be included
in our concept of sanctification. 410 Prior to his death in 1990, Bowen was working on
his ninth concept he called 'spirituality ' (Friedman 199, 139) 411 He called it The
Supernatural. He did not continue his work, he said, because of the intense
reactivity of the profession to it. Gilbert wonders if he left that for others of this and
future generations?412
presence that counts. The father began calling the therapist Dr. Presence.
409
Leroy T Howe, Self-Differentation in Christian Perspective, Pastoral Psychology, p. 361
410
Richardson, Creating a Healthy Church, p.182

Paddy Ducklow, Doctoral Thesis, p. 232,
411
412
Gilbert, Eight Concepts, p. 118
78
How can differentation help us discover the divine image in others? 413 Nichols
comments that throughout the twentieth century, psychotherapists tried to keep
religion out of the counseling session. As a result, they never asked people about
meaning and spirituality.414 Some of a familys most powerful organizing beliefs
have to do with how they find meaning in their lives and their ideas about a higher
power. Van Yperen said that when dealing with conflict, make Jesus the object and
subject of everything you do: Point to Jesus and get out of the way. 415 Jesus
becomes the guiding principle in dealing with couple conflict. By patterning our
lives after Jesus as Bowen recommended for Christians, we are modelling our lives
on that of a very highly self-differentiated individual. 416
3) Triangles and Couple Conflict

Once you look for triangles, youll find them everywhere. 417 Nichols describes
triangles as the universal unit of analysis.418 Gilbert holds that couple counseling is
always triangular in nature, if only because it involves the pastor or therapist, but
more often because it includes the child, or in-laws. 419 Nichols encourages us to
413
Leroy T. Howe p. 349
414
Michael P Nichols, Family Therapy Concepts and Methods, p. 316
415
Jim Van Yperen, Making Peace: a guide to overcoming church conflict, p. 162
416
Gilbert, The Cornerstone Concept, p. 103 Ed: To call Jesus highly self-differentiated
expresses the fullness of his humanity, but does not sum up the fullness of his Christology,
including his Lordship and full divinity.
417
Nichols, Family Therapy Concepts and Methods, p.147
418
Nichols, Family Therapy Concepts and Methods, p. 150
419
Gilbert, Eight Concepts, p. 50; Nichols, Family Therapy Concepts and Methods, p. 138 In
early marriage, in-law triangles are common raising issues of primacy of attachment and
influence. When children are born and when they reach adolescence, parent-child triangles
are so common as to be the norm.
79
take a minute to think about the most troublesome current relationship in

your life. That relationship almost certainly involves one or more third
persons. Virtually all relationships are shadowed by third parties relatives,
friends, even memories.420
The two-person dyad of the conflicted couple is inherently unstable, especially

during times of anxiety.421 The dyads naturally draw in and triangulates to a third
party.422 Conflicted couples find intimacy painful because of the fused loss of self,
and avoid dyadic intimacy by quickly triangling with a third party. 423 Becvar &
Becvar observe that chronic stress can destabilize almost any but the most
differentiated dyads. Triangles stand in the way of the very resolution that they are
attempting to bring about.424 Jones observes that triangulation offers stabilization
420
Nichols, Family Therapy Concepts and Methods, 2008 p. 127; Nichols, p. 128 In a
triangle...each twosomes interaction is tied to the behaviour of the third person; each
person is driven by reactive forms of behaviour, none of them can take a position without
feeling the need to change the other two; and each person gets involved in the relationship
between the other two.
421
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 138 A calm two-person relationship...may actually
be a calm side of a triangle. The calmness is maintained at the expense of having a
negative relationship in another side of the triangle.; Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p.
28 The human dyad is so unstable that when two people who are important to each other
develop a problem, which they invariably do, they automatically look around for a third
person to include in the anxious situation in some way. The third person is brought into
participation in the anxiety of the original twosome, and thus anxiety flows around the
triangle.
422
Gilbert, Eight Concepts, p.50 Two intense people cannot resist the urge to bring someone
else in. No one, on the other hand, can resist the urge to join two intense others. Its
automatic. Its human.; Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 146 If anxiety builds in a
twosome, the relationship will automatically involve a third person.
423
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p. 499 Most people cannot tolerate more
than a few minutes on a personal level. (Ed: very interesting observation: I remember my
father the electrical engineer/company president leaving the living room when mother was
stressed over being hypothyroid after surgery, even delegating to me as the social worker
adult son to deal with it.)
424
Dorothy Stroh Becvar & Ralph J. Becvar, Family Therapy: A Systemic Integration, p. 149 To
Bowen, the dyad, or two-person system, is stable so long as it is calm...Although such
triangles are usually created in an effort to achieve resolution, they actually tend to prevent
resolution and the instability remains, with more family members participating in an
escalating and increasingly unstable emotional field.
80
through diversion rather than through resolution of the issue. 425 Such triangulation
in a conflicted couple creates an appearance of calmness because the anxiety is
being transferred to the third party of the triangle. 426 Through the transferring of
dyadic anxiety, even low-level adultery can temporarily bring calmness to a
conflicted couple until the adultery becomes more intense. 427 Triangling calms
conflicted couples temporarily by letting off emotional steam, but through
encouraging frozen rigidity, the calmness ultimately backfires. 428
Emotional distance between conflicted couples brings one spouse closer to the
third party in the triangle.429 Freeman says that some people who do not wish to
work on self or their own part in a relationship may choose triangulation as a
convenient substitute.430 Conflicted couples can triangulate in many ways, such as
by gossiping with others about the relationship, or by discussing about politics, TV,
425
Jones, Family Therapy: A Comparison of Approaches, P.48
426
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p. 401 I think a bona fide two person
relationship is one in which two people are primarily invested in each other. These are
relatively rare and it is a difficult balancing act to keep them in emotional equilibrium. Most
so-called two person relationships are the calm side of an already functioning triangle in
which the calmness is maintained at the expense of a negative relationship with the other
corner of the triangle.
427
Papero, Bowen Family Systems Theory, p. 49 A clear example of the triangle exists in the
affair. It is not uncommon to find one spouse involved in an affair of mild to moderate
intensity, which appears to have a calming effect on the marriage...Should the same affair,
however, become more intense, the uninvolved spouse becomes aware of it quickly and
often reacts strongly...:
428
Nichols, Family Therapy Concepts and Methods, p. 128 Triangulation lets off steam but
freezes conflict in place. ...Most family problems are triangular....
429
Jones, Family Therapy: A Comparison of Approaches, P. 48 The more distance there is

between spouses, the closer one spouse be to the third point in the triangle, for example, a
child or grandparent.
430
David S. Freeman, Family Therapy with Couples: the family-of-origin approach (Jason
Aronson Inc, New Jersey, 1992), p. 49 One way for an individual to avoid working on self or
looking at his or her own part within a relationship is by triangulation.; Bowen, Family
Therapy in Clinical Practice, p. 349 A disturbed family is always looking for a vulnerable
outsider....
81
etc, anything that avoids dealing with self, other and the relationship. 431
Triangulation can be a way of hiding from intimacy. 432
The lower the differentation of the conflicted couple, the more active the
triangles will be in funneling dyadic anxiety. 433 Gilbert says that anxiety is always
moving around the triangles of the family. 434 The presence of the third party, such as
a new baby, sometimes calms the marital dyad, but at other times anxiously
destabilizes it because of the enormous energy investment needed. 435 The removal
of a third party, such as an adult child leaving home, can either increase or
decrease the conflict or stability of the marital dyad. 436 The intense triangles of
conflicted couples can be impacted by calm, thinking principled pastor/pastoral
counselor, despite the great challenges. 437 To observe triangles, says Kerr and
Bowen, it is necessary to see past the symptoms to the underlying emotional
431
Freeman, Family Therapy with Couples, p. 49 ...one can triangle not only by moving out
of the relationship to talk about it with someone else; one can also triangle within the
relationship by talking about anything but the relationship. In this case, discussing about
politics, religion, what is on TV, or other peoples problems are all ways to avoid dealing with
what is going on with self, other, and the relationship.
432
Freeman, Family Therapy with Couples, p. 49 Triangles are a major block to being
intimate. When we are fearful of sharing vulnerable parts of ourselves, we will use the
triangle process to make it emotionally safe for self in the relationship by focusing on
something outside of ourselves.
433
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 139 The lower the level of differentation in a
family, the more important the role of triangling for preserving emotional stability....Stress
triggers anxiety and as it becomes infectious, the triangles become more active....If people
can maintain their emotional autonomy, triangling is minimal, and the systems stability
does not depend on it.
434
Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p. 155; Nichols, Family Therapy Concepts and

Methods, p. 127 The major influence on the activity of triangles is anxiety (Guerin, Fogarty,
Fay and Kautto, 1996)....The more people are driven by anxiety, the less tolerant they are of
one another and the more they are polarized by differences.
435
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 138 A stable twosome can be destabilizing by the
addition of a third person. For example, a harmonious marriage may become conflictual
after the birth of a child. The parents ability to keep its relationship in equilibrium is
undermined by the investment of time and energy the childs presence requires.; Kerr and
Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 139 An unstable twosome can be stabilized by the addition of
a third person. For example, a conflictual marriage may become more harmonious after the
birth of a child. The parents shift the focus of their anxieties from one another to the child.
82
process: the interplay of individuality and togetherness and the impact of anxiety on
that interplay.438 Kerr and Bowen have an extensive 28-page section on triangles
that I found particularly instructive for understanding conflicted couples. 439
Once again the why questions are primarily a distraction. 440 Why is this?
Why should we not focus on why? Why did Bowen move away from his whys?
Triangles, a fact of nature, describe the what, how, when and where of relationships,
not the why.
441
We need to give up speculating about whys and motivations in
relationships; instead as pastors/pastors counselors, we look for the functioning, the

processes, the patterns, the behaviours of conflicted couples. 442 It is not easy for
me to give up on asking about the motivation, the why question. Why questions
436
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 138 A stable twosome can be destabilized by the
removal of a third person...marital harmony may increase after a child leaves home. Once
out of the home, a child is not as readily available to be triangled into the parents
problems. Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 139 An unstable twosome can be
stabilized by the removal of a third person. For example, conflict in a twosome can be
reduced if the two people avoid a third person who has been consistently taking sides on
issues in their relationship. Side-taking foments conflict by emotionally paralyzing the
issues.
437
Gilbert, Eight concepts, p.55 Certainly a calm, thinking, principled leader can have a
positive effect upon intense triangles. It is hard work, but extremely rewarding.
438
439

Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, Chapter 6, p. 134 -162
440
Michael E Kerr, Handbook of family therapy, p. 242 To know triangles is to see the
absurdity of asking people 'why' they do what they do and the absurdity assigning cause to
any particular event in a system. Looking for cause obscures the view of the
interdependence.
441
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 134 The triangle describes the what, how, when,
and where of relationships, not the why. Triangles are simply a fact of nature. To observe
them requires that one stand back and watch the process unfold. Conjecture about why any
one person says or does a particular thing immediately takes the observer out of a systems
frame of reference. The assignment of motive is necessarily subjective and not verifiable.
442
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 134 ft1 In systems thinking, a particular behaviour
is understood in terms of its function in the system in which it occurs. Why thinking
ascribes motive somewhere, either to the individual or to some larger entity. Thinking in
terms of interrelationships in functioning does not require that any motive be assigned. 83
are often expressions of our defensiveness which retriangulates us. 443 Asking why
seems to be such a residual, regressive reaction when we are traumatized and
grieved. My hunch is that the why questions are usually simulated thinking,
expressing emotional fusion over something that we are angry and anxious about.
Why God is asked many times in the Bible, especially in the book of Job, but not
answered in ways that we might expect.
Ducklow acknowledges that with couples, there are good triangles but most
triangles are considered unhelpful, particularly because they include some and
exclude others.444 The insider/outsider nature of triangles is epitomized in anxious
high school cliques.445 Few, if any, like being the outsider or the IPtarget/scapegoat. Often husbands end up as this person, with the third person being
the mother-in-law, the wifes female close friend, the pastor, the counselor, or the
male adulterer.446 Kerr and Bowen noted that
the uncomfortable insider (A) can pull the outsider (C) into the situation
through complaints to him about the other outsider (B). If C responds
sympathetically, taking sides with A, a comfortable closeness (based on
443
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 154 A pitfall people frequently fall into is
attempting to defend or explain their actions in response to being accused of having turned
against someone. These defensive and explanatory remarks get one right back into the
triangle.
444
Ducklow, Carey Online website,

%202011%20Appendices.pdf Emotional triangles serve to include two and exclude one
and they tend to increase problems rather than solve them. There are good and bad
triangles but in Family Systems Theory they are considered mostly as unhelpful.
445
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 136 When anxiety in the emotional field of a
triangle is low, two people are comfortably close (the insiders) and the third is a less
comfortable outsider... The outsider is not idly standing by, but continually attempts to form
togetherness with one of the outsiders...So in calm periods, the insiders are trying to
preserve what they have and the outsider is trying to break into it.
446
Friedman, A Failure of Nerve, p. 266 Triangling a third person into a relationship by

agreeing to dislike (or sometimes help) them, or triangling that third person out by keeping
them in the dark about a secret they have a right to be privy to (eg mother's suicide, a
person's terminal condition, a transfer, the closing of a plant) provides stability to that
relationship
84
undifferentation) is established between A and C. B is the new outsider. The

key element is side-taking. A and C blame B for the problems in the
relationship between A and B. A twosome can also involve a third person in
its conflict simply by allowing this person to be within earshot. The problem
sort of overflows onto him. 447
Anxiety is the major shaper of triangular activity. Triangles spread the
anxiety more widely, therefore protecting the conflicted dyad from emotionally
overheating and burning out.448 Triangles are the smallest stable emotional unit.
Those involved in triangulating target less secure individuals in their projecting
anxiety onto them.449 Gilbert said that the focus is not only on the architecture of
the system (the triangles and how they interlock), but on the actual movement of
anxiety within that system of triangles. Watching for process is observing how
emotions flow and change within and among the individuals and triangles of a
relationship system.450 Nichols says that triangles can be identified by whom the
conflicted spouse goes to when they emotionally distance from their spouse.
Triangles tend to be repetitive, reactive, predictable and automatic.
447
451
448
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 135 The major influence on the activity of a
triangle is anxiety....When anxiety increases, a third person becomes involved in the tension
of the twosome, creating a triangle. This involvement of a third person decreases anxiety in
the twosome by spreading it through three relationships. The formation of three
interconnected relationships can contain more anxiety than is possible in three separate
relationships because pathways are in place that allows the shifting of anxiety around the
system. This shifting reduces the possibility of any one relationship emotionally
overheating.
449
Paddy Ducklow, Doctoral Dissertation, p. 52, The person that is targeted to receive
anxiety is normally the one in the emotional system who is least able to protect herself from
it. Projecting of the anxiety onto the most vulnerable person or object or group reduces
anxiety in the other parts to system resulting in "simulated" security and stability. The
projection of anxiety onto its weaker members introduces the idea of triangles....the triangle
is the smallest stable relational system.
450
451
Michael P Nichols, Family Therapy Concepts and Methods, p. 146 Triangles can be
identified by asking who or what people go to when they distance from someone with whom
they have been close. One sign of a triangle is its repetitive structure. The process that
goes on in a triangle is predictable because its reactive and automatic.
85
Emotional triangles are more flexible, stable and able to contain conflictual
anxiety than the marital dyads.452 Triangles are forever, which means that with
conflicted couples, new people come along to replace the empty places in a triangle
when one person has either died or emotionally cut off from the triangle. 453 Our
epidemic of divorce and replacement dyads on the North Shore could be seen as a
reflection of our anxious triangles.454 Kerr and Bowen observed that
...In unusually chaotic periods, so many triangles are active that it can be
difficult to perceive any order in the process. The building blocks of the
chaos, the individual triangles, are obscured by the confusion. 455
When triangles are overwhelmed by anxiety, they interlock with other

triangles in order to share the anxious load. 456 Kerr and Bowen hold that with two
parents and two children, you already have four triangles. The addition of one
more child brings you to ten triangles just in one nuclear family. 457 The higher the
452
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 135 The ability to spread and shift tension, as well
as to contain more of it, means that a triangle is more flexible and stable than a two-person
system.
453
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 135 Triangles are forever, at least in families.
Once the emotional circuitry of a triangle is in place, it usually outlives the people who
participate in it. If one member of a triangle dies, another person usually replaces him. The
actors come and go, but the play lives on through the generations...So a particular triangle
was not created necessarily by its present participants; nor does it form anew or completely
dissolve with the ebb and flow of anxiety.
454
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p. 433 It can also be said that a divorce, or
threatened divorce, is implicit evidence of an unresolved emotional attachment to the
parental families.
455
456
Kerr, Chronic Anxiety and Defining a Self, in The Atlantic Monthly, Sept 1988, p. 54 In
a calm family, anxiety can be contained mostly in one central triangle. Under stress,
however, the anxiety spreads to other family triangles and to triangles outside the family in
work and social systems.
457
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 149 In a nuclear family unit of two parents and
two children, there are four uncomplicated (one person at each corner) triangles. With the
addition of just one more child, the number of triangles jumps to ten!
86
anxiety of the conflicted couple, the greater the number of interlocking triangles
formed.
458
Every corner or angle of the tri-angle is a functioning position. 459 Three
of the functioning positions are the anxiety generator, the anxiety amplifier, and
the anxiety dampener.
460
Each of these three positions is a way of avoiding
responsibility for managing ones own anxiety. 461 Expressing anger to a third party
(i.e. gossip) about ones spouse functions to bring togetherness with the third party,
while anxious expression of anger to ones spouse functions to create emotional
distance.462 Kerr and Bowen observed that in couple conflict, the emotionally
458
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 139 It is not always possible to shift the forces in a
triangle. When it is not possible, the anxiety spreads to other triangles in an interlocking
fashion.
459
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 142 Understanding the processes of triangles and
interlocking triangles depends on seeing each corner of a triangle as a functioning position.
What a person thinks, feels, says, and does is, to an extent (depending on level of
differentation and level of anxiety) a product of his functioning position in a triangle; also,
what a person thinks, feels, says, and does has, at least in part (depending on level of
differentation and level of anxiety) a function in promoting the process of the triangle.
460
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 142 There are triangles in which one person can
be characterized as the anxiety generator, a second person as the anxiety amplifier, and
the third as the anxiety dampener. The generator is typically accused of setting the
emotional tone for the triangle (and family). Others directly or indirectly imply that the
generator is the one who upsets people. While the generator may be the first person to
get nervous about potential problems, he is not the cause of the anxiety that circulates in
the triangle. The amplifier adds to the problem by his inability to stay calm when the
generator is anxious. The amplifier uses emotional distance to control his reactivity to the
others, but at a certain level of tension he can be relied on to become overly responsible for
the others in order to calm things down. By predictably serving this function, the
dampener may reduce symptoms, but he reinforces the relationship process (the triangle).
461
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 142 As the pressure continually shifts, no one in
the triangle assumes responsibility for managing his own anxiety.
462
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 142 If person A expresses to person C that he is
angry at person B, this communication functions to increase the level of togetherness
between A and C. If C responds sympathetically, verbally or nonverbally, to A, the response
also functions to increase the togetherness between A and C. In addition, As anger at B
functions to maintain distance between A and B, thereby reinforcing the togetherness
between A and C.
87
triggered person characteristically defends or counterattacks which adds emotional

fuel.463 I am rarely defensive unless attacked. (smile) 464
One cannot positively impact triangulation in conflicted couples by trying to
change other people in their triangle. Friedman observed that
the more you try to change the relationship of two others (again, either two
other people or a person and his or her habit), the more likely it is that you
will reinforce the very aspects of the relationship you want to change. 465
The solution to triangling is detriangling oneself. 466 Friedman noted that

when a family appears to be stuck, the pastor/pastoral counsellor should focus
primarily on changing his or her own input into the therapeutic triangle. 467 A
pastor/pastoral counsellor brings detriangulation by being present but detached,
expressing a non-anxious presence with the conflicted couple. 468 Ironically
463
464
Ed: Though my self-perception is that I am much less defensive than years ago, some of
my defensiveness is still there, but it has become less visible and more subtle. It is an area
that I need to work on as part of my needed heart transformation.
465
Friedman, Bowen Theory and Therapy, 1991, Chapter 5, p. 150 (Ed: what does this tell
me about my doctoral project about strengthening marriages? It can be very tricky, as in
my desire to be helpful, I may end up increasing the marital triangulation.)
466
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 145 The process of being in contact and
emotionally separate is referred to as detriangling.; Murray Bowen, Theory in the Practice
of Psychotherapy, p. ?, The concept of triangles provides a way of reading the automatic
emotional responsiveness so as to control ones own automatic emotional participation in
the emotional process. This concept I have called detriangling.
467
Friedman, Bowen Theory and Therapy, 1991, Chapter 5, p. 153 ; Nichols, Family Therapy
Concepts and Methods, p. 137 Therapy with couples is based on the premise that tension in
the dyad will dissipate if they remain in contact with a third person (in a stable triangle) if
that person remains neutral and objective rather than emotionally triangled. Thus a
therapeutic triangle can reverse the insidious process of problem-maintaining triangulation.
Furthermore, change in any one triangle will change the entire family system.
468
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 148 The effect of having an involved but
untriangled third person is to nudge each marital partner toward accepting more
responsibility for the problem and attaching more importance to working it out between
them.; Michael E Kerr, Chronic Anxiety and Defining a Self, in The Atlantic Monthly, Sept
1988, p. 55 the process of being in contact and emotionally separate is referred to as
88
detriangulation is facilitated by the pastor/pastoral counsellor creating a new

triangle, a therapeutic one with the conflicted couple. 469 Detriangulation is not
about manipulating and controlling the conflicted couple but rather about setting
healthy boundaries so that one is not manipulated and controlled by them in their
emotional reactivity.470 Detriangling is closely linked to self-differentiating. As
Nichols said,
Ultimately, differentiating yourself requires that you identify interpersonal
triangles you participate in, and detriangle from them. The goal is to relate
to people without gossiping or taking sides and without counterattacking or
defending yourself.471
Objectivity and neutrality are both key to detriangling from a conflicted

couple, and for a conflicted spouse detriangling from his/her spouse. 472 Staying
neutral and refusing to take sides with either spouse is the central, most
challenging task for the pastor/pastoral counsellor.
473
Papero aptly notes that the
detriangling.
469
Nichols, Family Therapy Concepts and Methods, p. 136 In order to change a system,
modification must take place in the most important triangle in the family the one involving
the marital couple. To accomplish, the therapist creates a new triangle, a therapeutic one.
If the therapist stays in contact with the partners while remaining emotionally neutral, they
can begin the process of detriangulation and differentation that will profoundly change the
entire family system.
470
Kerr, Chronic Anxiety and Defining a Self, in The Atlantic Monthly, Sept 1988, p .58
Maintaining one's differentiation and detriangling is not an attempt to manipulate or control
others but a way of dealing with other's attempts to manipulate and control oneself.
471
Michael P Nichols, Family Therapy Concepts and Methods, 2008, p. 146
472
Michael E Kerr, Chronic Anxiety and Defining a Self, The Atlantic Monthly, Sept 1988, p.
57 The more one can be mostly neutral about the relationship process between others, the
more effective will be a detriangulating maneuver.; Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p.
30 The more one can see the systems-of-triangles perspective, the less prone one will be to
take sides, to take things personally, to take thoughtless positions, or to assign blame.;
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p. 349 ....The best version of objectivity is
possible with significant others who know triangles.
89
pastor/pastoral counsellor has lost neutrality as completely when he or she is

charmed as when angered.474
A key to objectivity with conflicted couples is the phenomenological rather
than interpretive stance of the pastor/pastoral counsellor. 475 We need to resist and
repent of the temptation to read the minds of the conflicted couple. 476 In
detriangling, actions speak louder than words. 477 Jones holds that the essential
stance for the pastor/pastoral counsellor is to be in contact with each spouse, but
not caught in the triangle.478 A knowledge of triangles is one of the best ways to
avoid falling into the emotionality of transference. 479 Detriangulating may look like
the pastor/pastoral counsellor is doing nothing, all the while he/she is balancing on
a shaky hi-wire.480 In our activist, technique-oriented western culture, doing
473
Papero, Bowen Family Systems Theory, p.73 The effort to detriangle oneself from the
family emotional oneness is equivalent to the effort to remain neutral in the family...When
one takes sides, one has joined the emotional process in the family. The effort to remain
emotionally neutral is the central, most challenging task for the clinician in working with a
family.
474
475
Edwin H. Friedman, Bowen Theory and Therapy, 1991, Chapter 5, p. 151 The major
clinical significance of the concept of an emotional triangle is that it focuses on
phenomenology rather than interpretation. When Bowen left the psychoanalytic movement,
one aspect of psychoanalysis that troubled him was its unverifiability....Interpretation of
others motivations is slippery stuff. The very process invites projection....
476
Edwin H. Friedman, Bowen Theory and Therapy, 1991, Chapter 5, p. 151 Interpretation of
others motivations is slippery stuff. The very process invites projection....Clinically the
concept of an emotional triangle frees one from having to read minds. It keeps one focused
on factors that are describable and veridical.
477
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 155 Actions have more impact than words in a
detriangling effort.
478
Jones, Family Therapy: A Comparison of Approaches, p. 57

Bowen, Theory in the Practice of Psychotherapy, p. ? However a therapist with
knowledge of the facts inherent in systems theory, and especially knowledge of triangles
can deal largely in reality and facts and eliminate much of the emotional process that
usually goes into transference...One never reaches a point of not being vulnerable to
automatically falling back into the emotionality of transference.
90
479
nothing and becoming small doesnt look impressive. It may look very weak ala
Philippians 2, yet detriangling is about becoming human and staying human. 481
Sometimes a conflicted spouse or pastor/pastoral counselor may try to
detriangulate prematurely before they have become objectively neutral themselves.
Such attempts will usually go badly. 482
It is better to just keep in touch (K.I.T.),
and wait until the anxiety level has moderated before attempting detriangulation. 483
Kerr and Bowen hold that when it comes to detriangling, a new way of thinking is
learned slowly. For the most part, people teach themselves. 484 People caught in
triangles often have major reactive denial about their triangular involvement even
when expressed rationally to them.485 In light of the doctrine of sin in Romans 3:23,
480
Friedman, Bowen Theory and Therapy, 1991, Chapter 5, p. 154 What also makes the
concept of staying out of the transference difficult to comprehend is that it can sound like a
prescription for doing nothing...The art is to remain a part of the triangle without getting
triangled, that is, without becoming either a focus of the others displacement, a conduit
for their connection, or reactive in their relationship. This requires a kind of balance and
self-regulation similar to walking a tightrope while someone is standing there shaking it.
481
Philippians 2: 7Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling

process. He didn't claim special privileges. The Message (MSG), 2002, by Eugene H.
Peterson
482
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 153 Ft 10 The process is never a clear-cut step
one, step two. People usually attempt to detriangle before they are anywhere near being
objective and emotionally neutral. These premature efforts are the product of anxiety.; Kerr
and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 154 Not all detriangling efforts go smoothly...When an
uptight person who is not neutral tries to detriangle himself in a highly anxious family,
there is a good chance he will make the family problems worse.
483
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 154 When people are anxious, their efforts to
detriangle are usually attempts to pry themselves free of triangles...In general, detriangling
is most effective in low to moderate anxiety situations. In high anxiety emotional fields,
people are usually too uptight to detriangle effectively and the family is anxious to respond
to it. When anxiety is that high, the goal is to stay in contact with people, but not let the
anxiety dictate ones actions. When the anxiety is reduced, detriangling comments can then
be constructive.
484
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 151 Paddy Ducklow, Doctoral Dissertation, p. 55
Someone is always left out in a triangle and therefore pushing for change. ... The most
profound ontology is to be chosen; the most profound ontology is to be left unchosen.
485
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 161 ...People acting out the process of the triangle
have an amazing ability to ignore the most rational and well presented explanations for what
is occurring.
91
we can also plead Mea Culpa as no one is immune from being triangle and nobody
is immune from triangling others. 486 Bowen insightfully acknowledged that
No one ever stays outside, but a knowledge of triangles makes it possible to
get outside on ones own initiative while staying emotionally in contact with
the family. 487
Bowen taught that triangulated couple conflict is closely connected with

secrecy and gossip.488 Triangular family processes have their rules about keeping
gossip secret.489 Ducklow holds that secrets with conflicted couples express avoided
anxiety which will have dysfunctioning effects in the next generation. 490 Part of
detriangling and growing up is letting go of secret gossip. 491 Evan Imber-Black
observed that
there seem(s) to be a powerful injunction against the acknowledgment of
open conflict in any of the relationships. When I inquired about conflict in
their long marriage, George replied: 'I don't remember having any!' Secrets
are relational, shaping dyads, triangles, hidden alliances, splits, cutoffs,
defining boundaries about who's in and who's out, and calibrating closeness
and distance in relationships.492
486
Romans 3:23 All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God; Kerr and Bowen,
Family Evaluation, p. 161 Triangle are everywhere, reaching out to envelop oneself in the
problems of others. No one is immune from being triangled and nobody is immune from
triangling others.; Mea Culpa: Latin through my fault; my fault (used as an
acknowledgment of one's responsibility). Used in the Latin Western liturgy.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/mea+culpa.
487
488
Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 12 Relationships can become distant and hostile when
there are secrets.
489
Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 509 This sequence is present in every family the system
talks about the absent one and the system has definite rules about keeping the gossiping
secret.
490
Ducklow, Doctoral Dissertation, p. 234

Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p. 520 As families move from the
compartmentalized, less mature world of secrets and foibles which they assume they are
keeping under cover, and into the world of permitting their private lives to be more open
and a possible example for others to follow, they grow up a little each day.
92
491
4) Emotional Cutoff and Couple Conflict

Emotional Cutoff is the extreme form of unresolved emotional distance. 493 Fusion
and cutoff are closely related, because the emotional anxiety and loss of self
connected with fusion makes conflicted couples want to run away, to cut off. 494
Ducklow says that cutoff is
the opposite of fusion and it relates to being unapproachable psychologically
and emotionally. This is how some people deal with demands that are
uncomfortable (anxious) to them. They withdraw or leave, emotionally or
physically when life is too intense. They do so because they feel powerless
in the encroachment of another. 495
Cutoff can take many forms with conflicted couples, such as physical
distance, or avoidance of emotionally charged subjects. Often those who were
overly fused in their childhood are most prone to emotional cutoff in marriage. 496
The less differentiated the conflicted spouse is, the more they will be prone to
492
Evan Imber-Black , Secrets and families and family therapy: an overview , Secrets in
families and family therapy (New York, Norton , 1993), P. 6
493
Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p. 61 Cutoff is a distant posture to the extreme, a

nonfunctioning relationship. Quite often the cutoff is so old that all the people involved have
forgotten what triggered it. America has sometimes been called a nation of cutoffs, since it
was largely settled by immigrants. Whatever the cultural contribution to it, cutoff is such a
common pattern among American families that it is often hard to see...It seems that the
American way of growing up is to leave home and never return again, at least emotionally.
494
Gilbert, Eight concepts, p. 59 Fusions do not feel comfortable, so people have a tendency
to want to get away from them, to cut off.; Friedman, Generation to Generation, p. 301
...the emotional cutoff has been called the generation gap. The higher the level of anxiety,
the greater the degree of generation gap in poorly differentiated people.
495
Ducklow, Doctoral Thesis, p. 230
496
Kerr, Handbook of family therapy, p. 249 This emotional cutoff can be accomplished by
physical distance, keeping contacts with family brief and infrequent and/or internal
mechanisms such as withdrawal and avoidance of emotional charged areas while in the
presence of the family... The more intense the fusion the person experienced while growing
up, the greater the likelihood of a significant cutoff later on.
93
blaming and cutting off the other spouse. 497 Cutoff paradoxically reflects a problem,
solves a problem and creates a problem in terms of reducing and increasing
anxiety.498 Running away from anxiety is impossible, because it is chained like a ball
(or a pet rock) to our ankle. It always comes along for the ride. Cutoff does nothing
to solve our unresolved emotional attachments. The lower our level of
differentation in conflicted couples, the more they will use cutoff to reduce the
anxious symptoms of emotional fusion. Adultery in a conflicted marriage is a form
of cutoff that may reflect generational cutoff patterns. Because adultery lacks
commitment to the future, it can be less of a threat to loss of self than in the
conflicted marriage.499
Emotional cutoff, particularly expressed as adolescent rebellion, is often the
counterfeit of self-differentation as it does not address the issue of anxious fusion. 500
A symbol of that tendency would be James Deans movie Rebel without a Cause,
acting and pretending to be more independent than one is. 501 Two sure signs of
emotional cutoff, says Nichols, are denial of the importance of the family and an
497
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p.47 Undifferentiated people typically blame or cut
off rather than face the problem and working through.
498
Kerr, Handbook of family therapy, P. 249 Emotional cutoff is an interesting paradox in

that at one and the same time reflects a problem, 'solves' a problem, and creates a problem.
It reflects the problem of the underlined fusion between the generations. It 'solves' a
problem in that by avoiding emotional contact, it reduces the anxiety of the moment. It
creates a problem in that it isolates and healing people from each other, people who could
benefit from contact with each other if they can deal with each other better.
499
Kerr, Handbook of family therapy, p. 250 In the affair, the person can often satisfy
his/her intense togetherness needs without a sense of losing self or being taken over by the
partner. So the existence reflects a cutoff in the marriage which reflects a cutoff with the
previous generation.
500
Rosemary Lambie & Debbie Daniel-Mohring, Theoretical Underpinnings of Family

Systems Approaches, Family Systems with Educational Contexts: understanding students
with special needs (Denver, Love Publications, 1993, p. 267 Choosing friends of which
parents disapprove (as adolescents), getting in trouble with the law, and abusing substances
are way adolescents try to cut off from parents. This declaration of independence from
family is not the same as differentation of self. It in no way resolves the emotional fusion
with the parent.
94
exaggerated faade of independence.502 Gilbert self-discloses that cutoff is an issue

for her, saying that
Cutoff is in my own history and in our generations. I am swimming upstream
when it comes to people staying in good contact with each other. 503
One of the greatest problems with cutoff is that it impedes healing until
reconnection occurs. 504 Cutoff creates emotional stuckness. Cutoff is closely related
to the level of gossip and evasiveness.505 Cutoff among conflicted couples is so
common that it is almost the air we breathe, particularly on the North Shore.
Runners tend to keep on compulsively running. 506 Friedman said that the one who
ran away from his own family will tend to run away in the marriage. 507 A vivid
501
Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships,, P.60 quoting Murray Bowen, 1974: The principal
manifestation of the emotional cutoff is denial of the intensity of the unresolved emotional
attachment to parents , acting and pretending to be more independent than one is, and
emotional distance achieved either through internal mechanisms or physical distance.;
Rebel without a Cause, 1955, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048545
502
503
Gilbert, The Cornerstone Concept, p. 127 Ed: this is true for my family as well. I can see
many times in our family history where emotional cutoff has been our solution.
504
Friedman, Failure of Nerve, p. 7 Another universal principle of family life.....individuals

who are cut off from their families generally do not heal until they have been reconnected.
505
Van Yperen, Making Peace: a guide to overcoming church conflict, p. 129 Evasive
responders do not understand that silence and evasion are the greatest cause of hurt and
gossip.
506
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p. 383 The one who runs away
geographically is more inclined to compulsive behaviour. He tends to see the problem as
being in the parents and running away as a method of gaining independence from the
parents. The more intense the cutoff, the more he is vulnerable to duplicating the pattern
with the parents with the first available other person. He can get into an impulsive
marriage. When problems develop in the marriage, he tends also to run away from that. He
can continue through multiple marriages, and finally resort to more temporary living
together relationships.
507
Friedman, Generation to Generation, p. 177; Friedman, Generation to Generation, p. 301

The person who runs away from his family of origin is as emotionally dependent as the one
who never leaves home. They both need emotional closeness, but they are allergic to it.
95
example of this cutoff running addiction would be Julia Roberts in the movie
Runaway Bride.508 Divorce is total cutoff. Sometimes conflicted couples cut off
over presenting issues such as financial conflict, religious conflict, and even over
conflict about other family members divorces. 509 Family Systems Theory holds that
the issues are rarely the issue; rather undifferentation is the issue.
510
The cost of cutoff for conflicted couples is major in our disposable culture.
Suicide is a tragic form of permanent cutoff. Cutoff is the painful gift that keeps on
giving. Gilbert called this the knee jerk family reaction pattern of cutoff. 511 Bowen
noted that
the more intense the cutoff with the past, the more likely the individual to
have an exaggerated version of his parental family problem in his own
marriage, and the more likely his own children to do a more intense cutoff
with him in the next generation.512
508
Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p. 155 quoting Murray Bowen, 1974 When tensions
mount in the marriage, he (she) will use the same pattern of running away.; Runaway Bride
(1999), http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0163187; Papero, Bowen Family Systems Theory, p.62
Distance seems to be the safety valve of the emotional system....In extreme examples
people constantly look for closeness but react intensely to it when they stumble over it....In
extreme outcomes the person may go from relationship to relationship, seeking the positive
effects of closeness yet automatically cutting off when the intensity reaches a certain
tolerance level. In another variation, the individual may give up on relationships altogether,
maintaining a relatively fixed distance from all others.
509
Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p. 61 Stimuli may include problems over money.

Sometimes people cut off from each other at the time of a family divorce, if sides are taken.
Religious differences may stand out in an intensity of feeling finally managed by cutoff. ...In
fact, cutoff develops as an attempt to adapt to intense chronic and acute anxiety in the
system.
510
Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p. 62 Issues, such as money, divorce, or religion,

may provide the battleground, but undifferentiation in the members of the family is the real
problem. ...Unfortunately, what the cutting off individuals dont understand is that there is a
price to be paid for emotional cutoff. The price is a dear one.
511
512
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p.382
96
Gilbert compassionately asks the following helpful process questions about

emotional cutoff:
Is there anything I might do to bridge the cutoff? Is there a way I can work to
lower my emotional intensity so that cutoff will not be inevitable in the
future?513
I know that in my family of origin and in my own life, there has been a strong
default to emotional cutoff as the solution to emotional pain. Gilbert is suggesting
by a thoughtful question that we might choose new behaviours and ways of being
that bring morphogenesis to this unhelpful relationship pattern. I like the pattern of
bridging, not pursuing but gentle K.I.T. with less emotional intensity, and less
anxious presence. Overfunctioning likely promotes other peoples tendency to
emotionally and physically cut off from us.
5) Family Projection Process and Couple Conflict
In the family projection process, conflicted couples relieve anxiety by
projecting their anxiety onto each other or others, thereby making them
weaker.514 Bowen said, regarding the family projection process, that
the essential ingredients (of the family projection process) are anxiety and
three people. Two people get together and enhance their functioning at the
expense of a third, the scapegoated one. Social scientists use the word
scapegoat. I (Bowen) refer the term projection process to indicate a
reciprocal process in which the twosome can force the third into submission,
or the process is more mutual, or the third can force the other two to treat
him as inferior.515
513
514
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p. 434 ...the family projection process is a
triangular emotional process through which two powerful people in the triangle reduce their
own anxiety and insecurity by picking a defect in the third person, diagnosing and
confirming the defect as pitiful and in need of benevolent attention, and then ministering to
the pitiful helpless one, which results in the weak becoming weaker and the strong
becoming stronger.
515
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, P . 443
97
By seeing others as the problem, one doesnt have to work on oneself. 516
Such transfer of anxiety involves the projection of ones own feelings of
helplessness, weakness and inadequacy. Without discriminating between feeling
and reality, such feelings of helplessness define the person, and then become
projected onto the other spouse or third party. 517 We can project onto the other
spouse the identity of IP+ or IP-. When we project IP+, we pedestalize them,
exaggerating their messianic qualities, only to knock them off the pedestal and
identify them as IP-.518 The value of identifying the other spouse as IP- is the
reduction of anxiety.519
Through the family projection process, some spouses blame their spouse and
some blame themselves.
520
Ducklow holds that most systems handle anxiety by
displacing their fears onto someone else or something else. 521 Conflicted couples
may project their anxiety and undifferentation on their children. 522
516
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 127 Projection of ones feelings and attitudes onto
others can also relieve anxiety within oneself by allowing one to view other people as the
problem.
517
Friedman, Failure of Nerve, p. 8 The projection involved primarily the mothers own
feelings of helplessness, weakness, and inadequacy. None of the families had any sense of
discrimination between feeling and reality. To them, to feel helpless is to be helpless.
518
Bowen, Theory in the Practice of Psychotherapy, p. ? The more the relationship with the
significant other person is endowed with high emotionality, messianic qualities, exaggerated
promises, and evangelism, the more the change can be sudden and magical, and the less
likely it is to be long term.
519
Freeman, Family Therapy with Couples, p. 49 Usually self will project selfs vulnerabilities
onto the other to reduce selfs anxiety.
520
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p. 130: A blamer who projects his problem
to others is not responsible for self. The self-blamer is equally irresponsible. He blames
himself to relieve anxiety and not to assume responsibility for himself.
521
Paddy Ducklow, Doctoral Thesis, p. 167.
522
Gilbert, The Cornerstone Concept, p. 65 The family projection process, when anxiety is
not resolved between the two parents, projects that anxiety and immaturity to the
children.; Becvar & Ralph J. Becvar, Family Therapy: A Systemic Integration, p.149 It is
98
Van Yperen spoke about the temptation we face to minimize their personal
responsibility while seeking to blame or disparage others. 523 It is easy for us to slip
into benevolent over-helpfulness and projection which harms the couple while trying
to help them.524 To break the power of this projection, Bowen usually avoid(ed) a
relationship with the family member already designated sick or patient by the
family process.525 By helping the conflicted couple become more aware of the
family projection process, the tendency to weaken and scapegoat each other can be
reduced.
6) Family of Origin and Couple Conflict

Family Systems Theory holds that greater awareness of our family of origin
brings greater breakthrough in our nuclear family system. 526 Friedman vividly
expressed that generations are connected to each other in uncanny ways that we
do not realize: a collapsing telescope in which each cylinder somehow formulates
the next.527 Working on our family of origin, says Gilbert, is the high road to
working on couple conflict. 528 Family of origin differentation enables couple
through the family projection process that the parents transmit their lack of differentation to
their children.
523
Jim Van Yperen, Making Peace: a guide to overcoming church conflict, p.36
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinicial Practice, p. 435 The family projection process...is an
automatic emotional force that functions to keep the patient sick.
524
525

Friedman, Generation to Generation, p.68 It is precisely these two emotional systems
(the nuclear family and the extended families of origin of both partners) that are most likely
to influence or change the balance of the marriage.
526
527
528
Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, P.119 If there is a high road towards improving one's
relationships, it is working towards improving those in one's family of origin. In fact it
appears that only limited improvement of other relationships is possible without work in the
99
closeness without anxious fusion.529 Walter Toman says that family of origin work is
about life context, of which our generational family is the most influential context
for either morphogenesis or staying stuck. 530
The pastor/pastoral counsellor coaches the conflicted couple to bring their family
system alive through careful, nonreactive observation. 531 Generational transmission
means that what matters is not the location or the issues but rather the systemic
family forces involved.532 Conflicted couples will benefit greatly through examining
where they have both come from, and where they might be heading, integrating the
past and the present/future.
533
Sadly some conflicted couples are so narcissistically
absorbed in the anxious present that they have no energy to give to the seemingly
family of origin. The family one grew up in is the best of all possible places to learn about
oneself.
529
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p.108 Once differentiated from their parental
families, they can be emotionally close to members of their own families or to any other
person without fusing into new emotional oneness.
530
Gilbert, Eight concepts, p. 85 We proceed from the assumption that a persons family
represents the most influential context of his life, and that it exerts its influence more
regularly, more exclusively and earlier in a persons life than do any other life contexts.
(quoting Walter Toman, Family Constellation book ,1962)
531
Randy Roberts, Two Distinct Approaches to Family Therapy: The Ideas of Murray Bowen
and Jay Haley, The Family, Vol 6 No. 2 p. 37, p. 42 The process begins as the motivated
individual (patient) is coached to bring his family system alive by making frequent, in-depth
personal contact with parents and other extended family members. The coach (therapist)
teaches the individual to observe to the emotional processes within his own family while at
the same time controlling his own reactivity.
532
Paddy Ducklow, Doctoral Thesis, p.35 The Bowen concept that the family is the unit of
observation means that what is important is not the location or even the form of the
problem but getting to the systemic forces that are being transmitted generation to
generation.
533
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, P.546 ...my search for a way to combine the
two approaches (family of origin/relationship between the spouses) more successfully. This
is a problem to be solved in the coming years.; Paddy Ducklow, Doctoral Thesis, p.64 Past,
present and future are all part of one family system. In emotional process transmission,
there is no beginning and end. You cannot go home again because you never truly left
(Hirsch 1998, 51).
100
irrelevant family of origin past.534 Remarkably, said Bowen, many conflicted

couples may make more progress through family of origin work than even through
going for Family Systems therapy sessions.535 By studying their family of origin
emotional patterns and comparing them to their nuclear family emotional patterns,
conflicted couples can become less emotionally reactive and more thoughtfully
responsive to each other. 536 It is so easy for conflicted couples to get stuck in the
blame game regarding their family of origin. 537 Gilbert commented that
There is no better way to remove a block in life, work on a stubborn personality
characteristic or irrational belief, or in general to become a little more objective,
than to take a specific question back to ones generations, to see what can be
learned from them.538
534
Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p. 165, quoting Murray Bowen, 1988 The human is a
narcissistic creature who lives in the present and who is more interested in his own square
inch of real estate, and more devoted to fighting for his rights than in the multigenerational
meaning of life itself.
535
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p. 518 After a year or two, I realized that the
trainees who had devoted primary attention to their families of origin had automatically
made as much, or even more progress, with their spouses and children as similar trainees
who had been in formal family psychotherapy with their spouses for the same period of
time.; Papero, Bowen Family Systems Theory, p.77 Bowens conclusion was that families
in which the focus is on the differentation of self in the families of origin automatically make
as much or more progress in working out the relationship with spouses and children as
families seen in formal family therapy in which there is principal focus on the
interdependence in the marriage (Bowen, 1974, pp. 83-84)
536
Ducklow, Doctoral Thesis, p. 32 Bowen Theory indicates that people are able to modify
their responses to the automatic emotional input by undertaking a study of their own
patterns of behavior and their link to patterns of behavior in their multigenerational
families.; Papero, Bowen Family Systems Theory, P. 78 The following general directions
guide work within the family of origin: (1) an effort to become a more accurate observer of
self and the family (2) the development of person-to-person relationships with each member
of the family; (3) an effort to increase ones ability to control emotional reactivity to the
family; and (4) a sustained effort to remain neutral or detriangled while relating to the
emotional issues of the family.
537
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p. 263 It is common for young people to get
into marriage blaming their parents for past unhappiness, and expecting to find perfect
harmony in the marriage.
538
Gilbert, Eight concepts: p.80; Jones, Family Therapy: A Comparison of Approaches, p. 53

...from a Bowen framework, it is crucial, if family therapy is to be successful, that each
individual make a personal re-evaluation of his parents by going back at least one
generation and looking at his parents in a different light.
101
Some conflicted couples may be reluctant to reconnect with their family of

origin, thinking that they might stir up trouble for themselves.
539
Some, particularly
those who have burnt their bridges emotionally, wonder if they have any family of
origin out there to reconnect with.540 Others are in contact with their family but at
great emotional distance, returning home very infrequently for duty visits. 541
Friedman held that generationally cut-off couples tend to invest more in work and
social settings than in each other. 542 Without coaching a conflicted couple, going
back to ones family of origin may backfire. 543 Family of origin work helps repair the
generational damage of emotional distance and cutoff. 544 Working on our family of
origin issues can release multi-generational blessing, particularly in the areas of
forgiveness, healing, and clearer self-identity. 545
539
Gilbert, The Cornerstone Concept, p. 162 I heard: Leave well enough alone, What will
this accomplish?, and You think too much.
540
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p. 543 Most people have more relatives than
they believe they have.
541
Gilbert, Eight concepts, p. 57 quoting Murray Bowen, 1976 An average family situation in
our society today is one in which people maintain a distant and formal relationship with the
family of origin, returning home for duty visits at infrequent intervals.
542
Friedman, Generation to Generation, p. 178 The average family in which both spouses
are emotionally separated from families of origin tends to become more invested in the
emotional systems of work and social situations.
543
Friedman, Generation to Generation, p. 302 Merely telling people to go back to the
family of origin is of little help. Some people are very anxious about returning to their
families. Without systems coaching, they can make the problem worse.
544
Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p. 121 Where there are cutoffs, the goal becomes
simply to get back into contact...After making contact, it may be useful to step back and
observe the emotional processes and patterned emotional behaviours in the family.
545
William Watson, Soul and System: The Integrative Possibilities of Family Therapy,
Journal of Psychology and Theology, University of Rochester Medical Center, 1997, Vol 25,
No. 1, 123-135, p. 128 The vicious intergenerational cycle is broken by the creation of a
positive cycle of blessing that passes from generation to generation. New legacies give rise
to a new identity (Galatians 2:20; 2 Corinthians 5:17)...Forgiveness is also a central theme in
family-of-origin work as it attends to the historical legacies and loyalties of family life across
generations. Family-of-origin therapies seek to promote healing, self-differentiation, and
relational justice by encouraging people to connect with family members with whom they
have unfinished emotional business that continues to colour their lives and relationships
(Bowen, 1985c; Framo, 1992; Kerr, 1984; Williamson, 1991).
102
Bowen said that if you can get a one-to-one relationship with each living person
in your extended family, it will help you 'grow up' more than anything you could
ever do in life.546 Ducklow sees family of origin work as involving the impartation of
covenantal narratives and values.547
Bowen encouraged us to do our family of origin work as a research project of
life.548 This family of origin work by conflicted couples must be done for the sake of
self rather than for togetherness.549 One of the best places for conflicted couples to
start is with the oldest members of their families. 550 Gilbert notes that
Most of the older relatives are glad someone wants to know, and that their
knowledge will not die with them. In just connecting with these members,
people report gleaning the benefits of bridging cutoffs feeling more
connected, more grounded, functioning better. 551
Conflicted couples are encouraged, when visiting their family members, to look for
the generational facts, as facts tell a story about their familys differentation and
546
Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p.119, quoting Murray Bowen, 1975; Michael P

Nichols, Family Therapy Concepts and Methods, p.137 Part of the process of differentiating
a self is to develop a personal relationship with everyone in the extended family.; Papero,
Bowen Family Systems Theory, p. 79 The effort to establish a person-to-person relationship
to all living members of ones extended family is an exercise in developing maturity and
perspective. It requires that a person recognize and master all the behaviours and feelings
that work against the ability to relate to another on a personal level.
547
Paddy Ducklow, Doctoral Thesis, p.13 (In Bowen Theory,) there is an assumption of
covenant and commitment as well as the impartation of generational narratives and
values.
548
Vol.7, No. 5, October, 1966, P.372 The goal of this (FST) therapy is to help the other person
make a research project of life.
549
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p. 518 A differentiating effort that is

successful has to be for self alone. (rather than togetherness).
550
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p. 502 Most people are eager to talk about
their own early life experiences to those interested in listening.
551
Gilbert, Eight concepts: p. 77
103
undifferentation.552 Family of origin work for conflicted couples is a fact-finding

mission which helps each spouse become more of a self rather than a pseudoself.553 These factual stories are angles of entry into the universal, if not cosmic,
processes that have formed our being. 554 Bowen admits, as with his own parents,
that this family of origin work will not necessarily go smoothly. Bowen had mistaken
avoidance and distance from his family as emancipation, but he had unfinished
emotional business with them.555 Bowens breakthrough happened in 1966 on a
home-visit when Bowen was able to relate to the family about emotional issues
without becoming personally caught in the process. 556 His family of origins initial
angry response was to write Bowen off as crazy, but they eventually came to refer
to Bowen by the honorific title of the differentiating one. 557 Bowens transparency
552
Gilbert, Eight concepts: p. 77; Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, P.120 ...a lack of self
(immaturity, attachment, or indifferentation) gets passed from generation to generation.
553
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 287 There is no way to learn these facts other
than from the family and perhaps from others closely connected to the family. Increasing
factual knowledge about ones family is an important component of becoming more of a
self"
554
Friedman, Bowen Theory and Therapy, 1991, Chapter 5, p. 148 The specifics, therefore,
of researching cutoffs; finding long lost relatives; correlating dates of change; delineating
interlocking triangles; noting similarities of symptoms, issues, and the positions of those who
become symptomatic over the generations; or changing ones responses to habitual family
interactions, while useful in their own right for obtaining distance from, and (one would
hope) gaining more objectivity about, ones present emotional state, have a far more
fundamental purpose. They are angles of entry into the universal, if not cosmic, processes
that have formed our being.
555
Nichols, Family Therapy Concepts and Methods, p. 34 As an adult, Bowen, the oldest of
five children from a tightly knit rural family, kept his distance from his parents and the rest
of his extended family. Like many of us, he mistook avoidance for emancipation. But as he
later realized, unfinished emotional business stays with us, making us vulnerable to repeat
conflicts we never got around to working out with our families.; Nichols, Family Therapy
Concepts and Methods, p. 125 ...as Bowen discovered, the family remains with us wherever
we go. ...unresolved emotional reactivity to our parents is the most important unfinished
business of our lives.
556
Kerr, Handbook of Family Therapy, p...232
557
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p. 517 (To a differentiating step) The initial
family reaction is negative and takes the form of surprise, anger, and you must be crazy
attitude. Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p. 516 Bowen: I have come to a new role in
104
about his relative ineptness and the pushback from his own family gives me hope
for my awkward attempts to self-differentiate with my family of origin. Bowen said
that his immediate goal with his family was
to avoid defending anything, or attacking any issues, to be able to avoid
getting angry even with provocation, and to have an instant casual response
to any comment.
Bowens most important family of origin breakthrough was that he was able to
detriangle from his parents.558 Ones parents may triangulate behind we-ness, and
remain hidden from the bid for re-connection. 559 This reminds me of our first
parents hiding in the bushes because they were afraid.
560
Gilbert encourages
conflicted couples doing family of origin research to look for nodal points, when
people have left or entered their family. 561 All of us, including conflicted couples, are
more emotionally attached and fused to our family of origin than we realize. 562 It is
the family which I called the role of the differentiating one.
558
Nichols, Family Therapy Concepts and Methods, p. 34 Bowens most important

achievement was detriangling from his parents, whod been accustomed to complaining to
him about each other.; Nichols, p. 34 ...Bowens maneuver was effective in keeping his
parents form trying to get him to take sides...
559
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p. 501 (Bowen): With my father, it was hard
to find personal subjects and difficult to keep a conversation alive. When I did introduce a
personal subject, he would invoke the parental we-ness and respond with Mother thinks...
With my mother, it was easy to keep conversation alive, but she would invoke triangles by
talking about other people and it was just as difficult to keep the discussion on a person-toperson level. ...With my father, I tried to prepare long lists of subjects ahead of time, but
this was not the answer. To many issues, he would respond with minimal comment, the list
would be exhausted, and again there would be the uncomfortable silence.
560
Genesis 3:8-10 They hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden...I heard you
in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked. (NIV, Zondervan, Michigan, 1985)
561
Gilbert, Eight concepts, p. 80 It is important to look for nodal events times when
people entered or left the family.
562
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p. 494 I have never seen a family in which
the emotional fusion is not present...Usually most people are not aware of the
phenomenon. ...Few people can be objective about their parents, see and think about them
as people, without either downgrading or upgrading them.
105
difficult for conflicted couples to see their family of origins triangles because they
are usually too colluded or reactive with their families. Activating ones familys
triangles is key to bringing detriangulation. Even if ones direct ancestor is dead,
the family triangles can still be activated through visiting ones cousins. 563 Making
short visits helps reduce the reactivity so that conflicted couples can be better
observers.564 As Bowen observed,
One of the most important functional patterns in a family has to do with the
intensity of the unresolved emotional attachment to parents, most frequently
to the mother for both men and women, and the way the individual handles
the attachment. All people have an emotional attachment to their parents
that is more intense than most people permit themselves to believe. ...the
denied emotional attachment to the past replicates itself with ones spouse
and children...The more one denies the attachment to the past, the less
choice one has in determining the pattern with his own wife and children (as
if he had much to begin with.)565
By facing family of origin issues like emotional distance from our parents, we
can begin to see and work on emotional patterns in couple conflict, like emotional
distance. Distance and denial in couple conflict is generationally transmitted.
Nichols commented about connecting with the most emotionally distant member of
her family, often ones father. The learning comes from understanding that the
563
Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 157 The fact that As father is dead is not an
impediment to detriangling from the parental triangle. All that is required is for A to
establish a relationship with her paternal first cousin. By making emotional contact with the
cousin, A activates the original triangle with her parents. She activates it by making contact
with a person who is part of the emotional field of her fathers family. The emotional field
does not die with the death of individual people; it is carried down the generations through
interlocking triangles...By making contact with the cousin, A not only activates the original
triangle with her parents but takes an important step toward detriangulating from it.
564
Nichols, Family Therapy Concepts and Methods, p. 146 Usually we notice only the most
obvious (family) triangles because were too emotionally engaged to be good observers.
Few people can be objective about their parents. Theyre either comfortable fused or
uncomfortably reactive. Making frequent short visits helps control emotional reactiveness so
that you can become a better observer.
565
106
intensity of ones need (as emotional pursuer of ones spouse and children) is due in
part to unfinished business. 566 Kerr and Bowen hold that
People cannot reduce distance between one another if they fail to
acknowledge and respect the process that creates the distance....People who
never felt close to their parents are usually people who have managed an
intense attachment to the family with distance and denial. 567
A key to breakthrough with ones family of origin is self-differentation, both as

the pastor/pastoral counsellor and as the conflicted spouse/adult child. 568
Leadership has to be shown, particularly in clarity about his or her own goals, as
this helps prevent the person from becoming swallowed up in the swirling emotional
whirlpool.569 Family of origin differentation has much to do with self regulation and
with playfulness.570 By doing family of origin work in a self-differentiated, innovative
way, whether as pastor/pastoral counsellor or as a conflicted spouse, one will be
evoking reactivity from ones family of origin. If one does not become swallowed by
such family of origin reactivity, there can be emotional breakthrough and new
566
567
568
Friedman, Failure of Nerve, p.12 I began to see that if I were to consider, with a two- or
three generation perspective, the thousands of families I had observed go into crisis
(whether the crisis was due to ...polarized marital conflict...), without question the single
variable that most distinguished the families that survived and flourished from those that
disintegrated was the presence of what I shall refer... a well-differentiated leader...
569
Friedman, Failure of Nerve, P.12 ... a well-differentiated leader....someone who has

clarity about his or her own goals and therefore less likely to become lost in the anxious
emotional processes swirling about.
570
Friedman, Failure of Nerve, p.18 ft 4 The problem with parents is that they had parents.
Differentiation has more to do with the self-regulation that emerges when individuals can
gain more autonomy over their reactive mechanisms as a result of moving toward their
families in new (often playful) ways rather than distancing from them.
107
insight for the conflicted couple.571 Bowen identified two major steps in Family of
Origin differentation:
The process in differentiating a self from a parental family involves two
major steps. The first is to develop the person-to-person relationships. This
step helps to bring relationships more alive, it helps one to recognize old
patterns that may have faded from view, and most of all, it results in livelier
family response to the effort to detriangle or change the old patterns. A
parental family can ignore such detriangling moves if relationships are
distant.572
The best times for conflicted couples to do family of origin work, said Bowen,
is during the transition times of life, what is sometimes called bred, wed and dead
times.573 Illnesses and holidays are also natural contexts that provide enough
anxiety to relate to the family reactivity.
574
One of the biggest mistakes is to use
these sensitive times to dump on ones family and to emotionally confront. 575 The
key with family of origin work is to observe others, but work on self, not the other
571
Edwin Friedman video: The purpose of innovation at this point is not to bring change but
to bring out multi-generational reactivity. Stay in touch with the reactivity but not get
hooked into it. Eventually it will wane.; Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p. 545
Why not focus both on the interdependence in the marriage, and on the parental family,
and get the potential gain from both approaches?
572
573
Toward the Differentation of a Self in one's own Family, by Anonymous, Bowen?, P.142
In coaching others with their families, I encourage visits when the system is emotionally
fluid or during family upsets such as deaths, serious illnesses, reunions, weddings, or other
stressful or significant family events.
574
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p. 542 Trainees are advised, whenever
possible, to be home when there is a natural emotional issue in the family. Trips home when
there is a serious illness or death, or at homecomings or holidays, often provide the levels of
family anxiety that are effective for relating to the family.
575
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p. 542 ...Probably the one biggest error that
people make in working with the extended family is emotional confrontation.; Gilbert,
Extraordinary Relationships, p.120 Too many people go back home and make accusations,
participate in confrontations, or attempt to do therapy that only ends in more intense family
emotional processes (and often in cutoff). In some cases, families have been virtually blown
apart by attempts to work on the others instead of the self.
108
way around.576 There are no quick fixes in family of origin work. Bowen talked
about four years before generational transmission patterns will be modified. 577
Gilbert envisions for conflicted couples an almost idealistic maturity that eventually
one gets to the neutral position where 'They don't love me' is irrelevant, and one
can understand from the inside that they were doing the best they knew." 578
One of the most helpful ways for conflicted couples to do family of origin work
is with the help of their pastor/pastoral counsellor to map out their family
genogram.579 The main function of the genogram, says Nichols, is to organize data
during the evaluation phase and to track relationship processes and key triangles
over the course of therapy.
580
Gilbert recommends that dates of births, moves, deaths, and immigration all
(be) recorded on the family diagram/genogram. 581 Friedman said that the emotional
system includes all the data that can be recorded on a familys genogram. 582 The
576
Gilbert, The Cornerstone Concept, p. 63 It seems many people heard Dr. Bowen when he
asked people to go back to their families. Few heard what he said to do when you got there.
There is no suggestion here of trying to change the family.
577
Friedman, Bowen Theory and Therapy, p. 163 Bowen has taught that it takes four years
to change a family, that is, to modify its emotional processes to the point that the
multigenerational transmission will not automatically continue into the next generation
and four years is not a guarantee.
578

JC Wynn, The Family Therapist, p. 144 It was Bowen who developed the now widely used
genogram as a method of taking a family history.; Nichols, Family Therapy Concepts and
Methods, p. 138 Men are represented by squares and women by circles, with their ages
inside the figures. Horizontal lines indicate marriages, with the date of the marriage written
on the line; vertical lines connect parents and children.
579
580
581
Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p. 123 Dates of births, moves, deaths, and

immigration are all recorded on the family diagram.; Nichols, Family Therapy Concepts and
Methods, p. 150 In 1950 Guerin renamed the family diagram (Bowen) the genogram.
582
109
genogram is uniquely devised to track generational transmission.
583
Nichols says
that the more organic nature of the genogram is expressed by the inclusion of
relationship conflicts, cutoffs, and triangles. 584
7) Birth Order and Couple Conflict

Walter Toman was Bowens source for the birth order concept. Friedman
commented:
Based on my research and therapy, I believe that no single piece of data is
more important than knowing the sibling position of people in the present and
past generations. (Tomans profiles, 1961)585
Toman discovered that oldest children seem to be at risk for overfunctioning,
just as youngest are for underfunctioning. 586 If the conflicted couple are two oldest
children, they will be more likely to fight each other for control. If the conflicted
couple are both youngest children, their challenge is about how to be responsible
583
Ducklow, Doctoral Thesis, p. 34 In understanding the effect of previous generations on

the function of the present generation, Bowen developed the genogram to permit a graphic
representation of the family over two or more generations.
584
Nichols, Family Therapy Concepts and Methods, p. 138 What makes a genogram more
than a static portrait of a familys history is the inclusion of relationship conflicts, cutoffs,
and triangles.
585
Friedman, Generation to Generation, p.304
586
Gilbert, Eight concepts, p. 95 ...Often noticed by those working with families is the
proneness of two oldest as spouses, to engage in conflict. Youngest, rather than fight, will
give in, so two youngest in a marriage will flounder, all things being equal, from lack of
decision-making.; Papero, p. 61; Kerr, Handbook of family therapy, P. 250 Regardless of
whether the oldest is male or female, when married to a youngest, he or she will be more
comfortable taking responsibility, making decisions, and taking action on various issues. The
oldest also has a tendency to think that he/she knows what is 'right', what is 'best', and to
inflict that on the mate. it also appears that oldest tend to carry a lion's share of the
guilt...The marriage of two oldests, on the other hand, is more likely to be a head-knocking
affair.
110
when they would rather play.
587
Middle children tend to be reconcilers, and can
function well in a marriage with either older or younger adult children. There are
many other variations of how birth order can affect couple conflict.
8) Societal Emotional Process and Couple Conflict

Because anxious triangles interlock with other triangles outside the family, societys
triangles can in turn impact the nuclear family during times of societal stress. 588
Gilbert notes that when the society is more anxious, and anxiety is infectious,
families are more anxious.589 We live in a society that is very anxious, crisisoriented, and emotionally regressive. 590 Ducklow says that crises
cause us to rubber band back (regress) to previously unresolved or
forgotten issues of our past, especially fears and pains. This lack of
differentiation is common in people as it is common in communities of
individuals. 591
587
Kerr, Handbook of family therapy, P. 250 The youngest, on the other hand, will be more
inclined to let his/her oldest spouse assume the responsibility, make the decisions, and have
the initiative.
588
Gilbert, Eight concepts, p. 101 Early on there was evidence that as triangles in the family
intensify, build and interlock, they eventually reach outside the family in networks that
include agencies, institutions and friendship systems.
589
Gilbert, Eight concepts, p. 109; Friedman, Generation to Generation, p. 304 In the 1960s,
there was growing evidence that the emotional problem in society was similar to the
emotional problem in the family. Friedman, Generation to Generation, p. 305 My current
postulation considers the chronic anxiety as the product of the population explosion,
decreasing supplies of food and raw materials necessary to maintain mans way of life on
earth, and the pollution of the environment, which is slowly threatening the balance of life
necessary for human survival.
590
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, p. 440 ...After World War II, man became
lazy and greedy as he luxuriated in the greatest period of material plenty and freedom from
want in his existence.; Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, 1974: p. 271 (Bowen)
My own thinking tended to favor the hypothesis that social anxiety was related to postwar
recovery, and to the sweeping advances in technology and the changes that went with
that.
111
Our individualistic, consumerist society is not supportive or aware of the

principles that support strong marriages and families.
592
Many other time-honoured
principles of emotional mature living, says Gilbert, such as commitment, integrity,

religious teaching and even the primacy of the family have been largely
discarded.593
In times of social regression, there is much pressure on conflicted couples to find
a quick fix.594 Quick fixes change nothing permanently and usually makes couple
conflict worse. Anxious societies polarize quickly around issues, even marriage
issues, and produce over-functioning/underfunctioning reactions that solve little. 595
Christians getting anxious about marriage and forcing reactive solutions on each
other seems inherently counterproductive. Social regression causes conflicted
591
Ducklow, p. 59, 1.7.

https://www.vista.ubc.ca/webct/RelativeResourceManager/Template/Manual%202011.pdf,
592
Gilbert, Eight concepts, p. 107 The family as an institution is not faring well in this time
of regression in society. Neither are individual families. 1. Societal mores have changed to
an anti-family ethic.; Gilbert, Eight concepts: p. 108 No thought has been given in our
society to the importance of the extended family in supporting and assisting the nuclear
family.
593
Gilbert, Eight concepts: p.106 If ones main goal in life is to seek pleasure and avoid
pain, then many other time-honored principles of emotionally mature living such as
commitment, integrity, religious teachings and even the primacy of the family itself, fall by
the wayside. It is not always easy or pleasurable, for the moment, to do what is best for the
family, over the long term.
594
Kerr and Bowen, p. 132 In an anxious environment, people who want to make decisions
based on a broad and long-term view are pushed aside by people who want quick answers
and immediate relief from problems...Functioning based on principle requires a tolerance of
anxiety and a willingness to focus on self. Functioning based on feelings and subjectivity
succumbs to the pressure for a quick reduction in anxiety and is aimed at changing others
rather than changing self.
595
Papero, Bowen Family Systems Theory, p. 64 The anxious society, like the anxious
family, has difficulty resolving its problems without polarization around an issue, cutoff,
reciprocal over-and underfunctioning, and so forth. The result is a series of crises, generally
resolved on the basis of restoring comfort rather than a thoughtful approach based on
principles and a degree of respect for differing viewpoints.
112
couples to do more of what they have always done, such as increasing their anxious
togetherness and fusion.596 This creates a vicious cycle of more anxiety and more
distance/cutoff.597
In times of social regression, togetherness counter intuitively is
often the problem, not the solution.598 Less togetherness brings greater intimacy
and less anxious reactivity. Loneliness is often systemic anxiety, where we distance
from closeness due to lack of a solid self.
We live in a regressive anxious culture that emphasizes rights more than
responsibilities, an out-of-balance emphasis that does not help conflicted couples. 599
We need to think more systemically about why there is so much divorce, so much
difficulty in people even making it into marriage. 600 Perhaps the sexual revolution
and the now dominant living together phenomenon, rather than being social
progressive, are actually examples of social regression, of fusion of two pseudoselves.601 Ducklow said that phenomena such as increasing divorce rates, sexual
596
Kerr and Bowen, p. 132 Societal reinforcement of a togetherness and feeling

orientation...is transmitted through radio, television, movies, novels, sermons, newspapers,
magazines, and gossip. ..Symptoms and aberrant or selfish behaviour are assumed to reflect
a lack of togetherness rather than to reflect an anxious togetherness in which people have
lost individual direction and are functioning in reaction to one another.
597
Gilbert, Eight concepts, p. 110 When the anxiety in a system increases, people tend to
do more of what they have always done, (increase their togetherness, with all its patterns
and postures) creating a vicious cycle.
598
Papero, Bowen Family Systems Theory, p. 63 As in the family, the critical factor is the
intensity of anxiety in society at a given point in time. The greater the level of anxiety, the
more intensely the movement toward togetherness erodes individuation.
599
Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, P. 279 The greater the anxiety, the greater
the focus on 'rights' that submerge 'responsibility'. There can be no rights without a
responsible majority to guarantee the rights. (social regression)
600
Gilbert, The Cornerstone Concept, p. 137 The United States has the highest percentage
of single-parent families in the industrialized world.
601
Systems and Spirituality book: Bowen Systems Theory, Faith and Theology -The Papers
and Proceedings of a Conference on Theology held at Washington Theological Union, July
1987 -with responses by Murray Bowen, MD, Georgetown Family Center and John F. Haught,
Ph.D. Department of Theology, Georgetown University, Edited by Joseph C. Carolin, Ph.D.,
ACSW, 1990, p. 172 Bowen: I would say the sexual revolution, if I were to date it on a
calendar, would be June 1st 1965. That is when the sexual revolution started. I would say
marriage in which there has been premarital sex is more doomed from the beginning. That
113
abuse, wars and rumors of wars, inflation and rampant diseases can be viewed as
symptoms of chronically anxious periods in society. 602 Merely focusing on an
individual couple alone, without considering the regressive societal context may be
fitting into the old psychoanalytic solution.
Gilbert holds that if social regression is to turn around, people will have to get
out of denial and start learning what is really taking place in society. 603 Society
when it is anxious encourages groupthink. Groupthink can only be overcome if we
become clear about our guiding principles, and learn to think for ourselves.
Conflicted couples need to think clearly about the principles that really matter to
them under stress. Otherwise social regression will be like an acid rain in already
fragile marital relationships.604 Gilbert pointed to the Great Awakenings, the Wesleys
and Whitfield, as examples of how renewal of faith can make a difference in
strengthening marriages and families, even in socially regressive times. 605
is when premarital sex became acceptable to society; p. 173 Bowen: I followed those livingtogether relationships...a higher percentage of them are going on over to three and four
marriages in twenty years. ....Its (sexual) exercise before society approves dooms the
marriage, a certain amount of dooming. ...That is what I call a societal regression.
602
Paddy Ducklow, Doctoral Thesis, P.66
603
Gilbert, Eight concepts, p. 112; Gilbert, The Cornerstone Concept: p. 140 Bowen
estimated that the cycles of regression and progression in society last sixty years.
604
Gilbert, Eight concepts, p. 113 Get clear on ones guiding principles and learn to think
according to them rather than what society tries to dictate. If one believes the family to be
important, for example, one will already be standing contrary to what much if not most of
society dictates.
605
Gilbert, Eight concepts, p. 114 In the Great Awakenings in England, where the Wesley
brothers and Whitefield preached according to their principles of Christian faith as they
understood it, a societal regression, which had reached an abominable state, was reversed.;
Gilbert, The Cornerstone Concept, p. 105 It is probably fair to say that the best of English
civil society came into being at this time (the First Great Awakening with the
Wesleys/Methodists)
114
Dr Karl Menninger believed that the key to turning around social regression
and therefore couple conflict would be the involvement of clergy.
606
Bringing
morphogenesis to our current societal regression involves learning to think

theologically and psychologically about what it means to be made in Gods image,
to be male and female, to be commissioned as Gods stewards of his creation. 607
Morphogenesis in regressive times is about embracing forgiveness, the power to
love.608 Morphogenesis in regressive times is about reframing our worldview in light
of Gods Kingdom perspective where everything that can be shaken will be
shaken.609 Morphogenesis in regressive times is about embracing couple conflict as
Gods pathway to intimacy, differentation, and maturity. 610
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Gilbert, The Cornerstone Concept, p. 141 Menninger...believed that any effort to address
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Leroy T Howe, Self-Differentation in Christian Perspective, Pastoral Psychology, Vol. 46,

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Van Yperen, Making Peace: a guide to overcoming church conflict, p. 241 Forgiveness is
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Couple Conflict and Family Systems Theory

After further negotiations, we settled that my guided study would begin in

Kerr and Bowen commented that the closer we get to

Observing requires self-regulation of ones emotional

Albert Einstein, http://www.memorable-quotes.com/albert+einstein,a488.html

reactivity.7 Gilbert and Bowen compare observing to putting on a lab coat or

In doing the recommended reading, it became clear to me that I needed to

Roberta M Gilbert, M.D, The Ten Percent Solution http://www.hsystems.org/4.html ...

None of us are immune to or exempt from conflict. 16 Conflict is redemptive,

Van Yperen, p. 106 Conflict is necessary for God to shape us.

6) Multigenerational Transmission Process

We live in a culture that often gives up on the family and on marriage.

Paddy Ducklow, Doctoral Project/Thesis: Coaching Church Leaders in Conflict: resolving

1) Nuclear Family Emotional System and couple conflict

Kerr and Bowen commented that

December 2002), P.8

Roberta Gilbert, Extraordinary Leadership: Thinking Systems, Making a Difference

Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 10

Marriage and Family Therapy: Psychoanalytic, Behavioral and Systems Theory

Friedman holds that Bowen

theory thus is very much a thinking therapists therapy. 31 Given my signature

Roberta M Gilbert, The Cornerstone Concept: in Leadership, in Life (Leading Systems

Friedman, Generation to Generation, p. 136

Gilbert, The Cornerstone Concept, p. 32 A second job of leadership as well as any

Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, a new way of thinking about human interactions

systems thinker is a big stretch to most people, as we usually think

Becvar states that Bowens

Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p.31; Friedman, Generation to Generation, P.9 It is

Gilbert, The Cornerstone Concept, p. 69

A common misconception is that Family Systems Theory is a subset of

As Friedman put it, we did not design

Theory is similar to discovering a pre-existing tribal system in deepest Africa that no

Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 28

Nichols teaches that we need to pay attention in couple conflict to process

Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 188

Friedman, Generation to Generation, p. 294

structure to the interlocking network of triangles. 54 Sometimes the intense chaos of

In a recent marriage sermon that I gave at my son and daughter-in-laws

Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. xi

As a former Freudian psychoanalyst, Bowen birthed most of his Family

Friedman comments about the

exaggerated importance of being informed, and the colossal failure of insight to

Friedman, Failure of Nerve, P.25

Margaret Carlson, Problem-Solving Family Therapy (Faculty of Social Welfare, University of

Edwin Friedman video, quoting Murray Bowen

This relationship process though it is usually not immediately visible, once it

Weddings have a major impact on the family homeostasis

and release major generational transmission in terms of the emotional processes in

Merely living together, Friedman suggested, has less

http://www.thebowencenter.org/pages/murraybowen.html (Murray Bowen) has been

Daniel V Papero, Bowen Family Systems Theory (A Pearson Education Company,

Friedman, Generation to Generation, p. 179

Friedman said that

the undifferentiated family ego mass is ...an conglomerate emotional

1a) Coaching and Couple Conflict

Friedman, Generation to Generation, p, 179 Awareness of the emotional processes in

Friedman, Generation to Generation, p. 295

Friedman, Generation to Generation, p. 171

Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p. 117 quoting Murray Bowen, 1975: The

Daniel V Papero, Bowen Family Systems Theory (A Pearson Education Company,

Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p. 159, quoting Murray Bowen, 1975; Michael P

Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships, p. 169 Professionals trained in Bowen theory refer to

Gilbert, http://www.hsystems.org/4.html The Ten Percent Solution, ...When people make

conflicted couple by themselves can increase their ability to distinguish between