MAY I HELP YOU?

A REFLECTION ON BOWEN FAMILY SYSTEMS THEORY AND CHRISTIAN ETHICS

by Margaret J. Marcuson

 

One of the most significant developments in my own thinking over the last several years has been my exposure to Bowen Family Systems Theory, developed by Murray Bowen, particularly as expressed in the work of Edwin H. Friedman. I first read Friedman's book, Generation to Generation: Family Process in Church and Synagogue, about four years ago. I also studied with him in his Postgraduate Seminars in Family Emotional Process. His ideas have revolutionized my thinking, my ministry and my life -- I say this without exaggeration!

I am glad to have this opportunity to reflect theologically on Bowen theory and Friedman's work. Ed Friedman died very suddenly in October, 1996. His impact on my life goes far beyond the number of hours I spent in his very remarkable presence, and I dedicate this paper to his memory.

In this paper I want to present some of the basic concepts of Bowen theory and do a little theological reflection on them, especially as they relate to Christian ethics. The theory is multi-layered and presents challenges in understanding as well as in applying it -- perhaps something like theology!

Bowen Family Systems Theory has several central concepts, including self-differentiation, emotional fields, homeostasis and chronic anxiety, which we will look at briefly. Other important ideas include the identified patient and the emotional triangle.

A key part of Bowen theory is the concept of "differentiation of self." Friedman has defined differentation in this way: "the capacity...to define his or her own life goals and values apart from surrounding togetherness pressures, to say 'I' when others are demanding 'you' and 'we.' It includes the capacity to maintain a (relatively) non-anxious presence in the midst of anxious systems, to take maximum responsibility for one's own destiny and emotional being....Differentiation means the capacity to be an 'I' while remaining connected." (Friedman, 1985, 27)

Differentiation is different from individuation or autonomy because it means both being a self and remaining connected to others. Anyone can be a self in isolation, whatever that is worth. Where the rubber meets the road is in contact with others. Can we be clear about who we are and about our deepest values while remaining connected emotionally to our mothers, our spouses, our troublesome church members, our denomination?

Murray Bowen hypothesized a scale of differentiation, from the least mature to the most mature, and suggested that all human beings fall on this continuum, with no one higher than about 70 (out of 100). Where we fall on this scale depends largely on where our parents and previous generations were, and what our place in our own family is. Siblings may be higher or lower on the scale depending on various factors in the family (birth order, family stress at the time of birth, other family history factors). We tend to marry individuals with similar ranges. (Friedman, 1985, 27-28)

Those who are less well-differentiated have less well-developed individuality. Their togetherness needs are very strong. Michael Kerr describes the very poorly differentiated person this way: "[His] individuality is practically non-existent. His emotional reactions are easily triggered, intense and prolonged, and he has almost no psychological development that permits him to be a separate person...As differentiation increases, individuality is better developed, togetherness needs are less intense, and emotional reactiveness is better modulated." (Kerr and Bowen 1988, 68)

Those who are better differentiated (have more "self") may or may not have fewer apparent social, psychological and physical symptoms and problems than others. But they are better equipped to deal with the crises of life, have greater resiliency and recuperative powers, are less stressed. (Gurman and Kniskern 1991, 143) The focus is on the response rather than the condition. Friedman says, "given the same objective circumstances, families or individuals are more likely to dysfunction or develop symptoms to the extent that their differentiation is low, and to tolerate more symptoms or rebound better from intense crises to the extent that their differentiation is high."

Friedman expresses his view of the scale of differentiation as a "focus on strength rather than pathology. It comes up fully on the side of personal responsibility rather than faulting the stars, society, the environment, or one's parents, for that matter....differentiation is inherently an antivictim, antiblaming focus...precisely because differentiation is a focus on the individual's response, it refuses to allow the system to take all the responsibility." (Gurman and Kniskern 1991, 144)

Can people increase their level of differentation and thereby improve their response to their environment? Yes, if they are willing to work on defining a self while still remaining connected to important people in their lives. They have to be willing to face the emotional reactivity which will occur.

Another Bowen concept is that of homeostasis (balance). A system, including a family system, achieves a certain balance over time. There is an interdependency among the parts. When one part (e.g., a family member) makes a change, it upsets the balance. The other parts will try to restore the balance. If one person begins to act in a more mature manner, the others may act more immature in order to bring things back into balance. To truly develop greater differentiation, one must stay on course in the face of reactions which amount to attempted sabotage of the effort toward differentiation. (See Friedman 1985, 23-27)

For example, a wife who has submerged herself in her marriage and children may decide she needs to develop more of a self. She may decide to go back to school. One of her children may develop serious problems at school, or her husband may begin drinking. Her task in increasing differentiation is not to adapt to the symptom, which might mean dropping out of school, but to calmly continue with her own path while staying emotionally connected to her family. This illustration shows just how challenging the path of increasing differentiation can be.

Another critical concept in Bowen theory is the notion of the emotional field, or emotional system. This refers to any group of people (or other form of life, for that matter) which has become interdependent, has some level of organization and intercommunication. The structure, or field, comes to influence the parts more than the parts influence the functioning of the system. This is true of ant colonies, human bodies, families and churches.

Friedman suggests, "A family emotional system includes the members' thoughts, feelings, emotions, fantasies, associations and past connections, individually and together. It includes their physical makeup, genetic heritage, and current metabolic states. It involves their sibling position and their parents' sibling positions. It rotates on the axes of their respective paths within the multigenerational processes transmitted from their own families of origin, including the fusion and the cutoffs. It includes the emotional history of the system itself, particularly the conditions under which it originally took shape..." (Gurman and Kniskern 1991, 144) In other words, a family emotional system is big!

The term "emotional field," sometimes used instead of "emotional system," is useful because of the analogy with fields in nature. No one has ever seen a magnetic field, or a gravitational field, just as we cannot see emotional fields. These fields are inferred from the predictable ways metals, or planets, or people, behave in their presence. (see Kerr, 1988, 55)

The emotional field in a given family results in members coming to occupy differing functioning positions within the family. For example, most people are aware of the different characteristics generally associated with different sibling positions within the family. Oldest children tend to feel and act responsible for younger children, whether or not parents encourage this behavior. (Kerr and Bowen 1988, 55)

Functioning positions operate in reciprocal relationship to one another. Someone who "overfunctions," takes greater responsibility in the relationship or in the system, relates to another who "underfunctions," takes less responsibility. They each shape the attitudes, feelings and behavior of the other. The overfunctioning person feels responsible for the emotional well-being of the other, and works (often very hard) to make up for perceived deficiency in the other's functioning. The underfunctioning person is dependent on the other. (Kerr and Bowen 1988, 55-56) Our tennis-playing couple clearly illustrate this pattern.

Relationships within the emotional field can differ depending on the level of differentiation. The greater the level of differentiation, the greater the flexibility of the relationship. People at lower levels of differentiation, at lower maturity, depend more on important relationships for their functioning and sense of well-being. People at higher levels of differentiation can move closer or farther away from one another without being threatened. They are not dependent on each other's acceptance and approval for their sense of self. At lower levels of differentiation, people have a less well developed sense of self, and are more dependent upon the relationship. (Kerr and Bowen 1988, 73-75) They are more likely to adapt to one another in order to preserve the relationship, or, conversely, exhibit extreme emotional reactivity within the relationship. In the classic church fight about carpet color, both the person who wants to keep the peace at all costs and the person who furiously insists on green or red demonstrate low levels of differentiation.

The presence of what is known as chronic anxiety affects all of relationships, and all of life itself. Chronic anxiety is not what we think of as being overtly "anxious" about something. It is the "emotional and physical reactivity of all protoplasm." It is a quality humans share with all of life. For people, "the principal generators of chronic anxiety are reactions to a disturbance in the balance of a relationship system." (Kerr and Bowen 1988, 113) So an event such as a birth or a death in a family does disturb the family system, but anxiety that is chronic comes more from how people deal with the disturbance: their reaction to the disturbance of the emotional field rather than their reaction to the event itself. A significant death where reaction is extreme can disturb the balance of a family for generations. (Kerr and Bowen 1988, 114)

According to Bowen theory, chronic anxiety is the root cause of all symptoms, whether physical, emotional or relational. (Gurman and Kniskern 1991, 140) Friedman suggests that the antidote to the presence of chronic anxiety, and the preventive medicine, always is differentiation.

As a pastor I have always felt that my goal was to promote growth. Friedman offers a model of "leadership through self-differentiation." The implications of this for me are that if I mature, as I mature, there is a corresponding jump up in the level of maturity of any group I lead. Of course, this does not occur without some reaction, some attempted sabotage. The principle of homeostasis tells us that any system will work to restore the status quo. But a concerted effort even in the face of reactivity can change the nature of a system.

In 1970 the results of some research were published in which individual organisms from a species that had not evolved immune systems were moved toward one another in increasingly greater degree of proximity. What was observed was that at a certain distance the smaller organism began to disintegrate, and within 24 hours had lost the principles of its organization completely. The larger organism did nothing to attack the smaller. The smaller organism disintegrated as a result of its own metabolic processes functioning in relation to the proximity of the other. (Gurman and Kniskern 1991, 156)

According to Friedman, these findings "suggest that the major problem of families may not be to get members to be closer, but to enable them to be clearer about where they end and others in their life begin. Most of the helping professions seem to be largely concerned with promoting proximity rather than differentiation, despite the fact that the natural movement of protoplasm seems to be toward other protoplasm. In other words, the basic problem in families may not be to maintain relationships but to maintain the self that permits nondisintegrative relationships." (Gurman and Kniskern 1991, 156)

These concepts: differentiation, emotional fields or systems, homeostasis and chronic anxiety provide a beginning framework for understanding Bowen theory.

 

So what does all this have to do with theology? Friedman himself did some informal theological reflection which may serve as a beginning point.

Friedman viewed the very nature of evil as invasive and unregulated. He noted that all pathogens, whether they are viruses, malignant cells or troublesome people, lack self-regulation. All things that lack self-regulation are both invasive of neighbor space and cannot learn from their experience (Friedman, lecture, May 29, 1996).

Individuals who are the troublemakers in a family or an institution are always invasive of their neighbor's space. Predator organizations, whether totalitarian nations or organized crime, operate like a virus or a cancer cell (Friedman, lecture, May 29, 1996).

He suggested that almost all immoral or unethical activity can be understood as a disorder of the self. The unethical or immoral person is aggrandizing the self, making themselves more important than they really are (Friedman 1991).

Friedman put the whole issue this way: "All immoral behavior, meaning relational initiatives that are manipulative of others, may be understood as a form of dependency. The unethical or immoral act is never a focus on the self of the perpetrator, but on the use of another. Unethical behavior always makes the immoral person's goals dependent on the behavior or the being of the other. The critical issue of morality, therefore, is not how one focuses on another but how one focuses on oneself, and the byword should be: 'I will strive not to make my own salvation dependent on the functioning (no less the existence) of another.'" (Friedman 1991) Making our salvation dependent on others shows a lack of self-differentiation.

On the other hand, the self is important. Can we think of self in terms of integrity, not narcissism or autocracy? Friedman suggested that if you are going to deal with the pathogenic forces in this world, you have to have a healthy dose of self (Friedman 1991).

Friedman offered the idea that the concept of differentiation leads to a concept of the self that is moral. The Bowenian notion is of a self that is connected -- never a cut-off self, but also never an invasive self. So the self can pursue its own development, but will automatically not be invasive and destructive of others (Friedman 1991).

Friedman said that the major issue in differentiation is one's own values and goals. Once again, the basic philosophy/theology should be that I will not make my salvation dependent on others. I will take maximum responsibility for my functioning. What keeps the focus on self moral is accountability -- to myself if not to others. This moves away from blaming others and toward taking responsibility for my own being and destiny. With this approach, it is less likely that one will be invasive and thus harmful of others (Friedman, lecture, September 19, 1996).

The notion of differentiation says that togetherness, to be worth anything, depends on the self of the partners. Both must have self in order for a mature relationship to exist.

 

Where my own thinking has been headed with this lately has to do with "doing good," "helping others," and the question of invasiveness. This is related to the notion of the overfunctioning/underfunctioning reciprocity, in which both the "overfunctioner," the person taking too much responsibility, and the "underfunctioner," the person taking not enough responsibility, lack self. Neither is able to determine what is most important for themselves and follow a clear direction forward.

The overfunctioner is just as dependent on the underfunctioner as the underfunctioner is dependent on the overfunctioner. They in fact are both immature and unable to have a mature focus on self.

Reflecting on these concepts, and on my own experience as an overfunctioner (like most clergy) has brought me to the question: Is much of the "good" we do overfunctioning?

Overfunctioning involves getting in the space of another. It involves being convinced that I know what is right for someone else. Overfunctioners believe that no one else can do it as well as they can. That sounds to me suspiciously like the sin of pride.

Paul's image of the body of Christ may provide some help to us here. He says, "The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I have no need of you,' nor again the head to the feet, 'I have no need of you.' On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable..."

(I Cor. 12:21). The body of Christ provides an image of individuals who are connected together, each responsible for his or her own functioning, and ultimately to Christ as the Head.

For me to suggest that I know what is best for others is to usurp their function and limit their functioning. It also keeps me from focusing on myself and on my own functioning. If I spend all my time doing "good" things for others, I don't have to pay attention to myself. And I may get a lot of attention from others for my "good" works, too!

If the nature of evil is invasive, as Friedman suggests, and overfunctioning is invasive, what does that say about much of the "good" we do?

Let's go back for a moment to the two organisms in the study mentioned earlier. As the organisms were moved closer and closer, the smaller organism began to disintegrate and was destroyed. There was no hostile attack, but the proximity of these two organisms without immune systems (without self) was enough to destroy the smaller.

One human being can destroy another with hostile intent, and we can clearly call that evil. One human being can also destroy another without hostile intent, if each one lacks self. Perhaps this is truly "killing with kindness." The overfunctioning one in effect absorbs the other. We can see the extreme case in the parent who will not allow a child to mature, and continues to make decisions for the child and protects the child from the world. We can agree on the destructive aspect of this way of functioning.

But as Bowen described it, differentiation is a continuum. What about the less extreme cases? In family life, in terms of traditional roles, we all know the husband who takes all the responsibility for finances, or the wife who takes all the responsibility for parenting. Each is keeping his or her spouse from developing in those areas, from learning to function there.

If I am keeping someone from growing by my overfunctioning (and, incidentally, distracting myself from my own growth), am I not hurting them (and myself)? Is that not ethically questionable?

The immature cell/person/organization lacks self-regulation. When we rush in to help someone, we are often acting in an un-self-regulated manner. Our own anxiety causes us to want to do something -- not because we really have a sense of what is best, but because we lack the maturity to sit back and wait.

Susan Luff, a therapist and R.N. who worked with Friedman in his training program for clergy, argues that while helping is thought to be altruistic, helping often is not truly for others. It is really for ourselves and our need to avoid our own anxiety. She says, "Helping can be selfish," and quotes Alan Watts: "Kindly let me help you before you drown, as he placed the fish safely up in the tree." (Luff, lecture, October 26, 1995)

Friedman relates altruism to self-regulation (Friedman, lecture, May 29, 1996). Anxious helping is not altruistic, and often does not "help" at all. It does not lead to growth, but to dependency.

I do not mean to say that all helping is invasive and unethical or that we should immediately stop doing good things for people. I do mean to ask whether challenge can be as good as "help." Perhaps making demands of people can be more helpful than doing good things for them. Yet humility is also appropriate as we relate to people, even when we think we know best. Perhaps if we get out of their way, they can come up with creative solutions to their problems that we never even dreamed of. Even if these solutions are not as "effective" as ours, those involved will be better off for having created and applied them.

We may find it hard to imagine that what we have thought of as "good" behavior can potentially be "evil," harmful to others. I have found that using this approach does involve a reorientation of the mind, a new way of thinking.

Can Bowen's concept of differentiation help us as we seek to live mature and ethical lives? Remember that differentation of self involves a focus on self, a clarity about one's own purpose and values, yet remaining connected to others. Being a self, being connected -- these are the twin aspects of differentiation.

If I am a self, with clear boundaries, I am less likely to invade others and take advantage of their boundaries. Yet I will not withdraw in selfish isolation. I will remain engaged with others. In this way I can make a difference -- not by anxiously running around trying to fix everything and everyone, but by the nature of my better-differentiated presence in the emotional system. This is true whether I am relating to my family, my congregation, my denomination or the society at large. This focus on self is not selfish, because our "self," who we are, is God-given. And the more I mature myself, the more I will be able to call others to maturity. Jesus himself said "Love your neighbor as yourself." (Mark 12:31) To follow this command to love we must be a self.

This approach to ethics is much different from a rule book approach. There is no magic "technique" for ethical behavior toward others, no list of do's and don't's. "It's not what you do, but how you do it," was another favorite Friedman aphorism. If I "help" someone, anxiously assuming it is my responsibility to solve their problem, I will probably do more harm than good. If I offer a helping hand with the notion that the responsibility for their lives is theirs alone, and with a relaxed sensibility about it, perhaps I am indeed helping. If I know when to offer challenge, that too can be a "help." The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once said, "a good friend is like a hard bed."

While Bowen theory may be relatively new on the scene, similar insights have been understood through the ages. Two medieval writers, as interpreted in the modern era, may offer us some guidance in this matter. Joan Chittister, writing about St. Benedict's guidelines for abbots and prioress of Benedictine communities, suggests an approach for leaders that makes room for challenge as well as support, and does not foster dependency. She points out: "Benedict wants a community that is led, but not driven. The concept is clear: people are not acquitted of the responsibility for their own souls. Personal decisions are still decisions, personal judgments are still judgments, free will is still free will. Being in a family does not relieve a child of the responsibility to grow up. The function of twenty-one-year-olds is not to do life's tasks as their parents told them to when they were six years old. The function of twenty-one-year-olds is simply to do the same tasks well and to take accountability themselves for having done them....The role of leadership is not to make lackeys or foot soldiers or broken children out of adult Christians." (Chittister 1992, 38)

Each of us must ultimately find our own way. It is irresponsible and arrogant to presume to know that way for another. And to put it positively, sometimes we can be the most "help" by giving people space to find creative solutions to their own struggles. Sometimes, to do "the good" is to do nothing while remaining emotionally present and connected to people.

Gerald May discusses the ideas of St. John of the Cross under the title "Don't Be a Pest." Four hundred years ago John offered advice to spiritual directors of people who were moving toward deeper awareness of God, and were in distress as a result. John says directors often know only how to "hammer and pound" with practices and concepts that "they themselves have used or read of somewhere," these "pestiferous" directors work against the exquisite gift God is giving.

May uses this example from John of the Cross: "Images and perceptions of God disappear. A person might say, 'God used to be very real for me as a loving Presence, but now all I find is emptiness and void." Spiritual directors may desperately want to help fill this void, but John says it would be a mistake to try to do so....Putting it succinctly, he says, 'God does not fit in an occupied heart." (May 1997, 5)

So real spiritual implications exist in our overfunctioning, our getting in the space of others. What could be more ethically questionable than interfering in someone's relationship with God? Yet I must plead guilty as I think of the times I have been made so anxious by someone's spiritual crisis that I wanted to do something, anything, to make it better.

Friedman suggests in Generation to Generation, "One of the subtlest yet most fundamental effects of overfunctioning is spiritual. It destroys the spiritual quality of the overfunctioner. Several ministers and rabbis have reported, after switching professions: 'Now I can go back to being a good Christian/Jew; now I can enjoy prayers and the Holy Days again." (Friedman, 1985, 212)

"Don't be a pest" may be my new watchword as a pastor! Isn't it more commendable to respect people's capabilities than to assume I know best? Even as a parent, there are many times when I will do my children more "good" by giving them space, by "getting small" as Friedman once put it (Friedman 1991), than by a conviction that I always know best under every circumstance from birth to age 18 (and beyond!).

For those of us with a lifetime of practice in pestering others to let us do things "for their own good," this new approach is not easy. We may feel deep within us that this approach is cold, unfeeling, unchristian -- unethical! Not helping is BAD. We are programmed to help. Those of us who enter professional ministry are probably as thoroughly programmed as anyone! But can we learn to trust God with the lives of others?

If you will permit me a word of personal testimony, when I can overcome the feelings I've described, that is, my own anxious need to be helpful, I find greater freedom and creativity in my own response to people, and greater response on their part. I have found this to be true in my own family, in individuals I've worked with, and with the congregation as a whole.

Being too serious can be an enemy in this process. Taking responsibility for everything and everyone is a very serious position! Being "good" (ethical) and being serious are not identical. A light touch can go a long way toward clarifying what we do and don't need to do for others. In order to have this relaxed and light touch, we need to have a sense of security. That security can come from faith. If we live out of trust in God, we can relax -- we don't have to worry about taking care of everyone, because all the results do not depend on us.

Perhaps Jesus can be our model here. I remember reading The Humor of Christ , by Elton Trueblood, as a teenager, and finding the idea revolutionary that Jesus had a sense of humor -- a light touch! Jesus as portrayed in the gospels also gives people space, and makes space for himself. Jesus, more than anyone else, was able to live out of a position of relaxed trust. He simply said, "Your sins are forgiven. Go and sin no more."

Paul says in Philippians 2:12, "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling..." As a leader, he is telling them to obey him, but acknowledging that the responsibility for their lives is ultimately their own. Elsewhere he says, "Bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ." (Galatians 6:2). How can we obey both these injunctions? As we mature, emotionally and in the faith, we are better able to deal with tension and ambiguity. Should we bear someone's burdens or challenge them to work out their salvation? It depends! Don't be a pest!

Bibliography

Bowen, Murray. Family Therapy in Clinical Practice. New York: Jason Aronson, 1978.

Chittister, Joan. The Rule of Benedict. New York: Crossroad, 1992.

Friedman, Edwin H. Family Process and Process Theology. Alban Institute, 1991. Videocassette and study guide.

__________. Friedman's Fables. New York: Guilford Press, 1990.

___________. Generation to Generation: Family Process in Church and Synagogue. New York: Guilford Press, 1985.

__________. Lecture presented at the Postgraduate Clergy Seminar in Family Emotional Process, Bethesda, Maryland, May 19, 1996.

__________. Lecture presented at the Postgraduate Clergy Seminar in Family Emotional Process, Bethesda, Maryland, September 19, 1996.

Gurman, Alan S. and David Kniskern, eds., Handbook of Family Therapy, Vol. 2. New York: runner/Mazel, 1991.

Luff, Susan. "Overfunctioning Leadership Gone Awry." Lecture presented at the Postgraduate Clergy Seminar in Family Emotional Process, Bethesda, Maryland, October 26, 1995.

May, Gerald. "Don't Be a Pest," Shalem News, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Summer 1997).

 

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