Bowen Family Systems Theory

Paper Summary:

This paper examines Bowen's Family-Systems Theory, also known as Bowen Theory and Bowen Natural Systems Theory, the name given to an approach to behavioral psychology for its principal theoretician, Murray Bowen. It analyzes how Bowen's theory shows that the proper way of identifying systems is in terms not of hierarchy structures but rather of networks and interpenetration, with multiple influences and cues informing individual experiences and responses. It discusses its approach to the analysis and clinical treatment of family systems, how it may be distinguished from other family theories and how it can be successfully used in a community setting by a community.

From the Paper:

"Bowen's approach to family systems can be distinguished from the Freudian conception of family in terms of the tension between archetypes (ego, id, superego) and the symbolic character of Oedipal dynamics in personal psychology as a proxy for the relationship of the individual's ego and id, which are always in tension, to the superego of civilization, with which both are in tension. Indeed, tension and balance of the three archetypal tendencies in human experience are always in the background of Freud's discourse."

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