Murray Bowen Emotional Interconnectedness Of Family

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Carl Whitaker, Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy, and James Framo expanded the field of psychology with their contributions to family therapy. They utilized various techniques that promoted family patterns, involving third-generation family members, and problems existing within a group of blood related people. Involving relatives and their normal series of obstacles provides insight into the family’s unresolved issues that are likely to cause conflict throughout each generation. This particular transgenerational concept offers a psychoanalytical approach to historical influences, which can affect a family’s current functioning (Goldenberg, Goldenberg, 2013, p. 204). Out of the listed leaders in family therapy, Murray Bowen developed and broadened the understanding of the emotional interconnectedness of families. …show more content…

205). Bowen designed an experiment to test symbiosis, or an intense enmeshment, and fusion between the schizophrenic patients and their mothers (Goldenberg, Goldenberg, 2013, p. 205). He found the “emotional intensity” between mother and child were influential and implied other close relatives intermittent interactions were influencing family issues (Goldenberg, Goldenberg, 2013, p. 206). Winek (2009) makes an interesting point when he says, “Bowen’s work can be understood as an attempt to explain natural evolutionary emotional process. That is, it seeks to establish a model of how animals in general and specifically the human animal adapt to their environments” (Winek, 2009, p. 82). Murray Bowen’s experiences helped him formulate premises regarding family connectedness, anxiety, life forces, and emotional and feeling perception and distinction (Kerr,

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