Bowen Systems Therapy

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Bowen Systems Therapy
All of life is a struggle between connection and
individuality

• Intro to Theories of Therapy

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BST Concepts

• Two types of anxiety
• Chronic
• Acute
• One goal of BST is to get people to sit with
  the anxiety they will always have.
• Problems arise by people finding temporary ways
  of reducing anxiety.

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BST Eight interlocking theoretical concepts

• None is fully understandable without some
  comprehension of the others.
• All of the following are tied together by the
  underlying premise that chronic anxiety is
  omnipresent in life.

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BST Differentiation (1)

• Differentiating between thoughts and feelings and
  self from other.
• Differentiated people
• Distinguish between thoughts and feelings
• Choose between being guided by ones intellect or
  emotions
• Can experience strong affect or shift to calm,
  logical reasoning
• Flexible, adaptable, and better able to cope with
  stress
• Flexible boundaries that permit emotional
  intimacy and physical union with another without
  fear

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BST Differentiation contd

• Goal of all Bowen therapy is to
• Key is to increase the choices one has and not
  making decisions based on emotional reactivity.

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BST More on differentiation

• Emotional reactivity is the opposite.

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BST Fusion Cutoff (2)

• Emotional fusion use emotions of self and others
  as a guide, dependency or distance within
  familial relationships, possess a pseudo or false
  self.
• Emotional Cutoff a flight of extreme emotional
  distancing in order to break emotional tiesnot
  true emancipation.

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BST Even more concepts

• Triangles (3)
• Nuclear Family Emotional System (4)

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BST Family projection process

• Family Projection Process (5)
• Levels of differentiation differ with each child
• Most vulnerable child has lower levels with
  parents
• Child enters into a triangle with the parents

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BST Three remaining concepts

• Multigenerational Transmission Process
• Sibling Position
• Societal Regression

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BST Techniques

• Genogram
• Objectivity is important for the clinician
• Diagnosis is not important to the Bowen therapist
• Most therapy is done with either couples or
  individual
• Therapist must be well-differentiated
• I language