nter for the Study of the Family, 2004, p. 1).
In time, more tension grew between my parents and I became very unhappy. One day when I received a low grade for an English class, Mother got angry and screamed at me hysterical. She said, "You're misbehaving and I will not tolerate it!" "You usually make all A's in your classes!" When Mother told Father that I received a C in my English class, he sided with Mother, agreeing that I was misbehaving. Then Father started hollering at me and to my surprise, Mother sided with me and started hollering obscenities at Father. After this argument, Father tried to have a closer relationship with me and Mother. For a time, it seemed as though both of my parents had united and were happy. However, as Mother and I grew closer, Father began to distance himself from me and cut me off emotionally. Emotional cutoff according to Bowen, describes "people managing their unresolved issues . . . by reducing or totally cutting off emotional contact with them" (Bowen Center for the Study of the Family, 2004, p. 1). Now, he came home from work even later and Mother started spending most of her time with me. During this time, she continually complained to me about how Father did not treated her unkindly and that their marriage was awful. Soon, Mother and I did shopping, cooking, movies and just about everything together.
In the above paragraphs of the story, there is a relationship pattern called an unstable system. According to Bowen, the triangle or three-person relationship system is able to tolerate more than a two-person system, which is "unstable" (Bowen Center for the Study of the Family, 2004, p. 1). Bowen based many of his own concepts on the earlier work done by theorist in "systems theory," which holds that all systems seek stability or equilibrium. In physical systems, as in geometry, the stablest shape is the triangle. Bowen applied this observation to families: two-person systems,...