Most modern family therapists recognize the importance of treating the family as a unit instead of as disparate individuals. Bowen, Behavioral, and Communication/Strategic family therapies all have this approach in common. The goals, major time frames, and role of therapist in these treatments is widely divergent, however.
Murray Bowen is a major theoretician in the development of family therapy. His family systems theory views the family as an emotional unit consisting of interlocking relationships. Bowen probes beyond the limited scope of the nuclear family, analyzing multigenerational issues and historical framework as well (Goldenberg and Goldenberg, p. 145). Bowen believed that human family relationship systems were governed by the same evolutionary processes as non-human and inanimate systems in nature.
Bowen developed eight theoretical concepts that described the emotional processes taking place within human family systems. The concepts are: differentiation of self, triangles, nuclear family emotional system, family projection process, emotional cutoff, multigenerational transmission process, sibling position, and societal regression. One of the most important concepts is self-differentiation, which involves the ability of the individual to differentiate thought from feeling and thus avoid fusion with the dominant emotional inclination of the family unit. All eight concepts are interlocking; some take place within the nuclear and extended families, others describe family intergenerational and societal interaction.
Prather (1995) and Pearsall (1990) agree with Bowen's inclusion of intergenerational issues in family therapy, particularly where one's adult parents are concerned. The parental/child relationship holds the key to the success of future interpersonal efforts. Mending any childhood damage resulting from dysfunctional relationships with parents is a prerequisite to becoming "a whole parent to you...