Family Therapists

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, other

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nt on the family. Some families needed only 5 to 10 sessions. Other families needed from 20 to 40 sessions (Goldenberg & Goldenberg, p. 162.) The structural approach to family therapy regards family hierarchy, wholeness, and subsystems as key determinants of emotional well-being. (This approach is primarily associated with Salvador Minuchin.) A family's structure is the set of rules that govern the manner of interaction between members. One of the components of a family's structure is its subsystems. Subsystem divisions are based on gender, generation, common interests, and function. Alignments, coalitions, power, and boundaries are other important considerations in the structural approach to family therapy. The structural approach is more systems-oriented than Bowen's theory. Also, the structural approach focuses on the nuclear family whereas Bowen included extended family, various generations, and society in his analysis. Both Minuchin and Bowen use diagrams to depict family patterns--Minuchin to describe current family structure, Bowen to analyze multigenerational patterns. The goal of therapy in structural family theory is the assumption of organizational changes in the family, the transformation of its struct
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