Bowen Theory in Relationships: Beyond Communication Tips
A recent Guardian article presents 19 recommendations from therapists on improving relationships. The advice contains valuable insights. When I apply Bowen theory to relationships and view these suggestions through that lens, I see both strengths and opportunities for deeper understanding.
This analysis is written for mental health professionals and students interested in how Dr. Murray Bowen’s family systems theory informs our understanding of relationship advice. Let’s explore what works well and how other recommendations could be strengthened with a systems perspective.
What the Article Gets Right
Focus on Self Rather Than Changing Others
The article’s strongest recommendation aligns perfectly with Bowen theory: “Work out what you can change yourself.” As therapist Andrew G Marshall notes, “My number one question to people is: what could you do differently? Because you know that is within your grasp.”
I believe this reflects a core Bowen principle. The path to better relationships runs through self-focus, not other-focus.
When we invest energy in trying to change our partner, parent, or colleague, we’re operating from an anxious, fused position. Real change occurs when we manage our own reactivity and functioning.
What is differentiation of self? Differentiation of self is the degree to which a person can maintain their own thinking and principles while staying emotionally connected to others. It’s the capacity to be yourself, expressing genuine thoughts and feelings, while remaining connected to people who disagree without requiring their agreement or approval.
What I find more useful: Rather than tactical behavior change, focus on increasing your level of differentiation. Ask yourself: “How can I maintain my principles and thinking while staying emotionally connected to this person?” rather than “What techniques can I use to get a better response?”
Be Yourself in Relationships
The article’s advice to avoid excessive self-editing speaks directly to differentiation of self. Marshall observes that when people continuously edit themselves to avoid conflict, “you become less and less of yourself.”
This captures the essence of emotional fusion, the state where people sacrifice their own thinking and functioning to maintain emotional togetherness with others. Over time, this creates the very distance and resentment it aims to prevent.
Why this matters: A better differentiated person can be fully themselves while staying connected to others. This means being authentic without defensive reactivity or requiring agreement.
Manage Your Own Emotional State First
Emma Svanberg’s recommendation to “reboot yourself” before trying to recover after conflict demonstrates systems thinking. She advises connecting with yourself first “so you’re feeling grounded, energized and robust rather than run ragged and in need of the ‘fix’.” I’d suggest that the goal is to become calmer, clearer, and more thoughtful about the situation.
This recognizes that our emotional state affects the entire relational system. When we approach repair from a reactive, anxious position, we often create more issues rather than resolution.
What I notice: This is about self-regulation, managing your own anxiety and reactivity before engaging with others. The ability to calm your own emotional reactivity is fundamental to mature relating. Ironically, getting some physical distance and time can help with this self-regulation, though this differs from emotional cutoff, which creates lasting barriers to connection.
Take a “time-out.” Think about it for 24 hours. Go out for a walk. With all of these items, reflect on “what part am I playing in this?”
How Does Bowen Theory Improve Relationship Advice?
“Communication is Key” Needs Qualification
The article emphasizes communication techniques, making time to talk, listening, and acknowledging feelings. While not wrong, this creates a misleading impression that better communication skills solve relationship problems.
What I’ve observed: The issue isn’t primarily about communication techniques. It’s about the level of differentiation in the relationship.
Two highly anxious, reactive people can follow perfect communication protocols and still end up in destructive patterns. Meanwhile, two reasonably differentiated people can communicate poorly and still maintain a functional relationship.
I think communication problems are symptoms of underlying anxiety and fusion, not the root cause.
Better approach: Rather than focusing on communication techniques, work to:
- Increase your capacity to think clearly when emotions run high
- Maintain your principles with no need for others’ agreement
- Stay emotionally connected to important people even during disagreement
- Use “I” language versus “we”. You have feelings, but they’re only yours
“Listen and Acknowledge Feelings” Requires Balance
The article recommends that people “feel acknowledged for their feelings and their points of view,” suggesting partners repeat back what they hear to show acknowledgment.
While validation has its place, Bowen theory challenges the modern therapeutic emphasis on feelings over thinking.
My perspective: Excessive focus on feelings can actually increase emotional fusion. When relationships become primarily about validating emotions, people lose the capacity for objective thinking about their situation.
What I recommend: Balance emotional acknowledgment with intellectual process:
- “I understand you’re feeling frustrated. Let me think about what you’ve said.”
- “I can see this matters deeply to you. I need some time to consider my thinking on this.”
- “Your feelings make sense from your perspective. Here’s how I’m seeing it from my perspective. I acknowledge it’s just my perspective.”
Understanding how a person feels and how they came to feel that way can be useful. It helps us keep our thinking about feelings more accurate.
The goal is increased capacity for thinking during emotional situations, not primarily getting feelings validated as correct. Feelings just are. They can be understood.
“Embrace Arguing” Confuses Intensity with Health
The article suggests conflict “has amazing potential to bring people closer” and recommends having arguments as a healthy part of relationships.
What I’ve noticed: Arguments typically reflect emotional fusion and reactivity, not healthy differentiation. The emotional intensity of arguing stems from anxiety and over-involvement, not mature connection.
A systems perspective suggests: Distinguish between discussion, disagreement, and arguing:
- Arguing: Emotionally intense, reactive, driven by anxiety, aimed at changing the other person
- Disagreement: Calm expression of different thinking, acceptance that two people can see things differently, no need to convince or change the other
- Discussion: Expression of ideas with no emphasis on changing another person’s thinking. Often when people are more in agreement, they call it a discussion.
Well-differentiated people can disagree profoundly without the emotional fireworks of arguing. When you can think clearly about differences without becoming emotionally reactive, you’re in a much better position to address genuine issues.
A well-differentiated person can express the other person’s ideas with enough clarity that the other person would say, “You got that exactly right.”
“Lower Your Expectations,” Mis-frames the Issue
Philippa Perry advises lowering expectations of family members: “Don’t have expectations that people will be other than who they are.”
How I think about this: The problem isn’t expectations themselves. It’s emotional dependency on others meeting those expectations.
A differentiated person can maintain clear standards and expectations while not being emotionally controlled by others’ failure to meet them. You can think, “I expect basic courtesy from my mother,” while also recognizing she may not provide it and managing your own response accordingly.
Another way to think about this:
- Develop your own principles about how you want to conduct yourself in relationships
- Maintain those principles regardless of others’ behavior
- Manage your emotional reactivity when others don’t meet your expectations
- Stay connected to people without requiring them to change
This differs from lowering expectations, which can become another form of accommodation and self-editing.
“Hurtful Comments Come From Love” Needs Clarification
The article suggests reframing critical parental comments as protective: “You have to remember they are coming from a place of love.”
What I observe: This mixes up emotional intensity and anxiety with genuine love. When a parent says, “That’s terribly difficult” in response to a child’s ambitions, it may reflect the parent’s anxiety, not mature caring.
This systems thinking approach, distinguishes between anxious reactivity driven by fusion and mature love that allows the other person to be themselves. In Bowen theory, we’re looking at how anxiety affects a person’s capacity to maintain both emotional connection and independent thinking.
Better approach: Understand that parents’ anxious responses reflect their own family emotional processes and differentiation level. This creates compassion without requiring you to accept anxious behavior as love.
You can think: “My parent’s anxiety about my choices reflects their own emotional functioning. I can care about them while not being controlled by the anxiety that’s influencing their thinking.”
What’s Missing: Core Bowen Theory Concepts
The article’s existing recommendations can be strengthened with systems thinking. Several fundamental Bowen concepts are entirely absent from the discussion.
The Multigenerational Perspective
The article mentions parents coming from a different time but doesn’t explore how relationship patterns transmit across generations. Understanding your family’s emotional patterns, how your parents managed anxiety, how their parents related to them, can inform your current relationship challenges.
Application: When facing relationship difficulties, examine your multigenerational family emotional process by exploring:
- How did your parents handle disagreement?
- What relationship patterns existed in previous generations?
- How does your current reactivity mirror or react against family patterns?
The goal is understanding the emotional inheritance shaping your automatic responses, not assigning blame to previous generations.
Where do you notice yourself repeating or reacting against patterns from your family of origin?
Emotional Systems, Not Just Individuals
The article treats relationship problems as existing between two people. Bowen theory recognizes that all relationships exist within larger emotional systems, what we call the family emotional process, the emotional patterns and reactivity that flow through family relationships across generations.
Practical implication: When you improve your functioning in one relationship, it affects your entire relationship system. Working on self-differentiation with your spouse affects your relationships with children, parents, and colleagues. Conversely, making progress in your family of origin relationships often improves your marriage.
Triangles: The Building Blocks of Emotional Systems
The article doesn’t address the emotional process of triangles. This is the tendency to involve third parties when anxiety rises between two people.
Instead: When relationship tension rises, resist the urge to triangle others:
- Talk directly to the person involved, when calm
- Avoid venting to third parties about relationship problems
- If you need perspective, seek someone who won’t take sides but will help you think about your own functioning
When anxiety rises between you and someone close, who do you typically pull in?
Chronic Versus Acute Anxiety
The article treats all relationship problems similarly, missing the crucial distinction between situational stress and long-standing emotional patterns.
Acute anxiety: Temporary stress from external events like job loss, illness, moves.
Chronic anxiety: Ongoing anxiety transmitted through family emotional process across generations.
I’ve found that communication techniques and conflict resolution skills may help with acute anxiety. They don’t address chronic anxiety that’s embedded in the family system. Chronic anxiety requires sustained work on differentiation.
Applying Bowen Theory to Relationships: A Five-Point Framework
As a review, here’s a systems-informed framework for applying Bowen theory to relationships:
1. Focus on Differentiation, Not Techniques
Rather than learning communication scripts, work to:
- Think clearly about your own principles and values
- Maintain those principles in your relationships
- Manage your emotional reactivity
- Stay connected to important people without requiring their agreement
2. Understand Your Family Emotional Process
Research how your family has managed relationships across generations:
- What are the typical patterns of conflict, distance, cutoff?
- What patterns do members of your family use?
- How does your current functioning reflect family patterns?
3. Take Responsibility for Self
In every relationship challenge, focus on your own contribution:
- How is my anxiety contributing to this pattern?
- What am I doing that maintains this dynamic?
- How can I change my functioning regardless of what others do?
4. Balance Thinking and Feeling
Develop capacity for objective thinking about relationship challenges:
- “What is actually happening here?” versus what I feel is happening
- “What principle guides me in this situation?”
- “What is my part in this pattern?”
5. Stay Connected During Disagreement
I think the real challenge isn’t avoiding conflict or communicating perfectly. It’s remaining emotionally connected to important people while thinking and functioning independently.
This means:
- Expressing your genuine thoughts without attacking
- Listening to different perspectives without reactive agreement or defensiveness
- Tolerating the anxiety of disagreement without pursuing or distancing
These five principles together form a foundation for working on relationships from a systems perspective. Which of these five areas feels most relevant to work on in your own relationships or clinical practice?
Conclusion: Beyond Tips to Substantial Change
The Guardian article offers practical suggestions that can help in the short term. However, I believe real shifts in relationships come from increasing differentiation of self within the family emotional system.
This is slower, more demanding work. It requires:
- Understanding your family emotional process
- Taking responsibility for your own functioning
- Managing your anxiety
- Staying connected while maintaining self
The results matter. You get relationships that function differently. They rest on mature caring, not anxious reactivity. They involve genuine connection, not fusion, but they require self-responsibility, not fixing others.
As Bowen theory teaches us, we can’t directly change our relationships. We can only change our own functioning within those relationships.
Paradoxically, this is both the limitation and the liberation of a systems perspective. You can’t control others’ responses, but you can always work on yourself. And that work changes everything.
If you’re interested in exploring Bowen theory counseling in Vancouver, or learning more about how family systems thinking can inform your clinical practice, contact us to discuss how we can help.
Thank you for your interest in family systems.
Comments are welcome: dave.galloway@livingsystems.ca
Learn more about Bowen Theory here.
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