Chapter 6
Murray Bowen’s Perspective
Differentiation
You can understand yourself by viewing yourself as an individual or you can view yourself as a member of a family system. Murray Bowen’s family systems theory shows how a person’s behavior is influenced by emotional processes that take place in families. It shows how the thoughts, feelings, and behavior of one family member influences another, how one person’s functioning is tied to the functioning of other members of the family. The cause of a person’s behavior exists not merely in the person, according to family systems theory, but in the relationship between family members.
Two life forces govern relationships in families - the individuality force and the togetherness force. Physical, emotional, and social problems are related to imbalences in the individuality or togetherness forces in a family. The intensity of emotions in families is caused by these forces. The nature of relations derives from the interaction of these forces.
The individuality force leads people to act like individuals, to follow their own directives, to think, feel, or act on their own behalf without worrying about what others think, feel, or do, to be independent. The togetherness life force leads people to seek connectedness, to respond to other people’s directives, to function as part of a group and to do what the group does. The togetherness force results in people thinking, feeling, or acting as others do and trying to get others to think, feel, and do as they do. Both life forces while rooted in biological processes can vary in intensity depending on learning.
Relationships develop when people invest as much in togetherness as in individuality. People can invest greater or lesser amounts of energy in relationships. The stronger the togetherness force the more energy people invest in relationships. The stronger the individuality force the more energy they invest in self. When a great deal of energy is invested in a relationship there is little emotional separation between people. When a small amount of energy is invested in a relationship two people’s emotional functioning is more separate. The difference in the amount of energy devoted to a relationship represents the differentiation of self.
A person with a low level of differentiation has strong togetherness needs and a less well developed individuality. Such a person is dominated by his emotions. He needs love, acceptance, guidance. The more differentiated a person is, the more his individuality is developed. He’s interested in relationships but not dominated by neediness.
A person with a low level of differentiation needs relationships to know who he is and to feel he has worth. He’s dependent on emotionally significant relationships for a feeling of well-being. His behavior is determined by the relationship. He isn’t autonomous.
The more differentiation a person has the more she is capable of autonomous functioning. A highly differentiated person has a sense of well-being even outside a relationship. Her behavior is self-determined regardless of the emotional pressure exerted by others. There is a separation between the emotional system and intellectual system in people functioning at the highest level of differentiation. Their behavior is primarily influenced by thinking, the essence of individuality, based on well thought out principles and beliefs. The behavior of a person with a high level of differentiation isn’t determined by others and she doesn’t try to change or influence others.
In the beginning of our lives we all exist psychologically in symbiotic fusion with mother. Because of the individuality life force we are propelled in the direction of growing into a separate person who can think, feel, and act for himself. This is counterbalanced by the togetherness force which prevents us from ever being able to completely separate emotionally from our families. How much emotional separation we achieve from our families is determined by the amount of emotional separation our parents achieved from their families. The degree of emotional separation we achieve from our families determines our level of differentiation of self. Complete differentiation means we can act as an individual in a group.
A person with a solid sense of self knows who she is, what she believes, and the point beyond which she will not go. Her beliefs have been slowly built up with thought over time and can only be changed from within the self.
A person with pseudo-self gives up some of his individuality to preserve harmony. He can be molded and changed by others. Pseudo-self is a false self. It buckles under pressure for conformity. The lower the level of differentiation a person has the more emotionally reactive he is, the less his behavior is determined by thought.
Complete undifferentiation means a person has no self and is rather like a cameleon who takes on the coloration of her environment. The most important thing for her is to feel loved and approved of. She feels anxious when trying to function on her own. Her thinking processes become overwhelmed by her emotional-feelings process.
People with a low level of differentiation are less able to contain their anxiety and more prone to act to relieve it. To relieve anxiety, people with a low level of differentiation distance or do things to achieve harmony by giving up some of their individuality. The more anxiety there is in a situation, the more togetherness fusion there will be. Nothing binds anxiety as much as a relationship. Anxiety can also be managed by overeating, undereating, alcoholism, drugs, workaholism, underachieving, taking a lover, depression, or psychosis. Increased differentiation of self can reduce anxiety. Knowing what one’s principles are and living by them binds anxiety.
It’s anxiety that drives triangles. A triangle, according to Murray Bowen’s family systems theory, is a basic unit of an emotional system, an observable pattern of human behavior. When a relationship is calm two people are comfortable in it. However, the emotional forces outside or inside the two people can disturb the calm. Then a third person is drawn in and a triangle is created. The third person helps decrease the anxiety between the twosome. Now the tension has been spread out in the triangle. The triangle is more stable than a relationship between two people. Should a person in a triangle die, another takes his place.
In periods of calm two people in the triangle are close and the third is an outsider. Because he is outside the relationship, in periods of calm this position is least comfortable. In times of moderate tension there are two comfortable sides of a triangle and one side in conflict. People can go on this way for years. For instance, mother may be positively connected to father and to son, but father and son may be in conflict. What is really happening is that the calm between mother and father is maintained by the conflict between father and son. It’s very difficult to maintain calm in a two person system. Marital problems may be creating tension between a husband and wife. To relieve it the partner in greatest discomfort, maybe the wife who preserves harmony by giving up too much of herself, moves toward a third party, the son. She may pull the son into the situation with complaints about the husband. The son responds sympathetically to mom and sides with her. Now a comfortable closeness between mother and son develops based on undifferentiation. Husband is now the new outsider. The important factor here is side-taking. Mother and son now blame father for creating all the problems in the relationship between husband and wife. In times of moderate tension the result of the shifting process is a relationship filled with conflict on one side of the triangle and two comfortable sides of the triangle. Discomfort between mother and father has been shifted to father and son based on son becoming angry and blaming father for mother’s unhappiness. By son becoming angry at father, the tension is spread and the situation is stabilized.
With greater levels of tension other triangles are created so that you have adjoining or interlocking triangles. Triangles are due to low levels of differentiation among members of a family. If mother had a solid sense of self, she would be less afraid of disrupting the harmony between her and father, more apt to confront him with their problems and hence more likely to come up with a mutually satisfying solution. But harmony is paramount to mother who gives up too much of herself to achieve it creating discomfort for herself in the process. If son had a higher level of differentiation and could have remained neutral, triangling might have been minimal.
When two people can’t keep their relationship in balance so that both people are happy, the most uncomfortable person will distance and try to form a more satisfying relationship with a third person. Tension between mother and father would have had a better chance of being resolved between them if the third person in the triangle, the son, could have remained emotionally detached. Anxiety between two people always results in the most uncomfortable person moving toward a third person. The person in the uncomfortable outside position of a triangle often develops symptoms. Without a son to lean on, mother may have assumed more responsibility for her problem and tried to work it out with father.
The way the third person can remain neutral is to say and do things that encourage the other person to discuss her problem with the one she is having the problem with. The third person’s not becoming emotionally reactive to the situation enhances the chance mother will respond with more of a sense of self to father and both their functional levels of differentiation will be raised.
We are attracted to people functioning on the same level of emotional reactivity. People who are intensely reactive to each other tend to marry each other. People who are less emotionally reactive making fewer emotional demands on each other, tend to marry each other, too. People tend to select mates with whom they can replicate the dynamics of their family of origin. The emotional functioning of every member of the family is interdependent with every other member of the family. If you want to understand the emotional functioning of one member of the family, you have to look at the functioning of the family as a whole. In families there are reciprocities. When one member acts weak, you find another member who acts strong. When one member acts dominating, you find another member who acts submissive. Where one member acts decisive, you’ll find in the same family, an undecisive member. You can understand the emotional functioning of one person in a family by looking at the emotional functioning of those around him. Emotionally based conflicts are often battles for control where one person tries to change the other without changing self.
The things that attract people functioning at lower levels of differentiation to each other are the very things that will cause problems in the marriage. The lower a person’s level of differentiation, the more he uses the other person to complete himself. The person who will develop symptoms in the marriage will be the person who gives up the most, self-adjusting his thoughts, feelings, and behavior to too great a degree to ward off anxiety. The problem is the need for harmony and approval. Adapting too much to togetherness pressures can cause physical, emotional, or mental symptoms. Too little distance can be as problematic as too much distance. The best way to deal with conflict is to work to resolve it.
References
Bowen, M. & Kerr, M. (1988). Family Evaluation. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Hall, M. (1981). The Bowen Family Theory and Its Uses. New York: Jason Aronson.
Kerr, M. & Bowen, M. (1988). Family Evaluation An Approach Based On Bowen Theory. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.