Family Systems Issue 13.1

PURCHASE FULL ISSUE

Purchase: Each full digital issue of Family Systems is $25. Or select from the individual articles listed below. Articles are $9.50. Brief articles and book reviews are $7.50.

Current Subscribers: For digital access to all journals you’ve subscribed to login to our sales platform, Gumroad. (Please note: Digital access begins with issue 13.1.)
Login or create a Gumroad account.
Need help? info@thebowencenter.org or 202-965-4400.

Visit our Journal Page to subscribe or renew your Family Systems subscription.

Table of Contents: 13.1

FROM THE EDITOR
Robert J. Noone, PhD

ARTICLES: Journal articles reflect natural systems thinking or are relevant to it. These may include concept papers as well as research studies.

EMOTIONAL PROCESS IN SOCIETY: A REVIEW AND EXPANSION OF THE CONCEPT
Katharine Gratwick Baker, PhD
Murray Bowen began thinking about human functioning in large non-family systems in the 1940s. Over the next thirty years, he returned many times to this subject in papers and presentations and, in 1974, he introduced the eighth concept—Emotional Process in Society (EPS)—in his family systems theory, Although Dr. Bowen did not fully flesh out the concept during his lifetime, others have continued to explore and expand it, relating it to the other concepts in the theory and to a broader understanding of large human social units. This article reviews Bowen’s original writing on EPS and offers specific examples of its interface with differentiation, triangles, projection, cutoff, and multigenerational family process.

USING BOWEN THEORY TO LEAD AND SUPPORT HUMAN SERVICES: AN INTERVIEW WITH WALTER SMITH
Anne S. McKnight, EdD, MSW
Dr. Smith's clinical approach is based on the premise that child abuse evolves within a family’s adaptation to stressful conditions and traumatic events. What is observed as the “problem”—the abuse—is integral to how the family adapts to stressful events and circumstances. Family adaptation is best understood as embedded in an entire extended network of interconnected family relationships. These ideas have been translated into the working hypothesis for addressing child abuse in Allegheny County by defining the family as the client.

FROM THE ARCHIVES: A special feature of Family Systems is a previously unpublished manuscript by Murray Bowen and other researchers in the family field..

A SYSTEMS VIEW OF THE AGING PROCESS
Murray Bowen, MD
Introduction by Ruth Riley Sagar, MA
On October 14, 1976, the Georgetown University Family Center, under the auspices of the Georgetown University Department of Psychiatry, sponsored its first Conference on Aging within the Family and Society. Dr. Bowen was the first of several speakers who addressed aspects of the aging process in the context of the multigenerational family and the society of which it is a part. Dr. Bowen's presentation has particular relevance more than forty years later.

FACULTY CASE CONFERENCE: Presentation of a faculty clinical case, followed by a discussion with faculty members of the Bowen Center.

TRIANGLES, FUSION, AND THE CHALLENGE TO BE A SELF
Laura Brooks, MSW
Bowen theory describes the family as an emotional unit composed of interlocking triangles that emerge from interdependence between individuals in the nuclear and extended family. Family consultation from a systems perspective keep this broader perspective in mind as the therapist focuses on defining self and relating to the maturity in the other. An important shift in the consultation process occurs when an individual gains objectivity about their part in the family relationship process.

BOOK REVIEWS: Reviews on books relevant to Bowen theory and its many applications.

HOW TO TAME A FOX (AND BUILD A DOG): VISIONARY SCIENTISTS AND A SIBERIAN TALE OF JUMP-STARTED EVOLUTION
Lee Alan Dugatkin and Lyudmila Trut
Reviewed by Michael E. Kerr, MD

WOMEN AFTER ALL: SEX, EVOLUTION, AND THE END OF MALE SUPREMACY
Melvin Konner, MD
Reviewed by Stephanie J. Ferrera, MSW