Murray Bowen
Encyclopedia
Murray Bowen, M.D., was an American
psychiatrist
and a professor in Psychiatry at the Georgetown University
. Bowen was among the pioneers of family therapy
and founders of systemic therapy
. Beginning in the 1950s, he developed a systems theory
of the family
.
, where his father was the mayor for some time.
Bowen got his B.S. in 1934 at the University of Tennessee
in Knoxville. He received his MD
in 1937 at the Medical School of the University of Tennessee Medical School in Memphis
. After that he had internships at the Bellevue Hospital in New York City
in 1938 and at the Grasslands Hospital, Valhalla, New York
from 1939 to 1941. From 1941 to 1946 he had his military training followed by five years of active duty with Army in the United States
and Europe
. During the war his interest changed from surgery
to psychiatry
. While observing the soldiers he decided that mental illness was a more pressing and worthwhile goal. After his military service he had been accepted for fellowship in surgery at Mayo Clinic. But in 1946 he started at the Menninger Foundation in Topeka, Kansas as fellow in psychiatry and personal psychoanalysis. This psychiatric training and experience lasted here until 1954.
From 1954 to 1959 Bowen worked in the National Institute of Mental Health
, Bethesda, Maryland where he began to develop the theory that would be named after him: Bowen Theory. At that time family therapy
was still only a by-product of theory
. Bowen did his initial research on parents who lived with one adult schizophrenic child, which he thought could provide a dimension for all children. After defining the field of family therapy he started integrating concepts with the new theory. None of this had previously been described in the literature, and was being connected with Freudian theory. What began the first year became known nationally in about two years.
From 1959 to 1990 he worked at the Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington DC as clinical professor
at the department of Psychiatry, and later as director of Family
Programs and founder of a Family Center. He had a half-time research and teaching appointment. His research focused on human life rather than symptomatic cubicles. Through association with medicine, knowledge has been extended to every medical specialty, and even the prodromal states that precede medical diagnoses. For Bowen each concept was extended, and woven into physical, emotional, and social illness. As long as psychiatry exists to diagnose and treat emotional illness, its potential is limited. This new work went beyond another family systems theory. He aimed on a theory that eventually would replace Freudian thinking.
Beside this research and teaching Bowen had other faculty appointments and consultantships. He was visiting professor in a variety of medical schools, for example at the University of Maryland from 1956 to 1963 and at the Medical College of Virginia of Richmond from 1964 to 1978. He was life fellow at the American Psychiatric Association and at the American Orthopsychiatric Association, and life member at the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry
. He was at the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology in 1961 and first president at the American Family Therapy Association.
Murray Bowen received awards and recognitions, and among them.
Bowen remained active and interested in family therapy his entire life. It is said that his theory is one of the purest ideas that family therapy has created. He was the first president of the American Family Therapy Association from 1978 to 1982. He died of lung cancer in 1990.
theories. He believed that the primary source of human emotional experience is the extended family unit.
Bowen studied psychoanalysis
for several years at the Menninger Foundation
in Topeka, Kansas. While at the Menninger clinic he studied patients with schizophrenia
, and discovered a unique relationship between them and their mothers; this led to his concept of differentiation of self, which is autonomy from others and separation of thoughts from feelings. From there he moved on to National Institute of Mental Health
in 1954 where he began work on expanding the mother – child relationship to include fathers and thus sparking the idea of triangulation. He believed that the triangle was the smallest unit in a relationship. The idea of a triangle is that one diverts a conflict between two people by involving a third. In 1959 he moved to Georgetown University
Medical Center and began more extensive work on family system
s and how they relate to one another during therapy. He believed that family members adopt certain types of behavior based on their place in the family.
He obtained a great deal of information while at Georgetown, including the need to make a hard effort to remain an objective party. He first attempted to have sessions with families and staff on the assumption that togetherness and open communication would be therapeutic. His staff began to become pulled in different directions and the same effect carried through when he attempted these multifamily meetings alone. He decided that families needed to be met with one at a time. During this time he also coined the term emotional cutoff. This refers to the natural mechanisms people use to counter high anxiety or high emotional fusion, from unresolved issues with family. Cutoff can look like physical or emotional withdrawal, avoidance of sensitive topics, physically moving away from family members, and rarely going home.
His final large contribution was that of his own personal discovery; the idea of differentiation. Differentiation is the capacity of a person to manage his or her emotions as well as thinking; their individuality as well as their connections to others. Bowen thought of differentiation as an emotional capacity which could be conceived on a scale of 0 - 100, 100 being an imaginary ideal. Differentiation has also been defined as the measure of one's emotional maturity. Increasing one's differentiation is thought to be a lifetime project in which one grows in a capacity to better manage one's own connection as well as independence from one's family of origin and other close relationships. A higher level of differentiation would make one less apt to get drawn into other's emotional issues (being "triangled") and be less emotionally reactive to close relationships.
Bowen felt that severe problems within the family unit stem from a multigenerational transmission process whereby levels of differentiation among family members can become progressively lower from one generation
to the next. He developed an extended family systems therapy with the goal to increase individual family members level of differentiation.
and emotional functioning from that of the family
. Bowen spoke of people functioning on a single continuum or scale. Individuals with "low differentiation" are more likely to become fused with predominant family emotions. (A related concept is that of an undifferentiated ego mass, which is a term used to describe a family unit whose members possess low differentiation and therefore are emotionally fused.) Those with "low differentiation" depend on others' approval and acceptance. They either conform themselves to others in order to please them, or they attempt to force others to conform to themselves. They are thus more vulnerable to stress and they struggle more to adjust to life changes.
To have a well-differentiated "self" is an ideal that no one realizes perfectly. They recognize that they need others, but they depend less on other's acceptance and approval. They do not merely adopt the attitude of those around them but acquire their principles thoughtfully. These help them decide important family and social issues, and resist the feelings of the moment. Thus, despite conflict, criticism, and rejection they can stay calm and clear headed enough to distinguish thinking rooted in a careful assessment of the facts from thinking clouded by emotion. What they decide and say matches what they do. When they act in the best interests of the group, they choose thoughtfully, not because they are caving in to relationship pressures. Confident in their own thinking, they can either support another's view without becoming wishy-washy or reject another's view without becoming hostile.
For example, rather than talk with her husband about and deal with her frustration with him, a new mother might preoccupy herself with her new child. In this case, the wife diminishes her anxiety by ignoring its source (the relationship between her and her husband); the husband is on the outside and the wife and child are on the inside.
Similarly, in the same situation, instead of talking with his wife about their marriage and dealing with his frustration with her, the husband might spend more time at work instead. He would thus be making work as the inside relationship excluding his wife.
In either example, though anxiety is reduced, neither husband or wife resolve the source of their anxiety.
Triangles usually have 2 individuals or entities in conflict, and another entity or individual uninvolved with the conflict is brought in. When tension is not high the relationship between the first two individuals is desirable. The two original people of the relationship or conflict are the inside positions of the triangle. The insiders bond when they prefer each other, but in the case of conflict, another entity or individual (the outsider) is brought in by one of the first individuals in effort to either defuse and avoid the situation or team up against the other insider (see paragraph discussing high levels of tension). The insiders may actively exclude the outsider when tensions are not low between the insiders. Being excluded may provoke intense feelings of rejection and the outsider works to get closer to one of the insiders.
Like musical chairs, the positions are not fixed. If mild to moderate tension develops between the insiders, the most uncomfortable insider will move closer to an outsider. The remaining original insider then switches places with the outsider. The excluded insider becomes the new outsider and the original outsider is now an insider. Predictably, the new outsider may move to restore closeness with one of the current insiders.
At a high level of tension, the outside position becomes the most desirable. If the insiders conflict severely, one insider opts for the outside position by getting the current outsider to fight with the other insider. If the maneuvering insider succeeds, he gains the more comfortable position of watching the other two people fight. When the tension and conflict subside, the outsider will try to regain an inside position.
The opposite of an emotional cut-off is an open relationship. It is a very effective way to reduce a family's over-all anxiety. Continued low anxiety permits motivated family members to begin the slow steps to better differentiation. Bowen wrote, "It might be difficult for such a family [that has severe cut-offs] to begin more emotional contact with the extended family, but any effort toward reducing the cut-off with the extended family will soften the intensity of the family problem, reduce the symptoms, and make any kind of therapy far more productive."
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
psychiatrist
Psychiatrist
A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...
and a professor in Psychiatry at the Georgetown University
Georgetown University
Georgetown University is a private, Jesuit, research university whose main campus is in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic university in the United States...
. Bowen was among the pioneers of family therapy
Family therapy
Family therapy, also referred to as couple and family therapy, family systems therapy, and family counseling, is a branch of psychotherapy that works with families and couples in intimate relationships to nurture change and development. It tends to view change in terms of the systems of...
and founders of systemic therapy
Systemic Therapy
Systemic therapy is a form of psychotherapy which seeks to address people not on individual level, as had been the focus of earlier forms of therapy, but as people in relationship, dealing with the interactions of groups and their interactional patterns and dynamics.- History :Systemic therapy has...
. Beginning in the 1950s, he developed a systems theory
Systems theory
Systems theory is the transdisciplinary study of systems in general, with the goal of elucidating principles that can be applied to all types of systems at all nesting levels in all fields of research...
of the family
Family
In human context, a family is a group of people affiliated by consanguinity, affinity, or co-residence. In most societies it is the principal institution for the socialization of children...
.
Biography
Murray Bowen was born in 1913 as the oldest of five and grew up in the small town of Waverly, TennesseeWaverly, Tennessee
Waverly is a city in Humphreys County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 4,028 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Humphreys County.-Geography:...
, where his father was the mayor for some time.
Bowen got his B.S. in 1934 at the University of Tennessee
University of Tennessee
The University of Tennessee is a public land-grant university headquartered at Knoxville, Tennessee, United States...
in Knoxville. He received his MD
Doctor of Medicine
Doctor of Medicine is a doctoral degree for physicians. The degree is granted by medical schools...
in 1937 at the Medical School of the University of Tennessee Medical School in Memphis
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....
. After that he had internships at the Bellevue Hospital in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
in 1938 and at the Grasslands Hospital, Valhalla, New York
Valhalla, New York
Valhalla is an unincorporated hamlet and census-designated place that is located within the town of Mount Pleasant, New York, in Westchester County. Its population was 3,162 at the 2010 U.S. Census...
from 1939 to 1941. From 1941 to 1946 he had his military training followed by five years of active duty with Army in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. During the war his interest changed from surgery
Surgery
Surgery is an ancient medical specialty that uses operative manual and instrumental techniques on a patient to investigate and/or treat a pathological condition such as disease or injury, or to help improve bodily function or appearance.An act of performing surgery may be called a surgical...
to psychiatry
Psychiatry
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...
. While observing the soldiers he decided that mental illness was a more pressing and worthwhile goal. After his military service he had been accepted for fellowship in surgery at Mayo Clinic. But in 1946 he started at the Menninger Foundation in Topeka, Kansas as fellow in psychiatry and personal psychoanalysis. This psychiatric training and experience lasted here until 1954.
From 1954 to 1959 Bowen worked in the National Institute of Mental Health
National Institute of Mental Health
The National Institute of Mental Health is one of 27 institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health...
, Bethesda, Maryland where he began to develop the theory that would be named after him: Bowen Theory. At that time family therapy
Family therapy
Family therapy, also referred to as couple and family therapy, family systems therapy, and family counseling, is a branch of psychotherapy that works with families and couples in intimate relationships to nurture change and development. It tends to view change in terms of the systems of...
was still only a by-product of theory
Theory
The English word theory was derived from a technical term in Ancient Greek philosophy. The word theoria, , meant "a looking at, viewing, beholding", and referring to contemplation or speculation, as opposed to action...
. Bowen did his initial research on parents who lived with one adult schizophrenic child, which he thought could provide a dimension for all children. After defining the field of family therapy he started integrating concepts with the new theory. None of this had previously been described in the literature, and was being connected with Freudian theory. What began the first year became known nationally in about two years.
From 1959 to 1990 he worked at the Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington DC as clinical professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
at the department of Psychiatry, and later as director of Family
Programs and founder of a Family Center. He had a half-time research and teaching appointment. His research focused on human life rather than symptomatic cubicles. Through association with medicine, knowledge has been extended to every medical specialty, and even the prodromal states that precede medical diagnoses. For Bowen each concept was extended, and woven into physical, emotional, and social illness. As long as psychiatry exists to diagnose and treat emotional illness, its potential is limited. This new work went beyond another family systems theory. He aimed on a theory that eventually would replace Freudian thinking.
Beside this research and teaching Bowen had other faculty appointments and consultantships. He was visiting professor in a variety of medical schools, for example at the University of Maryland from 1956 to 1963 and at the Medical College of Virginia of Richmond from 1964 to 1978. He was life fellow at the American Psychiatric Association and at the American Orthopsychiatric Association, and life member at the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry
Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry
The Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry is an American professional organization of psychiatrists dedicated to shaping psychiatric thinking, public programs and clinical practice in mental health. Its 29 committees meet semi-annually and choose their own topics for exploration...
. He was at the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology in 1961 and first president at the American Family Therapy Association.
Murray Bowen received awards and recognitions, and among them.
- 1978-1982, Originator and First President, American Family Therapy Association.
- 1985 June, Alumnus of the Year, Menninger Foundation.
- 1985 December, Faculty, Evolution of Psychotherapy Conference, Erickson Foundation, Phoenix,
- 1986 June, Graduation Speaker, Menninger School of Psychiatry,
- 1986, Governor’s Certificate, Tennessee Homecoming ‘86, Knoxville.
- 1986 October, Distinguished Alumnus Award, University of Tennessee-Knoxville.
Bowen remained active and interested in family therapy his entire life. It is said that his theory is one of the purest ideas that family therapy has created. He was the first president of the American Family Therapy Association from 1978 to 1982. He died of lung cancer in 1990.
Work
Many people believe that growing up in this small town is what gave Murray Bowen his foundation for his family therapyFamily therapy
Family therapy, also referred to as couple and family therapy, family systems therapy, and family counseling, is a branch of psychotherapy that works with families and couples in intimate relationships to nurture change and development. It tends to view change in terms of the systems of...
theories. He believed that the primary source of human emotional experience is the extended family unit.
Bowen studied psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...
for several years at the Menninger Foundation
Menninger Foundation
The Menninger Foundation was founded in 1919 by the Menninger family in Topeka, Kansas, and consists of a clinic, a sanatorium, and a school of psychiatry, all of which bear the Menninger name. In 2003, the Menninger Clinic moved to Houston. The foundation was started by Drs. Karl, Will, and...
in Topeka, Kansas. While at the Menninger clinic he studied patients with schizophrenia
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by a disintegration of thought processes and of emotional responsiveness. It most commonly manifests itself as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking, and it is accompanied by significant social...
, and discovered a unique relationship between them and their mothers; this led to his concept of differentiation of self, which is autonomy from others and separation of thoughts from feelings. From there he moved on to National Institute of Mental Health
National Institute of Mental Health
The National Institute of Mental Health is one of 27 institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health...
in 1954 where he began work on expanding the mother – child relationship to include fathers and thus sparking the idea of triangulation. He believed that the triangle was the smallest unit in a relationship. The idea of a triangle is that one diverts a conflict between two people by involving a third. In 1959 he moved to Georgetown University
Georgetown University
Georgetown University is a private, Jesuit, research university whose main campus is in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic university in the United States...
Medical Center and began more extensive work on family system
Family system
Family system may refer to:*Family, a domestic group of people , typically affiliated by birth or marriage, or by comparable legal relationships*"Family System," a song by Chevelle from their 2002 album Wonder What's Next...
s and how they relate to one another during therapy. He believed that family members adopt certain types of behavior based on their place in the family.
He obtained a great deal of information while at Georgetown, including the need to make a hard effort to remain an objective party. He first attempted to have sessions with families and staff on the assumption that togetherness and open communication would be therapeutic. His staff began to become pulled in different directions and the same effect carried through when he attempted these multifamily meetings alone. He decided that families needed to be met with one at a time. During this time he also coined the term emotional cutoff. This refers to the natural mechanisms people use to counter high anxiety or high emotional fusion, from unresolved issues with family. Cutoff can look like physical or emotional withdrawal, avoidance of sensitive topics, physically moving away from family members, and rarely going home.
His final large contribution was that of his own personal discovery; the idea of differentiation. Differentiation is the capacity of a person to manage his or her emotions as well as thinking; their individuality as well as their connections to others. Bowen thought of differentiation as an emotional capacity which could be conceived on a scale of 0 - 100, 100 being an imaginary ideal. Differentiation has also been defined as the measure of one's emotional maturity. Increasing one's differentiation is thought to be a lifetime project in which one grows in a capacity to better manage one's own connection as well as independence from one's family of origin and other close relationships. A higher level of differentiation would make one less apt to get drawn into other's emotional issues (being "triangled") and be less emotionally reactive to close relationships.
Bowen felt that severe problems within the family unit stem from a multigenerational transmission process whereby levels of differentiation among family members can become progressively lower from one generation
Generation
Generation , also known as procreation in biological sciences, is the act of producing offspring....
to the next. He developed an extended family systems therapy with the goal to increase individual family members level of differentiation.
Interlocking concepts
Bowen summarized his theory using eight interlocking concepts- Differentiation of Self (the most important concept)
- Nuclear Family Emotional System
- Triangles
- Family Projection Process
- Multigenerational Transmission Process
- Emotional Cutoff
- Sibling Position
- Societal Emotional Process
Differentiation of self
Differentiation of self refers to one's ability to separate one's own intellectualIntellectual
An intellectual is a person who uses intelligence and critical or analytical reasoning in either a professional or a personal capacity.- Terminology and endeavours :"Intellectual" can denote four types of persons:...
and emotional functioning from that of the family
Family
In human context, a family is a group of people affiliated by consanguinity, affinity, or co-residence. In most societies it is the principal institution for the socialization of children...
. Bowen spoke of people functioning on a single continuum or scale. Individuals with "low differentiation" are more likely to become fused with predominant family emotions. (A related concept is that of an undifferentiated ego mass, which is a term used to describe a family unit whose members possess low differentiation and therefore are emotionally fused.) Those with "low differentiation" depend on others' approval and acceptance. They either conform themselves to others in order to please them, or they attempt to force others to conform to themselves. They are thus more vulnerable to stress and they struggle more to adjust to life changes.
To have a well-differentiated "self" is an ideal that no one realizes perfectly. They recognize that they need others, but they depend less on other's acceptance and approval. They do not merely adopt the attitude of those around them but acquire their principles thoughtfully. These help them decide important family and social issues, and resist the feelings of the moment. Thus, despite conflict, criticism, and rejection they can stay calm and clear headed enough to distinguish thinking rooted in a careful assessment of the facts from thinking clouded by emotion. What they decide and say matches what they do. When they act in the best interests of the group, they choose thoughtfully, not because they are caving in to relationship pressures. Confident in their own thinking, they can either support another's view without becoming wishy-washy or reject another's view without becoming hostile.
Triangles
In family systems theory, whenever two people have problems with each other, one or both will "triangle in" a third member. Bowen emphasized people respond to anxiety between each other by shifting the focus to a third person, triangulation. In a triangle, two are on the inside and one is on the outside.For example, rather than talk with her husband about and deal with her frustration with him, a new mother might preoccupy herself with her new child. In this case, the wife diminishes her anxiety by ignoring its source (the relationship between her and her husband); the husband is on the outside and the wife and child are on the inside.
Similarly, in the same situation, instead of talking with his wife about their marriage and dealing with his frustration with her, the husband might spend more time at work instead. He would thus be making work as the inside relationship excluding his wife.
In either example, though anxiety is reduced, neither husband or wife resolve the source of their anxiety.
Triangles usually have 2 individuals or entities in conflict, and another entity or individual uninvolved with the conflict is brought in. When tension is not high the relationship between the first two individuals is desirable. The two original people of the relationship or conflict are the inside positions of the triangle. The insiders bond when they prefer each other, but in the case of conflict, another entity or individual (the outsider) is brought in by one of the first individuals in effort to either defuse and avoid the situation or team up against the other insider (see paragraph discussing high levels of tension). The insiders may actively exclude the outsider when tensions are not low between the insiders. Being excluded may provoke intense feelings of rejection and the outsider works to get closer to one of the insiders.
Like musical chairs, the positions are not fixed. If mild to moderate tension develops between the insiders, the most uncomfortable insider will move closer to an outsider. The remaining original insider then switches places with the outsider. The excluded insider becomes the new outsider and the original outsider is now an insider. Predictably, the new outsider may move to restore closeness with one of the current insiders.
At a high level of tension, the outside position becomes the most desirable. If the insiders conflict severely, one insider opts for the outside position by getting the current outsider to fight with the other insider. If the maneuvering insider succeeds, he gains the more comfortable position of watching the other two people fight. When the tension and conflict subside, the outsider will try to regain an inside position.
Emotional cutoff
Emotional cutoff refers to the mechanisms people use to reduce anxiety from their unresolved emotional issues with parents, siblings, and other members from the family of origin. To avoid sensitive issues, they either move away from their families and rarely go home; or, if they remain in physical contact with their families, to avoid sensitive issues, they use silence or divert the conversation. Though cutoff may diminish their immediate anxiety, these unresolved problems contaminate other relationships, especially when those relationships are stressed.The opposite of an emotional cut-off is an open relationship. It is a very effective way to reduce a family's over-all anxiety. Continued low anxiety permits motivated family members to begin the slow steps to better differentiation. Bowen wrote, "It might be difficult for such a family [that has severe cut-offs] to begin more emotional contact with the extended family, but any effort toward reducing the cut-off with the extended family will soften the intensity of the family problem, reduce the symptoms, and make any kind of therapy far more productive."
Publications
Bowen wrote about fifty papers, book chapters, and monographs based on new theory of human behavior. Some important publications were:- 1966, The Use of Family Theory in Clinical Practice.
- 1974, Toward the Differentiation of Self in One's Family of Origin.
- 1978, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson Inc., 1978.
Publications about Bowen
- Michael E. Kerr, Family Evaluation: An Approach Based on Bowen Theory, p 4-6.
- Roberta M. Gilbert, Extraordinary Relationships: A New Way of Thinking About Human Interactions, Minneapolis, MN: Chronimed Publishing, 1992.
- Carmen Knudson-Martin, "Female voice: Applications to Bowen's family systems theory", in: The Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, Jan 1994.
External links
- Bowen, M.D. January 31, 1913 - October 9, 1990, Bowen Center for the Study.
- Dr. Bowen weblog: This website offer 9 paragraph Ideas to action s about Bowen's work.
- Programs in Bowen Theory about educational programs in Northern California based on Bowen theory.
- Western Pennsylvania Family Center about education and training in Bowen theory and its applications in Pittsburgh, PA.