The Classic Schools of Family Therapy Psychology Essay

The classic schools of family therapy
Name
Institutional Affiliation
Bowen’s Family Systems Therapy
Family therapy experts believe that people are a reflection of their background, in most cases their nuclear family. According to Bowen, individuality and togetherness are the two driving forces of human relationships. His clinical research since the late 1940s up to the 1990s founded his extended Family Systems Model Family Therapy, which he explains in five concepts.
One is the differentiation of self, which is the ability of an individual to think and reflect without giving in to emotional pressure. Second is the emotional triangle, which appears in a relationship to fulfill the need for emotional closeness when two people have a problem through a third person. Third, is multigenerational emotional processes, where families develop patterns that children assume and become part of them. Emotional cutoff explains how different individuals handle anxiety in relationships while societal emotions such as sexism, class, ethnic discrimination, and gender influence family functions by causing toxic emotional reactions to undifferentiated persons while those who have autonomy resist their influences.
Bowen concludes that differentiation among family members results in family development while lack of it causes adults to carry their insecurities and reactivity to their future relationships and families.
How Therapy Works
Bowenians consider therapy as enhancing an individual’s ability to separate thinking, sentiments and learning and using this ability to resolve problems within a relationship. Bowenian therapy follows two perspectives.
Assessment involves understanding the problem. A therapist begins by mapping the origin of the problem by noting down the dates when it first started, and the events that preceded it. Next, the therapist tries to understand the histo...