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ColonelTank5011
I did an analysis from the lens of Bowen’8 concept, I just need to…
I did an analysis from the lens of Bowen’8 concept, I just need to know If I am on the right track as I have some dought about my understanding, especially the family projection process, please proofread my analysis. thanks
Background
My family consists of four members, my father “Hany”, my mother “Maha,” my sister “Diana” and myself “Marian,” the index person. My parents lived in Saudi Arabia for ten years right after they got married. I was born in Saudi Arabia and lived there for five years before moving to Egypt. We are an Egyptian Christian Orthodox family who adheres to customs and traditions. I was raised in my Christian family, who insisted on attending a Christian school that was managed by nuns, as they believed it was the best option for us and for our family’s religious values. Our religion and practices were important and strict in my childhood, it was essential for my family to attend the liturgy every Sunday morning. As an adult, I completed my bachelor’s degree in business administration, then I did a career shift to work as an esthetician, and now I am completing my master’s degree to become a counsellor.
My mother is a pharmacist, she worked in that field while she was in Saudi Arabia, then she switched careers to become a hair removal technician when we arrived in Egypt. My father is a Doctor of Physical Medicine and rehabilitation, and till now he is in the same field. After coming back from Saudi Arabia to Egypt, my mother and father shared a clinic, part of it a beauty center and the other part is a clinic for my father’s field of physical medicine practice. When we arrived in Egypt, we went through some hard times till they both could run their own business, but it did not take that long, and they did their best to not let us feel the financial stress. They tried to make the business grow fast by spending much time working, and during that time, they were absent from home most of the time. They were trying to get better financially, and they did not care at all about having a good and healthy relationship with each other, and it was not easy to express our thoughts or emotions. Thus, they were emotionally absent, and my mother was trying to control everything all the time, even our emotions. Furthermore, I grew up seeing my parent’s complicated relationship, they had conflicts, and my mother complained most of the time.
My grandparents from my mother’s and father’s sides had a common issue that my both grandmothers were forced to marry my grandfathers while they were teenagers, and their relationships were toxic; they caused emotional abuse to the families, which negatively affected my parents.
My grandparents from my father’s side had a role in my childhood, as they were both math teachers and helped us in our studies during our school years; it was not an option in our family. Every grandchild should have math lessons with them, and they were tough and strict with their children and us as grandchildren. I think this affected my father as he was not sure how to be a good father model, and it affected us as grandchildren as we did not have a healthy relationship with them. Furthermore, there is a tradition in the family that we must have a lunch gathering every Thursday, and it was mandatory, and there were no excuses not to join it. My grandfather died while I was at the university.
My grandfather from my mother’s side died the same year I was born. My grandmother had a role during my childhood, as she stayed with us for extended periods of times while my parents were absent and busy with their business. I had a good relationship with my grandmother, and my sister and I had a tradition of sleeping over every Thursday night. In the end, I can say there was no healthy family relationship in these generations.
Analysis
Murray Bowen’s family systems theory was one of the first comprehensive theories of family systems functioning (Bowen, 1966, 1978, Kerr and Bowen, 1988, as cited in Brown, 1999). In this part of the paper, I will analyze my family across three generations through the lens of Bowen’s eight interlocking ideas.
I was raised with a lack of self-differentiation because of my emotionally absent father and controlling mother. This lack of self-differentiation has had a profound impact on my life and development. It has made it difficult to have healthy relationships with others, as well as to express your feelings and thoughts freely. Differentiation of self requires the capacity to distinguish one’s thoughts, emotions, and actions from those of others in the family and a degree of maturity or emotional autonomy an individual reaches over the course of development (Shultz, 2020). My father’s absence did not give me a good or healthy relationship with him and discuss any of my issues or problems, and my controlling mother. She did not give me a choice to express my feelings or thoughts. My mother was a controller like her mother. Our house had a strict environment in which we had to think or feel in a specific way due to our values and beliefs. This negatively impacted me during my university years as I had a hard time having relationships with others and communicating effectively, and I had low self-esteem. Moreover, my parents were unable to differentiate between their interests and those of ours, my sister and I, which demonstrated the fact that they put little importance on our mental well-being while they pursued their own professional and financial goals. Additionally, they were thinking about our future and which university would be the best for us, and they directed us on which faculty is the best for us. This affected me in a way that I did not get a healthy environment to differentiate and know my desire to which university I wish to attend or which career path I wish to pursue, and it took me five years to know and understand myself and my passion. I believe my father inherited this part from his mother, as he attended medical school due to his mother’s plan or idea.
Thompson et al. (2019) stated, “Triangles refer to the experience in which a dyadic relationship introduces a third member, with the intention or unintentional result of reducing the direct conflict between the two primary members of the unit” (p.7). I believe triangulation occurred in my family when my mother complained about a conflict or disagreement between my mother and father. This affected me more negatively than my sister as I am more sensitive and feel guilty and anxious when any conflict happens between them. I feel hopeless that I cannot improve things or their relationship, which leads to guilt. Willis et al. (2020) mentioned “research has found that triangulated children are more likely to suffer from internalizing problems, such as social withdrawal, depression, and anxiety” (p.2).
The emotional process of the nuclear family is an essential concept in family dynamics, as it contributes to a better understanding of how members of a family connect and communicate with one another. The emotional process of the nuclear family is difficult to articulate in my family. My parents were emotionally unavailable, and my mother had an obsessive need to control over everything, including our feelings. My father was emotionally distant. In addition, the relationship between my parents was tense, as seen by the various arguments they had and my mother’s constant complaining. As a direct result of this, it has had an impact on the dynamic inside our family. In addition, my grandparents on both of my parents’ sides had a troubled relationship, and it’s possible that this had some kind of influence on my parents as well as on us grandchildren. Researchers found that mothers who had a history of excessive emotional distance within their family of origin were more likely to continue child maltreatment (Okado & Azar, 2011 as cited in Thompson et al., 2019Moreover, the parent who experienced emotional distance in their family may contribute to the lack of connection between them and their child, due to a lack of proper exposure within the family of origin of what parent-child relationships should entail (Thompson et al., 2019). Both my father’s ability to be a good father model and our capacity to have a healthy relationship with my father’s side of the family were hindered by the fact that my grandfathers and grandmothers on my father’s side were authoritarian and harsh with their children and with us grandchildren. In addition, there is a custom in our family that requires us to get together for lunch on Thursdays and must attend church every Sunday morning. Attendance was required, and there were no acceptable explanations for those who chose not to participate. This resulted in a sensation of obligation as well as a lack of independence, which further complicated the emotional process that occurs within the nuclear family.
The Family Projection Process is the way in which family members project their own emotional issues onto other family members, leading to conflicts and misunderstandings (Thompson et al., 2019). Thompson et al. (2019) mentioned that “Some parents may develop a sense of “we-ness” by projecting their undifferentiation on children” (p.10); that’s what was happening with my sister and I; we had to feel and behave in a specific way most of the time, due to our value, beliefs, and traditions, and that Christian people should behave and feel in a specific way; for example, Christians do not have to feel sad or get angry, and they should be in the peace mood all the time. Moreover, when we have to choose our future and which faculty we have to complete, we should think in a particular way. My parents married, and they have unresolved emotional issues due to their experiences in their families. Consequently, this affected our relationship, communication and understanding, which negatively affected us and our differentiation of self.
Emotional cutoff is an essential component of Bowen’s eight interlocking ideas. Thompson et al. (2019) stated that individuals with low level of differentiation and higher anxiety may have greater unresolved emotional attachments to their parents. The emotional cutoff in the family setting may be physical or emotional; and, surely, I struggled to become emotionally cutoff from my parents. There was a big failure to communicate and understand each other, due to their absence physically and emotionally and their excessive focus on there business. I believe that my parents do not understand or has the knowledge of having a healthy emotional connection with their children as it appears they both struggled with the same issue in their families. In addition, the fact that my grandmothers had to marry at a young age and that they were both forced to get married had an effect on their relationship as well as on their ability to have a healthy relationship with their children (my parents).Consequently, all these affected my in an way that I tried to have many unhealthy relationships to fulfill my emotional needs, but every time I fail and break up with a big disappointments. Thompson et al. (2019) mentioned that individuals who are emotionally cutoff may overemphasize new relationships, pressure other relationships to fulfill their emotional needs, or trying to have a family outside home.
The multigenerational transmission process is the concept that unsolved concerns and patterns of behaviour are handed down from one generation to the next. Small degrees of differentiation between parents and children may occur through conscious teaching and unconscious shaping of the development of children (Haefner, 2014). It is clear that unresolved issues and patterns of behaviour were passed down from the grandparents to the parents to the children. This is because the grandparents were forced to marry at a young age, resulting in the parents having difficulty forming healthy relationships with each other and their children. Unhealthy relationships between family members were handed down through my family generations; as my parents did not learn how to have a healthy relationship with their children, they did not have a role model in their families. Additionally, my grandmother from my mother’s side was a controller with my mother, and my mother did exactly the same behaviour as us. My grandmother from my father’s side was involved in choosing my father’s future; thus, my father did the same thing while choosing our future. Furthermore, values, beliefs and religion are handed down from generation to generation without any degree of differentiation. I was raised in an unhealthy environment with low differentiation of self; thus, during a period of my development, I felt so lonely and lost, and I had trust issues outside the family, as we should not be different. Surely, differentiation of self and anxiety is maintained due to these factors.
