by Ronald B Cohen, MD
According to Ronald B. Cohen, MD, an experienced Bowen Family Relationship Consultant, and this week’s guest blogger, we all struggle with balancing emotional closeness and distance in our families or origin.
Learning and Doing
“How long can we go on being angry?”
— Elie Wiesel
Consequently we can all benefit from relationship coaching and consultation. This guest blog, originally published on the FamilyFocusedSolutions.com web site in May 2015, can be found in its entirety along with social media comments and links to related blogs, at http://www.familyfocusedsolutions.com/the-family-relationship-consultant/. You may also share your thoughts and experiences concerning the primacy of relationships in your life in the “Post Comments” box on the original blog.
Relationships matter. We all belong to families whose emotional connections greatly impact our lives. The behavior of any member of a family affects every other member in some way. We exist in our relationships and our inescapable connection to our family of origin.
Families are systems of interconnected and interdependent individuals, none of whom can be understood in isolation. The family system resides in the self as much as the self-resides in the family system. Bowen Family Systems Theory (BFST) understands family functioning and behavior as arising from an emotional system that is a universal feature of all living things.
All families have a set of rules, roles and relationship requirements. None of us can ever completely emotionally leave the family we grew up in, nor do we have a choice as to whether or not we deal with them. Even choosing not to deal with them is a way of choosing to deal with them. It just means we leave an awful lot of what’s going on unspoken and have no control over the outcome.
The goal is to change your relationships with other members of your family of origin to improve your life and your family’s life regardless of what anybody else does. If you change yourself, you fundamentally change the nature of your relationships. Taking responsibility for what you can take responsibility for and attending to your needs in the context of intimate relationships, opens the door to facilitating healing of the entire family.
Coaching and Relationship Consulting based on Bowen Family Systems Theory (BFST) involves joint observation, investigation and research about present day and historical family functioning. The process of self-differentiation is built upon ownership of one’s emotional reactivity. A primary prerequisite for engaging in the process is to develop realistic expectations when moving toward changing your part in your family’s dance.
You are learning how to deal with differences without losing connections.
Bowen preferred the “Coaching” nomenclature because his theoretical underpinnings, process of interaction, and desired outcomes were so different from conventional psychotherapy that the term therapy did not capture all of its essential aspects. The journey of self-differentiation may be described as “Growing in the ability to be fully responsible for my own life while being committed to growing closer to those I love.”
Autonomy and emotional connection become congruent and not adversarial.
The “work” itself is an individual and somewhat solitary undertaking that emphasizes self-directed effort. Learn to observe non-reactively the relationship patterns in your original family and explore your role in these patterns. Strive to bring your behavior more in line with your deepest beliefs, even if this means upsetting family members by disobeying family “rules.”
You can make change in your family relationships even without the participation of other family members. If you want your life to be better you have to do the work.
Remember, you are completely in control of your process and end up in a better place whether or not anybody else in the family signs on.
The lives of our children and our children’s children are deeply affected by how we live our lives. Healing current relationships avoids leaving a damaging legacy for our descendants.
Consultation with a well-trained Bowen Family Systems Theory “Coach” can help develop a solid self in the wider historical context of our most important relationships.
Best of luck on your unfolding journey of a lifetime.
Ronald B Cohen, MD is a Board Certified Psychiatrist and Bowen Family Systems Theory Coach and Relationship Consultant in Great Neck, New York. He can help develop a solid image of your ‘self’ in the wider historical context of your most important relationships. To request more information or contact Ron Cohen directly for any reason, please email him at: RBCohenMD@FamilyFocusedSolutions.com or call him at: (516) 466-7530
