Emotional Detachment in Family Therapy

In this recording, Dr. Murray Bowen describes the therapeutic significance of developing emotional objectivity while staying in contact with the family. Central to training at the Bowen Center is learning to focus on process rather than content in one’s own family of origin, which then carries over into clinical work. It involves learning to be more of an observer than a reactor. One relates to the system without being part of the system.

Dr. Bowen uses examples spanning his professional career as a clinician and teacher to demonstrate how emotional detachment permits “tremendous therapeutic flexibility,” including the ability to see people clinically with whom one has a professional or social relationship.

Dr. Bowen discusses the importance of the private relationship between the family and the therapist and elaborates on the ways he structured videotaped multiple-family sessions to maximize their effectiveness for the families and for audiences of professional trainees.

This video is one of the most frequently used by the faculty in training at the Bowen Center and in presentations they make at other institutions around the country.

For more information, please contact The Bowen Center at 202-965-4400 or info@thebowencenter.org.