How do family expectations matter? As an oldest daughter, raised with two younger brothers, it was easy to guess that the family expected certain responsibilities from me.

Most especially it was expected I should care for my younger siblings and bring home a few interesting new ideas. 

Problem solving for others was an automatic response.  I became good at solving problems.  However doing for others has a down side. One can create a welfare state in those you are hoping to set free.  Dependency increases, as does its counterpart, rebellion. 

When you get into psychiatry there are many terms to describe the process.  One hears that overfunctioning, sensitivity and dependency are perpetuated throughout the family by a silent emotional process. It's in the water.  People are not aware of what is happening but some are gaining self while others are losing self. It is hard to see ones' own part.

It was 1976 when I first heard Dr. Bowen speak.  He was already famous for having been the first psychiatrist to hospitalize entire families at NIH, and to write about his own family.

Dr. Bowen he was an advocate for 'universities without walls.'  Unquenchable interest in ideas was an antidote for certainty and for the age of increasing anxiety. 

Anxiety was described as the central force that operates on the individual's ability to manage self.  When anxiety goes up, people get symptoms.  Anxiety is contagious.  Anxiety is in our response to each other. It is in how we think we hear about what is going on in society and in the family.  Anxiety is mixed in with the programming in our own heads. 

Some people are calmer during a crisis.  Some people are just born more thoughtful.  It is the individual's ability to be a more autonomous self that produces variations in the family.  

Variations in emotional functioning can be seen by how many people become a part of the emotional system.  Automatic behaviors such as side taking, conflict, distance and projection in the family system are ways to bind up anxiety. 

The more anxious people become the more they fight, distance or get sick. These are the background mechanisms that operate automatically for those who cannot calm themselves down. 

Yes, anxiety makes people and other animals crazed. Anxiety also makes life interesting. It's a doubled-edged sword. 

FST simply observes behavior patterns and discards the individuals' detailed feelings.  I knew none of this when I was growing up in a three generational family system.  Who does?

Most families can provide plenty of practice for anyone who wants to become an observing family therapist.  I was in my early thirties before I could begin to reflect on my life choice and the impact of stress on decision making.

Death and loss of the older generation produced emotional chaos.  It is the loss of the functioning individuals that provoke the emotional spin throughout the family network. 

Often one does not know the needs that each has for the other until they are gone. A network of relationships stabilizes us all.  Once a relationship network has significant losses, it takes time and knowledge to replace people and their functioning. 

On the hopeful side for many families it is automatic to rebuild relationships after a loss.  Dr. Bowen used to say "A good family offers replacements for those who have died."

In many families one has to root around until someone is found who will do the job.  For a percentage of families rebuilding a positively connected family after significant losses can take many years. 

Multiple losses and the resulting challenges were the primary motivations taking me into the world of psychiatry.  It was in my first year as an alcoholism counselor that I met Murray Bowen, MD. 

Dr. Bowen was a master of paradox.  His understanding of the emotional processes in his own family distinguished him professionally. 

Few people really understood what he accomplished by studying his own emotional process. The connection with evolution and the openness with the other disciplines are also a far cry from conventional psychiatry.

One by one individuals will look at these ideas and see which ones make sense to them at a personal level. Eventually I became and still am one of those, a questioning, curious student of Dr. Bowen's ideas.