C202003102017: Case Study of multigenerational emotional processes #Bowen #EmotionalFusion Cross-Link: * 202003092023: Chapter 4. Bowen Family Systems Therapy #Booknote * Case 19M10 - Albert Einstein * C202003150924: Barriers to differentiation Bowen Family Theory on Multigenerational Emotional Processes #Fusion #Emotional #Bowen Note: Chapter 4 from Family Therapy Concepts and Methods A common case is when a husband who is emotionally reactive to his family keeps his distance from his wife. This predisposes her to focus on her children. Kept at arm’s length by her husband, she becomes anxiously attached to the children, usually with greatest intensity toward one child. This might be the oldest son or daughter, the youngest, or perhaps the child most like one of the parents. This isn’t caring concern; it’s anxious, enmeshed concern. Since it relieves his own anxiety, the husband may accept his wife’s preoccupation with the children, reinforcing their over-involvement and his distance. The more a mother focuses her anxiety on a child, the more that child’s functioning is stunted. This underdevelopment encourages the mother to hover over the child, distracting her from her own anxieties but crippling the child emotion- ally. In every generation the child most involved in the family’s fusion moves toward a lower level of differentiation (and chronic anxiety), while the least involved child moves toward a higher level of differentiation (and less anxiety).