There are archives for many famous people available to those interested in investigating the life, times and works of people like Darwin, (http://darwin-online.org.uk/) and Einstein, (www.alberteinstein.info/ ).
For those of you who come to my blog to read about the various ideas generated by Bowen Theory, I want you to know about the Murray Bowen Archives, and the non-profit organization (Leaders for Tomorrow or LFT) that was created for the purpose of archiving the collected works of Murray Bowen, MD. Below is an explanation about the archives and its new leadership.
And many thanks to all of you who have shown interest in and/or supported the mission of (LFT), to make Murray Bowen’s work available to the public. LFT is a one-of-a-kind collection of documents and audiovisual materials chronicling the development of Bowen Family Systems Theory (http://murraybowenarchives.org/).
The good news is that LFT is expanding in a meaningful way. Carol Jeunnette is the first Executive Director of Leaders for Tomorrow (LFT). As an LFT board member I am very pleased. Carol has already made a difference by enabling Joann Bowen, who remains the president of LFT, to finish a long list of tasks. Carol is personal, intuitive and organized; she listens to people, and finds a practical set of actions to move forward.
Joann Bowen sent the following note to the board of directors: I’d like you to have a short summary of Carol’s background and interest in Bowen Theory and Murray Bowen’s archives. In 1996, Rabbi Edwin Friedman introduced her to Bowen theory. It was in the context of congregational leadership as a pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Since then she has been an avid student of the theory, including multiple years of study at the Bowen Center for the Study of the Family. Carol is a licensed professional counselor and holds a Ph.D. in Religion and Psychological Studies with a focus in Bowen theory. For a decade, she has chaired the Voyagers, a clergy group that meets regularly to consider congregational leadership using Bowen theory.
The Work on collecting “Bowen Stories”
As head of the oral history project for the Bowen Archives, I took part in obtaining over 40 interviews from professionals who knew and worked with Bowen. Stories from those whose lives were impacted by meeting and dealing with Murray Bowen can explicate the depth of Bowen Theory as a guide for action.
Other volunteers who conducted the interview process were: Priscilla Freisen, Kathy Wiseman, Frank Gregorsky, Monica Bague, Randy Krabel, and Pam Allen. LFT hired Ellen Chapman to transcribe the audiotapes using ELAN software. Laurie Lassiter was asked to identify topics to use to search a database so that future researchers can look for common themes with regard to how Bowen interacted with people and how they responded to him.
Overall these interviews will shed more light on the many ways one can go about building meaningful relationships and strengthening social systems.
The Significance of Bowen Theory
There is much to learn from the stories of those who knew and were influenced by Murray Bowen, M.D. I saw him as a master observer with an amazing ability to communicate to others what he was seeing. This made a difference in how people were able to function around some challenge in their family. What was his secret? What was he doing in his interactions with folks?
People tell us in these interviews what they were able to do in their families after contact with Bowen. Apparently he could penetrate the emotional fog to see the system in action. Bowen was using his theory to see various ways out of life’s predicaments and help others see some ways out too.
Of course his ability to communicate systems ideas was also dependent on people having the courage to risk and change self. This interactional process is brought to life in these recorded stories.
To change self in a social system requires one to learn a new way to understand problems, to see beyond the current focus on symptoms, and to deeply understand the automatic nature of evolutionarily designed social systems. If you can see beyond what you have been taught to see, then problems and symptoms can be fascinating. Understanding the family as a unit and your part in it allows you to become something like a maze runner, someone who is freer to relate to others beyond the emotional constraints (the maze), which are present in every family system.
Bowen understood and conveyed in stories, or with questions or even a long lecture, just how a self-focus could decrease the “other focused” anxiety in the system. Simply put, symptoms can decrease as more resilient relationships are developed. Such a different theoretical approach to problems in one’s family is far removed from today’s accepted beliefs about mental illness.
Bowen believed the family unit functions as an evolutionary guided social system. The “conventional wisdom” and automatic tendency is still to focus on fixing the sick one, while other family members and society in general often are left blaming, rescuing and becoming polarized. Can this be due in part to society being uninformed about the nature of a family system under pressure?
After all, when the idea of family psychotherapy first emerged, many in society heard it as blaming the family, not that knowledge of family can be a resource for seeing life more broadly.
When first reading the Bowen Anonymous paper in 1976, it struck me that Bowen had redirected the anxiety in the system away from individuals that people in his family were worried about and onto himself. He communicated with people in a way so as to draw attention and present the family with a different view of what might be going on.
For those who have not read it, perhaps you may read it as an epic of how Bowen struggles to define the way the emotional world is functioning out of our awareness.
The radical idea, that the family governs the development and behavior of its members, was brought into focus by Murray Bowen’s efforts in his own family. This paper shocked the professional community, which had not yet integrated the new ideas of Bowen Theory.
There are many letters in the Bowen archives showing how Bowen made an effort to open communications with others, how he discovered who his ancestors were and how to make more sense of his own past. His comments on how society functions, the role of polarization and the response to the pressure of increasing populations and diminishing resources are but a few of the topics he discusses in his letters.
Now, with the addition of the recorded stories of those who spent time with Dr. Bowen, we have a fuller idea of who Bowen was. This collection of life stories shows how others were impacted by Bowen and went on to live in a bit more aware and self-defined way.
There are many wonderful and funny stories of how Dr. Bowen both shocked and challenged people to rise up to be a bit more free of the emotional morass everyone is born into. You can see how Bowen both tricked and inspired people to be able to both think systems and become a resource to others. These stories are valuable examples of how Bowen lived theory and knew more than he could tell us.
You may have your own story of understanding the system and altering your part in it. So you too know that Bowen discovered a completely different way to improve the ability of individuals and families to function at higher levels.
Thank you again for your interest in and or for supporting the Bowen Archives Project of Leaders for Tomorrow. I have enjoyed and am honored to be learning from these recorded stories and seeing how people are making a difference in their own lives.
