Family Systems Therapy Research Papers (original) (raw)

In this article, I will discuss emotional cutoff as it relates to marriage through the perspective of Bowen theory, how use of theory can help bridge cutoff and how, in a Judeo-Christian setting, the biblical understanding of covenant can offer a complementary perspective in this task. At the communion rail with her ex-husband one Sunday, Linda said to the priest, "Someday I would like to marry Lloyd again." As Linda had said this several times in coaching sessions-and Lloyd had said the same-, the priest asked, "Why not now?" "Sure, why not?" asked Linda. The congregational atmosphere was electric as communion unexpectedly concluded with a marriage service. Linda and Lloyd Lindsay (names changed) had been divorced for six years. The wedding sixteen years ago was followed by pastoral marriage coaching and the church's Strengthening Marriage Workshop, based on Bowen theory. The couple's step back into marriage, which may have seemed sudden from the outside, followed years of building trust with the pastor and congregation through adult baptisms, family funerals and other rituals. Churches often struggle to find programs that support marriage. Some adults cite their parents' emotional cutoff and divorce as part of their hesitation to marry. Couples who are high functioning at work may be far less functional in their marriages. The skills that make a successful entrepreneur, for example, often backfire in the bedroom and the living room, where people may be less capable of dealing with intimate relationships. Bowen observed, "In another group, a section of the intellect functions well on impersonal subjects; they can be brilliant academically, while their emotionally-directed personal lives are chaotic." These difficulties may involve emotional cutoff, a major challenge in marriage. Bowen theory presents pastors with a different model for premarital and marital work. What is Emotional Cutoff? Bowen called emotional cutoff the process of separation, isolation, withdrawal, running away or denying the importance of the parental family or any significant relationship. (1978) One emotionally disconnects from earlier generations to attach in the present one. In 1975, Bowen added the concept of emotional cutoff to six previously identified Bowen concepts. As Bowen described cutoff, distancing was used to avoid anxiety aroused in intimacy. (Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation, p. 75) The backdrop for Bowen's concept of emotional cutoff was his observation of many young people running away from home during the 1960s. Parents were seen as the problem and getting away as the quick-fix solution. The one who cuts off, however, brings the unresolved attachment issues with parents to relationships with people to new settings. It has temporary benefits but long-range deficits, solving nothing. Bowen wrote: One of the most important functional patterns in a family has to do with the intensity of the unresolved emotional attachment to parents, most frequently to the mother, for both men and women, and the way the individual handles the attachment. All people have an emotional attachment to their parents that is more intense than most people permit themselves to believe. (p. 433) The more intense the cutoff, the more he is vulnerable to duplicating the pattern with the parents with the first available other person. .. When problems develop in the marriage, he tends also to run away from that. (p. 85) Cutoffs are either 1) primary when directly related to one's parents, or 2) secondary, indirect and inherited, when they based on the multigenerational emotional process and can be traced back to the primary parental cutoff. (Titelman 2003) Bowen's use of the phrase "separation of people from each other" to describe cutoff indicates it can occur in other emotionally important "secondary" relationships.