true that families share emotional states: within our closest rela- tionships, we have an unerring sense of when we should be happy, sad, angry or afraid. The reality behind this is that emotions, which are more contagious than the flu, have enormous power within our relationships. “Unfinished business” (unreconciled emotional conflict) is thought to be the ultimate source behind much of the emotional distress and acting out behavior within families. Family Systems practitioners tend to avoid the term “sick- ness” when describing such problems. Instead they are described as “stuckness,” and when individuals and families get “unstuck” there is often a tremendous release of joy, growth, learning, cre- ativity and power.


What Is Going On? Where did such a counter-intuitive, unique idea about rela- tionships and mental health come from? Following World War II, the Mayo Clinic asked a highly regarded Army surgeon, Dr. Mur- ray Bowen, to continue his practice in their operating room. In- stead, Bowen, who wanted to care for the many veterans who came home suffering with what we now call Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, shifted his specialty to psychiatry. As with all psychiatrists in training, Bowen was assigned to patients who were regarded as being beyond recovery—in his case, schizophrenics. Over time, Bowen was astounded to observe that, as his patients im- proved, their families began to behave erratically. He suspected that the illness for which these patients were being treated was in part a sort of a ritualized behavior involving everyone in the family. Bowen was able to obtain a grant from the National Institute


of Health that enabled him to institutionalize entire families in which there was a schizophrenic patient. It was around this time that several researchers began doing whole family therapy. How- ever, unlike other psychological models that proceeded from a certain idealistic framework (such as Freud’s notion of the “Id, Ego and Superego” or Jung’s “Archetypes”), Bowen and his col- leagues strictly observed what happened within families as they related to one another during therapy, recovery and afterward. The result was a framework for interacting with entire families that produced significant, lasting wholeness. Bowen was only concerned with whether or not the method


of interacting with families really helped. Famously he said, “If something worked, we kept it in the model. If it didn’t work, we threw it out.” The ultimate result of his practice and investigation was Family Systems.


How Does Family Systems Help? In the words of Dr. Edwin H. Friedman, one of Bowen’s most


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celebrated and successful students, Family Systems practitioners are “coaching, not counseling.” The underlying effort of the Fam- ily Systems coach is to help the family—and particularly the leader—to understand the emotional dynamics that are the un- derlying cause of whatever issues the family is facing. Once an understanding of the “stuckness” in the family is clear, typically the coach will explain how to break up the routines within the family that perpetuate the problem. As new ways of relating begin to emerge within the family, often there is a “cascade effect,” in which remarkable, positive developments radiate through every person.


One simple example of this can be seen in the story of Hes-


ter, a young mother and newlywed whose husband, Dan, argued every evening with her ten-year-old son, Josh. Hester wept as she described the nightly battles that ensued despite her weary plead- ing. The Family Systems coach advised her to try something that, for this meek woman, was totally out of character: she was to wait until the nightly dispute began, then to lose her temper and to shout furiously at both that they were never to speak to each other again. “If you have something you need to talk about, you tell me! I’ll convey the message! I don’t want you to speak to one another or even look at one another. Is that clear?” Totally stunned, Josh and Dan sat throughout the evening in silence. The next day, the two—who had obviously found a way to conspire—ap- proached Hester together and said, “We think we can get along. Is it okay if we talk to one another?” The Family Systems coach helped Hester to understand that


these two guys were really fighting for her attention—so she gave it to them in a way they did not expect or enjoy. She had been advised to “push them apart” emotionally, recognizing it is a natural tendency for those who are intentionally pushed apart to gravitate back toward each other. This confrontation not only ended the daily disputes between the two, but it cemented in their minds that Hester was the heart and leader of the family. It should be noted that these principles don’t just work to bring healing to families, but also to any group of people: co- workers, religious groups, sports teams, neighborhood associa- tions and so on. These ideas work in groups, of course, because every time people gather, they form new families.


Dr. Mike Simpson, a “third generation” Family Systems practitio- ner, is the founder of Fix Your Family and a Family Wellness Coach who has used Family Systems to work with individuals and groups for the past 25 years. The author of the book Fix Your Family, he can be contacted through his website (fixyourfamily.org), email (1fixyourfamily@gmail.com) or phone (336 257-9276). See ad on page 8.


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