When you think about people who are able to observe their family, there are certain qualities that come with it. They are able to stay in family conflict with difference, test out their hypothesis, not take sides, and not get angry and run away when the personal attack comes.
Those qualities might change, based on the family system, who is in charge at the time, and what the family conflict might be. In many families, that’s not just one or two people. It changes based on who might be in a jam and then it might evolve.
Perhaps it’s not necessarily a quality, but the nature of the system, as a whole. It has members who are either in that position in the family at a particular time or it may be someone who is there because they need to survive.
Discomfort plays a big factor in how and when these observations happen, just like crisis creates change for many human beings. It also could be a personality type–such as INTJ—because introverts tend to already be observers. When you think about how and when these observations are made, it’s typically be someone who can understand, see, and watch as an observer without getting caught up in taking sides or getting angry.
Navigating a family systems offers a lot of opportunities to observe, especially triangles, things that are hard for others to see.
Bowen Theory and Family Conflict
A few months ago, I had lunch with a young woman who has been studying Bowen theory for three years—and she works with philanthropic families.
She said that her ability to see a bigger system, rather than just the wealth creator and the generations, has allowed her to have conversations way beyond the problem or the presenting problem that has generated in the family and in the philanthropy. It provides the opportunity to attack an issue and handle family conflict with creativity.
She also said that when you begin to see it as a part of a multigenerational system, many more solutions become available to you. She also talked about relationships in our own families that she now know how to either move forward or to let the people who had the problems live with the problems.
That’s pretty darn good for three years of work, seeing as I’ve been working on it for 25 years now.
This other way of seeing the world and then relating to it as a consultant as she articulated, has given her an entirely new language and viewpoint to move forward.
Two Tangible Concepts
We’ve talked about two things here: triangles and multigenerational processes.
These are concepts that are tangible—people can grab on to them and find the questions that address the history that will automatically decrease anxiety. The multigenerational process is a central concept that makes this another level of thinking and experience.
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