Encouraged to seek a life of her own, she eventually moved away, to a small town, close to where her mother had been born and raised. She enjoyed volunteering at the house where Mary, Queen of Scots, had lived, a woman who herself was one of Scotland’s most tragic figures. The best way the family could function, it seemed, was to use emotional cutoff.
As an adult, I have been able to go back and talk with her and her friends, discussing the grief and trauma in the family. Understanding that an emotional cutoff was used to manage the unbearable emotional tensions in the family brings understanding and a way to think about what happened over the years. How much better if her parents and sister had been able to understand this, too!
Forerunner of the genogram
Bowen focused on helping family members develop emotional objectivity about their family relationships. Bowen would draw a family diagram, the forerunner of the genogram, and talk through the family influences on each member. His goal was to help the patient develop emotional object and a greater intellectual understanding about their family of origin. He wanted to help the patient understand the emotional tasks of differentiation.
In the case of Aunt Charlotte, therapy might not have been able to restore her to the family, but at least therapy would have given her and our family a deeper appreciation of the impact of trauma on family relationships and subsequent generations.
Healthy relationships with one’s family of origin mean having the right amount of differentiation. You know you have it when you can relate to your family members without regressing to the "child" position or the "parent" position – and when going home feels good, not fraught with angst, anger, or other strong and difficult emotions.
However, if it still doesn’t feel good because of unresolved problems, it is still possible to develop greater emotional objectivity and a deeper intellectual understanding.
Dr. Heru is with the department of psychiatry at the University of Colorado at Denver, Aurora. She has been a member of the Association of Family Psychiatrists since 2002 and currently serves as the organization’s treasurer. In addition, she is the coauthor of two books on working with families and is the author of numerous articles on this topic.