Name of Concept
Family Projection Process
Introduction
The concept of the family projection process may be employed by a Bowen family systems therapist in order to conceptualize a child’s clinical symptoms as embedded in the broader family patterns (Brown 2008). The family projection process describes the primary way parents transmit their emotional problems to their children. This projection process can impair the functioning of the children and also increase their vulnerability to clinical symptoms (Bowen 1978).
Theoretical Context for Concept
Murray Bowen’s (1978) family systems theory postulates that all families are characterized on a continuum of differentiation levels. The more undifferentiated a family member is, the more difficulty he or she experiences distinguishing thoughts from feelings, and the more he or she is prone to becoming emotionally reactive to the feelings and actions of others within the family. Similarly, the more undifferentiated a family system is, the more...
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Bowen, M. (1978). Family therapy in clinical practice. New York: Jason Aronson.
Brown, J. (2008). We don’t need your help, but can you please fix our children? Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy, 29(2), 61–69.
Farmer, C., & Geller, M. (2006). Psychodrama and couples therapy. Group, 30(2), 117–132.
Hickey, B. A. (1984). Bowen’s family projection process and Tennessee Williams’s “The Glass Menagerie”. Perspectives in Psychiatric Care, 22(1), 26–32.
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Huang, S.X., Rohlfing Pryor, J. (2019). Family Projection Process. In: Lebow, J.L., Chambers, A.L., Breunlin, D.C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Couple and Family Therapy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49425-8_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49425-8_3
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