The Differentiation of Self Scale
Posted by Isaac Butterworth | Filed under Bowen Theory
If you read the post, The Nuclear Family Emotional System / Part One, you will remember the cow that gets too close to an electric fence. The shock causes the cow to react, and, before you know it, the whole herd is in a panic. That, of course, is the way anxiety works in a family or in any other group. If anxiety is going around, it is easy to “catch” it.
So, once we have it, what do we do with it?
Fusion
One option is fusion. In her book, The Eight Concepts of Bowen Theory, Roberta M. Gilbert discusses two opposing forces that operate in any family (or group). One is what she calls the “togetherness” force; the other she names the “individuality” force. The goal is to keep these two forces in balance.
When we lose this balance, we tend to “fuse” with the group. “Fusion” is a key term in Bowen family systems theory, and it occurs when individual choices are set aside for the sake of harmony within the family or other “system” (such as a team or a congregation).
A person in a fused relationship reacts immediately (as if with a reflex, knee jerk response) to the perceived demands of another person, without being able to think through the choices or talk over relationship matters directly with the other person. Energy is invested in taking things personally (ensuring the emotional comfort of another), or in distancing oneself (ensuring one’s own)” (The Family Systems Institute).
Fusion may be expressed as a sense of intense responsibility for another person’s reactions, but it may also be expressed by an emotional “cutoff” from the tension in the family. It is worth noticing that, even if I move away from my family and never speak with them again, I am still emotionally fused with them. Anxiously cutting off the relationship is as much a sign of fusion as intense submissiveness.
The greater the level of fusion, the fewer resources a family will have in dealing with stress. Triangles form. People engage in conflict, assuming or assigning blame and maybe even identifying a scapegoat. People distance themselves from one another. Or, one member overfunctions while another underfunctions.
Differentiation of Self
Fusion, however, is not the only option for dealing with anxiety. Differentiation of self is another, in fact, the preferred option. What does this mean?
We vary in our ability to adapt to the anxiety that life brings our way. This variation may be measured hypothetically by what Murray Bowen called the Differentiation of Self Scale. This “scale” is not to be taken as an actual instrument for assigning people to particular levels. To do so would be purely speculative. Given that understanding, the scale may be used for explaining the idea of differentiation of self.
At the lower end of the scale, people are more emotionally fused in their relationships; at the higher end, people are less so. The scale theoretically ranks people on a spectrum between zero, the lowest possible level of differentiation, and one hundred, the highest potential level. Remember, these points are merely hypothetical. No one is that well off or that bad off. Dr. Gilbert says that most of the population scatters below thirty. To meet someone at the level of fifty would be unusual.
Lower Levels
At the lower levels of the scale, people take on more of the anxiety in the environment, a pattern which leads to more life problems, poorer decisions, and more relationship trouble than their counterparts in the higher levels are likely to experience. Dr. Gilbert talks about this as giving up (losing) or taking on (gaining) more of self in relationships.
Fusion itself gives rise to anxiety. While it solves togetherness needs (the innate push within the individual to unite with another), it amounts to an effort to make one self out of two, a process that adds to whatever anxiety is already present. After all, it is uncomfortable to give up part of yourself or, for that matter, to take on part of someone else’s. When a person is emotionally fused with another, she or he cannot think clearly.
Higher Levels
This is in contrast to those at the higher levels of the scale. For these people, there is less relationship fusion, a fact which makes relationships work better. There are fewer life problems because there are fewer relationship difficulties. And there are fewer relationship difficulties because people base decisions more on facts than on feelings, a practice that results in better long-term outcomes. Dr. Gilbert writes:
The more one is able to separate thinking and feeling, having some choice about which state one is in, the more reliable and accurate are perceptions of how things really are and the more decisions and planning will have desired outcomes” (The Eight Concepts of Bowen Theory, p. 33).
Fusion is itself the basis of measuring differentiation and undifferentiation. The more a person fuses into relationships, the more undifferentiated she or he is. The more a person separates from relationship fusions (not relationships themselves), the more differentiation she or he achieves.
The more differentiated a person is from the emotional system in which she or he is involved, the less need there is to react to anxiety by attempting to control other people. Since anxiety is systemic, any one person in the system can change it by changing her or his own behavior: that is, exit triangles, refuse to assume or to assign blame, stay connected to others, and practice neither overfunctioning nor underfunctioning.
People who have a higher level of differentiation tend to…
- lead by their principles (but don’t beat people over the head with them)
- stay grounded in facts and thinking through issues
- stay in good contact with appropriate people in the system
- make good decisions (if for no other reason than that they are to some extent free of relationship anxiety)
Think “systems” and observe emotional process, and you will be able to see your place in your family or group more objectively.
In the next post, Triangles in Bowen Theory, we will return to the concept of triangling, one of the relationship patterns evident in fusion.
Photo Credit: Lakehouse by Sean J.
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