Family Counseling Approach - Research Paper Example

paid closer attention to some of the details and this allowed them to evolve the concept of the family into a more descriptive entity where strong supportive bonds and long-term roles and relationship help people build their lives around (Goldenberg & Goldenberg, 2013). These relationships may or may not be even by blood or by marriage but the fact that they count in the overall organization of the family makes them essential. The report herein will look at one of the many approaches that were developed as a way of dealing with this context and its point of view delved into to help understand its principles and theorems.

This approach is the Bowen family systems approach or the intergenerational approach. Coined by psychiatrist Murray Bowen, this theory views the family as an emotional unit and utilizes the symbolism of a systems’ thinking to describe the intricacy of the interactions therein. As a family, connections are very intense and mostly border on the emotional perspective. Family members are profoundly attached to the other’s thoughts actions and even feelings naturally making it seem like they are one and the same thing.

It is at the family level that children grow learning some of the basic attribute such as love, belongingness, need for attention and approval, and the way people react and support each other’s expectations and needs and how the lack of these may affect their growth later on in life (brown, 1999). However, when some of these are lacking, the child may not understand and will grow thinking that they way they are was meant to be. Their interactions create emotional interdependence which is presumed to be a significant factor in the promotion of cohesiveness and cooperation in the family.

It is expected that the family is the only unit that is supposed to provide all the basic requirements such as shelter, clothing and food as well as protection for its members (Guerin et al., 1996). Despite these expectations, any heightened