Jenny Brown

• PhD MSci BSocStud
• Director at The Parent Hope Project & The Family Systems Practice

This paper overviews Bowen family systems theory and its approach to family therapy. It aims to introduce this influential approach and a sample of developments in theory and practice since Bowen's first publications of his research and theory. This paper is the second edition of a 1999 article with the same title (Brown, Australian and New Zealand...

This paper explores the common parenting style tension around nurture versus limit‐setting often evident when working with families with a symptomatic child. Firstly it will delve into the parenting ‘soft/hard split’ with an overview of the literature on parenting styles. Next, it summarises the appearance of this phenomenon in the family therapy l...

This paper asks the question: How can child and adolescent mental health clinicians constructively engage parents as a resource in the young person's treatment? It draws from qualitative research data that explore parents' experience of their involvement in their adolescent's mental health treatment program. The paper especially focuses on challeng...

This article explores some core findings from a qualitative investigation of parents’ experiences of their child’s treatment in an adolescent mental health service in Sydney, Australia. In particular, the research question was, “How does parents’ involvement in the child/adolescent’s treatment influence their perception of how they can be helpful i...

The role of the therapist as a person rather than only as a technician has become increasingly important in family therapy since the post-modern turn. Despite this there is a paucity of research exploring supervision models that focus on self-reflection, as opposed to clinical competence. This study documents the experience of a Family of Origin Co...

Many systems approaches speak to the importance of respectful mutual curiosity in supervision rather than linear teacher–learner didacticism. This paper provides an overview of collaborative approaches to supervision in family therapy. It then focuses on Bowen family systems and encouraging differentiation in the relationship process between superv...

A Bowen Family Systems therapist employs concepts of triangles and the family projection process to view a child's symptoms as embedded in the broader family patterns. This article will examine the dynamics of two family therapy cases where parents anxiously asked for their children's symptoms to be fixed. These cases will be used to explore the co...

Five experienced Australian and New Zealand family therapists and trainers seek to answer the question: ‘What key concepts and core learnings should be part of any family therapy training course?’ They debate the usefulness of making ‘shopping lists’ of core concepts, the importance of considering trainers' and trainees' contexts in the formation o...

This paper will give an overview of Murray Bowen's theory of family systems. It will describe the model's development and outline its core clinical components. The practice of therapy will be described as well as recent developments within the model. Some key criticisms will be raised, followed by a case example which highlights the therapeutic foc...