A friend asked about where Bowen Family Systems Theory (BFST) fell in the divide between subjective and objective. It was an interesting question that led to some stimulating conversation. Personally, I’d put BFST more on the subjective-interpretive side.
While some proponents of BFST claim it to be “scientific” it is not so, rigorously speaking, nor in the sense of traditional “scientific inquiry method.” The “science” that it depends on is from the “soft” sciences: clinical psychology, sociology, anthropology, etc. Even the claim that it is grounded on the “biological” sciences must be tempered by the fact that while it tries to stay close to the “observable facts” of living systems it must yet make some imaginative interpretive leaps at points. This is not to denigrate it, nor to discount its’ validity, all theories of necessity must do so–even “scientific” ones. And with BFST we’re dealing with one additional wild card: human beings who have free will, have the capacity for being self-determinative, have the capacity to will, and whose life circumstances have too many variables to anticipate or fit into much of a category of “normative.” If there’s one thing we can say for certain about the human individual and the systems in which they exist, is that they will always surprise you no matter how many “rules” or “principles” you come up with to “explain” them. Such is the reality when we’re working in the field of “emotional process,” and relationships.
Here are the things that make a theory “valid” in my thinking:
- It describes reality as it is perceived
- It is internally consistent
- It is comprehensive: explains all phenomenon in its area of focus and concern
- It is universally applicable to all objects of its concern (to all organic systems, to all relationship systems, etc.)
- It is disprovable (it is honest, based on observable facts, and not akin to “magical thinking” or an ideology).
Given that list as criteria, BFST is a “valid theory.” I don’t think there’s a need to make it “more scientific” than it is to give it validity.
