What is it about?
We usually think of borderline personality disorder or any other mental disorder from a medical model. This paper explores the Bowen family systems theory (BFST) view that a mental disorder such as borderline personality disorder (BPD) is not a dysfunction occurring within an individual but a maladjustment of the family emotional system. What if we viewed a mental disorder as belonging to the family rather than the individual?
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Why is it important?
The medical model is one way of 'seeing' symptoms and human behaviour. It happens to be the current dominant paradigm- this doesn't mean that it's accurate or the right way of seeing. A 'systems' way of thinking broadens the lens to include the multigenerational family system of the symptomatic individual. When we see systems we cannot unsee them. Shifting the theoretial lens from an individual-medico-diagnostic one to a BFST one sheds light on how all family members are expressions of a family organism and players in the symptoms emerging in one.
Perspectives
This article has led to many therapists contacting me to read it as BPD is known to be a challenging presentation to work with. I hope it broadens therapists and people's understanding of BPD, and other psychological or behavioural syndromes or patterns, as adjustment disorders of the family system rather than as adjustment disorders within the individual.
Ms Martina Palombi
The Family Systems Institute
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Borderline personality disorder: a symptom of the family system, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy, May 2024, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1002/anzf.1583.
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