FEST Writing Group

The first part is what I posted last time.  The rest is new.

 

Years ago I heard from somebody that Murray Bowen had been asked, “What is the single best indicator of level of differentiation?”  And that he answered,  “occupational attainment”, or “educational attainment”.   

I don’t know if he said any of this.  I’ve never been able to track it down conclusively.  Recently, Mike Kerr said he heard Bowen answer “occupation” to that question.  Victoria Harrison on another occasion reported Bowen answering “fingernails” to the question.  My silent reaction to the answer to the question was that that doesn’t sound right.  By that time, I was far enough along in my clinical career and had seen too many examples of highly educated individuals who struggled with the consequences of their low differentiation emotional functioning and, as well, individuals with successful occupational accomplishment who were low differentiation in emotional functioning.  I was seeing them because they were dealing with the symptom consequences of their low differentiation.

Something was not adding up.

As a child growing up with parents without college education and struggling with finances, I developed the belief that educational accomplishment was the path to a good life, to becoming a good person.

So, my personal belief paralleled Bowen’s assertion that educational or occupational attainment was a good indicator of level of differentiation.

Well, I achieved fairly successful educational accomplishments.  But guess what, that by itself didn’t necessarily lead to the good life.

Over the years, I came to believe that Bowen had been in error to even answer that question about the single best indicator of differentiation.

Why?  The nature of living systems is that no single variable by itself is a strong or decisive predictor of any important variable in a  living system.  In interconnected systems, any important variable will be predicted by a combination of variables working together, almost never by a single variable.  Now, we call that systems thinking.             

Back to the original point about educational or occupational accomplishment, I began to in my own simplistic way think that accomplishment in the social world should be considered a sufficiently separate and different part of human functioning from level of differentiation of emotional functioning in systems. Pay attention to both.  Neglect of either has unfortunate consequences.  Keep them mostly separate and don’t neglect either one.

Then what is educational and occupational accomplishment a part of, if anything?  Thinking about them as independent of level of differentiation led me to wonder whether there were other important variables which also are independent of level of differentiation.  

So far, that has resulted in the discovery of three areas of functioning which are important but give one no information about level of differentiation.  The three are 

1. practical competence and material accomplishment
2. patterns of emotional interaction and process in family and society
3. one’s memberships in well-defined sociological group categories.

These are independent of level of differentiation but notice how profoundly they are influenced by level of differentiation, which will describe how differently these three areas will be lived out by an individual or system.

1. Practical competence and material accomplishment

Occupational and educational accomplishment are in this big area of functioning.  Other variables included in it are IQ, socioeconomic status(SES), income, assets, social class of one’s neighborhood and community, one’s position in the hierarchy of one’s job and in other groups one is a part of, level of proficiency in skills one has pursued.

One can be accomplished and prosperous as measured by this group of variables, yet have various levels of differentiation.  One’s accomplishments and prosperity tells nothing about level of differentiation.

2.  Patterns of emotional process and interaction in family and society     

By these, I mean the nuclear family emotional process patterns, triangle process, sibling position, multigenerational transmission process, reciprocal societal projection process.

We all experience these processes.  But which ones we participate in tells nothing about level of differentiation.  They are important to know about any individual, family, or other groups with some kind of enduring identity.  However, knowing these patterns says nothing about level of differentiation.  They have an importance separate from differentiation.

3.  One’s memberships in well-defined groups

Some well-defined societal groups are gender, social class, skin color, religion, culture of origin, nationality, sexual orientation, one’s specific occupation.  Every adult will fit into these groups somewhere.  Where a person or system fits into them will say nothing about level of differentiation.  

These group categories are important to know, but tell you nothing about differentiation.  Knowing a person’s social class, skin color, one’s specific occupation will tell you some probabilities about their health, their probable expected length of life, serious symptoms, their health practices and health care.  And their material accomplishments in life.  These are important to know but will not tell anything about level of differentiation.

These three large areas of functioning are the variables independent of differentiation which I have thought of so far.  Practical competence, patterns of emotional process, and membership in well-defined groups.  All independent of level of differentiation.  I suspect that there are many more important variables which are independent of level of differentiation. I believe this is important in order to clarify what differentiation is and what it isn’t.  Differentiation is too scientifically important a concept to be leaving it ill defined around the edges.

None of this diminishes the importance of differentiation.  On the contrary.  I continue to maintain that differentiation changes any thing it touches; it confounds the interpretation of many important variables.  When you have an idea about many specific important variables which have little relationship to differentiation, you begin to see more easily just how much the level of differentiation influences how these other areas of functioning play out.

Furthermore,  you zero in on what differentiation really is by establishing what it isn’t.  Differentiation is the variation in the quality and effectiveness of emotional functioning in systems.  Period.  Naming all these variables distinct from differentiation forces one to focus all the more intensely on what it is, emotional functioning.