FEST Writing Group

I have been trying to think about our current president in a more objective way. It is very challenging with all the emotional triggers presented on a daily basis. We are two weeks into a new administration and the tension in the country and even the world appears to be rising at a rapid pace.

At best, Donald J. Trump is the wake up call we all need. Donald describes himself as a fixer. He sees the country as broken and his job is to bring it back to a time when the country was functioning better, maybe the 1950’s, at least in his eyes and the eyes of many. There was great relief with the ending of WWII.  That was short lived as in 1950-1953 we were in Korea to support South Korea against the North. Communism was seen as the main threat then…….you did not want any of those folks gaining an advantage.  There was always the threat that they would infiltrate into this puritan land of ours and distort our principles, values and good clean living standards. We saw our nation and ourselves as superior to other folk whom we perceived as devoid of  principles and standards. The threat was that they could take over the world. Maybe there were some checks and balances in operation at that time as we see that McCarthyism was eventually constrained in this country. On the other hand, it was the age of Jim Crow. We could do to blacks what communists were doing to the citizens of countries they invaded. But we did not make the connection. If I were a nice law abiding citizen, I did not see myself as participating in anything as offensive as Jim Crow and segregation.

Today we have the threat of terrorism which is seen in the same light as communism years ago. Terrorists were just a small group in the late 70’s or early 80’s. They began to hijack airplanes around this time.  I remember Dr. Bowen saying, “What do you mean that this great big society of ours does not know what to do with a small band of acting outers.” He saw the world as changing their way of doing things in response to this small group of acting outers. That was when we implemented tighter security in airports. Dr. Bowen’s point was that the response to the action would serve to maintain the problem. We would all feel better knowing that airports had spent all this money to keep us safe. It eliminated our fear and anxiety temporarily and we could remain confident that we would stay safe in our travels near and far. It became the government’s responsibility to keep us safe. In spite of the heightened focus on safety over these subsequent decades, we feel more unsafe and we demand that others, particularly the government keep us safe.

But the underlying problem that led to the acting out behavior – taking down an airplane – would remain the same. And so it has. The fact that this small band of acting outers has grown exponentially is good evidence that nothing has changed except the problem gets bigger and bigger. We see this in families, our own and others. We tend to think that the problem is caused by one or two misfits and they bring down the whole group. And they can do this when the group acts like an innocent bystander and avoids the opportunity to study their participation in the problem and continues to deny their responsibility in the problem. It really helps to have a theory that can guide you through this process.

We all misread, to some degree, who we really are. We tend to think we are better or worse than what we factually are as our perception of self is colored by the feelings of the moment. The objectivity of fact does not come naturally to most of us, particularly in relation to self and our closest attachments. Bowen Family Systems Theory can offer a motivated individual a way to gain some objectivity by studying their own functioning in relation to their nuclear and extended family. The ability to stay focused on the facts of functioning in our closest attachments can allow for a growing ability to focus on the facts of functioning in larger groups and even in society as a whole.

Donald Trump is not the cause of the problem although in his position, he can contribute to it beyond the level of an average citizen. One can debate if he really reflects the average level of functioning in society but he is a good indicator (not the only indicator) of our present level of functioning as a social system. I think one could safely say, we are on a downward trend. I would say we are now in the lowest quarter of human functioning if one thinks about Bowen’s scale of differentiation. At a time when we need a well regulated and thoughtful leader, we have elected someone who has great difficulty regulating self, depends on the approval of others, perceives threat based on the feeling state of the moment, and has difficulty seeing the long term consequences of his actions or the actions of the group. Decisions are made in response to relationship pressure……..you are either in or out. There is very little emotional flexibility so that differences are automatically perceived as a threat.

So I ask, how is the group influencing Trump? He is surrounded by those who support him and those who oppose him. Either way, it is a lot of life energy directed at Trump. We are vulnerable to making him too important and that is easy to do. He is seen as the cause of our heightened anxiety but in reality he is only one of many factors. I think we can learn something from Judge James Ropart who revoked several sections of  Trump’s ban on immigrants. Judge Ropart stayed focused on the law and carried out his duties to interpret the law in relation to this case. That action had a calming effect. It showed that the system has a way to enforce limits when any branch of government goes too far.  I am guessing that the judicial system may gain some emotional backbone in the future, at least this gives us some indication of that. If the membership in the other two branches of government remain weak, it would serve to strengthen the Judiciary, if they could maintain objectivity in an increasingly threatening environment.  This could then become the Age of the Court.

Speaking of the Court, they have been resting for a year plus. They refused to take on cases they knew would end in a 4-4 decision, since they were only a court of eight. They basically said, We can’t make a decision without a ninth member to break the tie. But what if they did not give themselves the option of a 4-4 decision. What if they took that off the table and said,  We will argue the case until we have a decision. I am guessing, had they had that flexibility, we would have had the 9th justice in Obama’s term.

This is such an opportunity for Bowen theory. Perhaps people could hear it better in this emotional environment. I have always thought you had to have the right amount of misery to be attracted to Bowen theory and stay with it. Discomfort can motivate all of us to move differently. At the end of his life, Bowen gave his theory to the world. He said the world needs Bowen theory. How right he was!

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