8 Questions to ask about the Emotional Health of Your Church
Bowen Family Systems - Togetherness/Individuality in the Church
Bowen Family Systems
Mental health is often conceptualized, and diagnosed, as an individualized problem. In my own practice at Sanctuary Counseling Group, I work primarily with individuals. In my own individual counseling throughout the years I have experienced a sense of healing and clarity as well, so I am definitely not against individual counseling.
However, while we are individuals, we are also, as you know well, part of families, churches, collectives, and communities.
In the 1950s, Murray Bowen, a psychiatrist from Tennessee, began working with the families of schizophrenic children at the National Institute of Mental Health. He started systematically charting interactions between family members and looking for patterns. Soon he expanded his charting to include interactions with the staff as well. Bowen realized that the mental health of these families had been getting progressively worse for generations, until finally a child developed schizophrenia, and landed in his care.
Often, he would help one member of the family to make marked improvement, only to see another member of the family develop mental health issues. Eventually out of Bowen’s observations of families, Bowen developed Family Systems Therapy, a way of understanding and conceptualizing the emotional family dynamics at work in the families and how family members affect one another.
Bowen realized that mental health was not just an individualized problem, but because of the interconnection of families, was a system-wide issue as well.
I remember a pastoral counselor once saying that the child with a substance abuse issue in the family is not the problem (meaning that they alone need to be fixed), they are the truth teller (meaning their substance abuse issue indicates a problem within the system of the family, and the child’s substance use is a manifestation of a systemic issue).
In the Family Systems model, the child with schizophrenia is affecting his family, but is also affected by his family.
Furthermore, because the family does not exist in isolation (just as the individual within the family does not exist in isolation), larger systems are also simultaneously affecting the family (the church system, the work system, the school system, the community system, the nation system, etc).
Family Systems and Health in the Church
Because church members share a sense of community, interconnectedness, shared goals, shared history, shared stories: they function as a system, just like the family.
In a church, members affect one another.
The mental health of one member is affected by the system, and affects the system.
We’re all interconnected.
There is actually a fair amount of writing taking Bowen’s Family Systems model and applying to the community of the church, but because of the limitations on the size of a post, I’m going to write about just one concept that Bowen discovered. This post is Part I in the series exploring Bowen’s Family Systems and applying it to churches.
Part I will explore the concept of togetherness/individuality.
This post will give you questions to consider whether your church, and your own self, may be affected by too much togetherness. This post includes:
8 Questions to Ask About the Emotional Health of Your Church
As well as
Emotionally Healthy Questions to Ask Yourself As a Member or Leader of Your Church
In Part II, we explore a couple common Christian images of togetherness/individuality, and the way they may offer a model for what togetherness/individuality could look like in church communities.
Togetherness/Individuality
According to Bowen, there are two ‘counterbalancing’ forces within the emotional system of an individual:
The drive for individuality (autonomy).
The drive for togetherness (emotional agreement)
Emotional fusion occurs when there is too much togetherness, at the expense of our own individuality.
For example, a family may be emotionally fused if it is not permissible to find new friends or relationships outside of the family unit, or if it’s not permissible to think in ways other than the way the rest of the family thinks.
This extreme form of togetherness at the expense of healthy individuality means people negate their own authentic desires and needs out of a fear of how the group will respond.
Imagine a house where everyone agrees to walk on eggshells because of dad’s anger problem, or where a wife can’t go on a walk in the morning by herself without worrying how her husband will respond.
When there’s much togetherness, there’s no room for any sense of individuality.
Remember, the need for individuality, is a basic emotional drive.
In emotional fusion, there’s no sense of where ‘we’ end and where ‘I’ begin...
Members only see through the lens of ‘we’. Thinking or acting differently than ‘we’ act is reacted to in extreme and emotional ways because it is seen as a threat to the system.
An Example of Emotional Health
I know a couple who are both in musical theater. They live together and support each other emotionally (togetherness), but, they also frequently get gigs that take them to different parts of the country from one another for months at a time (individuality).
They are able to support one another’s individuality and their desires for their own careers that send them to different places, while also retaining a sense of togetherness and connection in healthy ways.
They are together, but they are supported in their individuality at the same time.
How many families do you know where there are strict rules about what the family thinks about social and political issues?
How many families become hyper-reactive when a family member thinks differently than the rest of the family does about social or political issues?
It’s a common trope that couples come in to counseling complaining of ‘communication issues’ because they are ‘just too different’, when in reality, they are too much the same:
they are emotionally fused together and can’t allow each other to express individuality without it being at risk of activating their extreme need for togetherness.
Togetherness/Individuality in the Church
In a healthy church there is a sense of community, shared commitment, and togetherness as they journey through life as a faith family…
And there should be space for individuals to discover and express their authentic selves and uniqueness, and know they are still accepted and affirmed by the community.
Here are a few questions to consider when wondering whether your church have too much togetherness (fusion) at the expense of a healthy amount of individuality.
8 Questions to ask about the Emotional Health of Your Church
Are church members expected to serve the church community at the expense of their own physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual well-being?
Are church members too concerned about another’s potentially negative emotional reactions to express themselves authentically?
Do church members react quickly and reflexively to one another in negative ways that are out of proportion with the situation?
Do church members take differing views, beliefs, and words of others personally?
Are respectful differences of opinion/theology/politics viewed negatively and as a personal/communal threat?
Is a person discouraged or reprimanded from stepping away or disengaging from their positions/responsibilities at the church, even when it may be best for them individually?
Do church members overly focus attention, time, and energy on changing, correcting, or rebuking those who they differ with?
Does your church find themselves obsessing/rehearsing ‘us vs them’ dynamics, either about groups within the church, or about the church and another group outside the church (people of another denomination/religion/political affiliation)?
If you find yourself saying ‘yes’ to many of the questions above, your church may have a problem with too much togetherness.
Emotional Fusion in the Church
Emotional fusion is a congregational health issue, as well as an individual mental health issue for members of the congregation.
Too much togetherness at the expense of healthy individualism will be expressed in the system in some way.
One potential response would be for members within the church system to develop depression or anxiety or other mental health symptoms because they feel (consciously or subconsciously) that they are not able to express their individuality in appropriate and healthy ways.
For example, imagine the following situation: a prominent and active church member with teenage kids who has wanted to step back from their various church commitments for years. They want to step back so they can spend these last few important years focused on their children before they go to college, but they have dutifully kept serving in roles they no longer find joyful or meaningful out of a fear of how church members and the pastor will react to their decision to step back. This member could very reasonably develop depression.
If they sought therapy and worked with an individual therapist, they may eventually discover that what they truly want is to continue to worship on Sunday mornings, but to spend the next few years focusing on their family in the evening instead of at church obligations.
The churches (and pastors) reaction to this member's expression of their individuality (their need to pull back), will have a large impact on the ease or difficulty with which they can move through their depression with the therapist.
If there had been no emotional fusion in the first place, the member would have felt comfortable expressing their individuality and their needs, and there would have been no depression at all.
See - it’s all connected.
The emotional health of the system effects individual members in profound ways.
The church, and perhaps even the member, will likely see their depression as an individual issue, but, as we can see, it is the result of system wide dysfunction (which, just to broaden it again, also informs and is informed by other systems as well).
Another response is that the same member comes to the conclusion that the negative reactions of the congregation at their stepping back, and the insistence that they engage in roles that are no longer life giving or healthy for them is too great a price to pay. At this point, the church member may feel that the only option is to leave the church altogether, because they can’t handle the emotional intensity of the group at their decision to pull back from service .
This is what Bowen calls emotional cutoff in Family Systems Theory.
It refers to how members will attempt to greatly reduce interaction with, or leave the system altogether, when the anxiety of staying is too great to bear.
A Brief Note About Emotional Cutoff
I remember when my wife was applying to graduate school, she received an offer from Florida State. We took a trip to Tallahassee together to see if the school would be a good fit for her. When we got out of the airport (this was way before smart phones and Uber mind you), we had to take a taxi into town.
Sitting outside the airport was the rustiest, most beat up taxi cab I have ever seen (think Royal Tenenbaums taxi car if you’ve seen the movie). The driver was an old man, probably in his 70’s, with a giant white beard, who was calmly reading a book as we approached. The passenger seat next to him was piled high with probably 30 books…so many books that he didn’t even bother trying to move them for one of us to sit in the front seat, so we both settled in the back seat.
I introduced myself, told him the hotel we were staying at, and we struck up a conversation on the way there. I asked him, at one point, what he thought about Tallahassee, and whether he thought it was a good place to live. He thought for a moment, and then said,
‘wherever you go, you take yourself with you. If you like yourself, you can live anywhere’.
That moment obviously struck me as particularly profound since I still remember it 15 years later.
In the case of emotional cutoff, just because someone cuts themselves off from the system, doesn’t mean the effects of the system aren’t still affecting the person who leaves.
They bring themselves and their ways of interacting with others in the previous system with them. They can easily fall into recreating a similar pattern in new systems and relationships, or being drawn consciously or unconsciously to systems that mirror the previous systems.
If they didn’t like the previous system they were a part of, they may not like the next one either…unless they do some work with a mental health professional.
Hopefully this person will seek out a counselor who can help them to become aware of the dynamics that are at play in the systems they find themselves in (likely stemming from their family of origin).
They can hopefully learn to interact in ways that honor both their need for togetherness, and their need for individuality.
The Pastor and the Emotional Health of the Church
The pastor is a part of the church system.
They are, like all members, formed by the system, and forming the system. Pastors are not entirely responsible for the system, but, they do have an oversized role in effecting the system.
The pastor spends a disproportionate amount of time in front of other church members, where the pastor’s reactions are felt, experienced, digested, and reacted to. A pastor may inherit a congregation with a long history of emotional fusion that has existed for years before the pastor arrived, but the pastor’s own emotional health will undoubtedly have an effect on the system moving forward.
These are good questions for all people to ask themselves in the church, because we are all part of the system and all affect the system, but these seem particularly important for leaders and pastors to consider.
Emotionally Healthy Questions to Ask Yourself As a Member or Leader of Your Church
What do i do when others disagree with me publicly or privately?
How does it make me feel when others disagree with me publicly or privately?
What do I do when I am criticized?
How does it make me feel internally when I am criticized?
How does it make me feel internally when people respectfully hold theological positions or convictions that are different, or opposite, of my own?
How does it make me feel/what do I find myself saying/doing when a church member/pastor asks me to take on a task or role that I don’t feel called to?
If I’m honest with myself, do I have any beliefs that may differ from the official or unofficial positions of my church? Why or why not?
What goes through my head when someone I perceive as different then me shows up at my church for the first time?
Who is the group of people inside/outside of my church that I tend to think of when I think of examples of what not to be like in my sermons/the sermons I hear?
How do I respond internally when a long-serving church member or family steps away from the church?
What is a time when I’ve found myself getting upset or reactive in a way that seemed, upon retrospect, to be disproportionate to the event or situation?
What were some of the stated or unstated rules about how my family was supposed to think/act/feel growing up and how did I react to those rules?
What was that like for you to answer those questions?
Did anything surprise you or stand out?
Did you notice any recurring or dominant themes about yourself as you answered the questions?
I would just encourage you to sit with what’s coming up and notice it/be with it. When the time is right, ask yourself if it could be beneficial to find someone to talk through some of your thoughts and feelings about your churches system (or another system) and your role in it.
Closing Words
This is Part I of Bowen Family Systems: Togetherness/Individuality.
Here is the link to Part II, which centers around two popular Christian images that capture a healthy balance of togetherness/individuality within healthy systems.
These images could be great for small groups or sermons, or your own contemplation.
If you know someone who you think needs to learn about togetherness/individuality in the church, in their family, or in any system, why not share this article with them?
Note: New content now being published at www.travisjeffords.com/blog
If you’re struggling with mental health issues, get started today at www.travisjeffords.com
About the Author
Travis Jeffords is a National Certified Counselor and Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor Associate in North Carolina. He holds a Master of Science degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from the University of North Carolina Greensboro, and a Master of Divinity from Christian Theological Seminary. Travis writes on the intersection of faith, spirituality, the church, and mental health.