So, this is Christmas . . . or Hanukkah . . . or Festivus.  Regardless of the celebration, it is time to connect with the family.  Whether you visit them in person or make contact from a distance, connecting with family is an emotional process. 
 
I’m dreaming of a . . . calm, joy-filled, festive time with family.  A gathering where people can connect to the strength, resiliency, and thoughtfulness available to all families.  The tension in the relationship system, in the form of reactivity, can make it challenging to fulfill this dream. 
 
You better watch out . . . is what some people might tell themselves instead.  You know Dasher, and Dancer, Uncle Fred and Aunt Betty, and Grandma Carol and Cousin Bud . . . They’ll be there, but you may not be looking forward to seeing them. 
 
Put on your yarmulke . . . here comes Hanukah . . . You may feel obligated to go.  It’s your family after all.  Shouldn’t you be there?  What if you don’t want to go?  You already know how it’s going to go: someone’s going to say something inappropriate or say something polarizing. 
 
It’s the most wonderful time of the year . . . at least it can be in theory.  Gathering with family is an emotional process, and like any process, it can have positive and negative aspects to it.  But how one approaches the family, thinks about the connectedness of the family, and acts in the presence of the family can go a long way to making the family gathering merry and bright.
 
I’ve put together a holiday list of things to think about as you prepare to gather with your family:
 
1.         If you anticipate that your family gathering is going to be tense, have a plan.  Decide ahead of time what time you will arrive and what time you will leave.  Stick to the plan.  You don’t have to stay all day, and you don’t have to stay overnight. 
 
2.         Think ahead: what is important to you about getting together with the family?  Who would you like to get to know better?  It's an opportunity to find out what others hope to accomplish in the coming year.  Sometimes the plan can simply be having one to one time with every member of the family during your visit; getting to know everyone a little better.
 
3.         Can you make some predictions about the family gathering?  Of course, you can.  This is your family we are talking about.  You already have some ideas about how the day is going to go.  What insights await you that help you better understand the relationship system?  If you know you will be uncomfortable, plan how you want to manage yourself.  Avoid getting defensive or reactive.  Differentiation is about managing one’s self while staying connected to important others.
 
4.         Observe, observe, observe.  Who talks to whom?  Who avoids whom?  When you try to talk to someone, who comes and joins you?  When someone walks into the room, who gets up and leaves?  What new insights can you gain from your family?  What new insights can you gain about the way you react to your family?  What gets you going?  What calms you down? 
 
5.         If you experience conflict or tension during your visits, think systems!
 
Bowen Family System Theory provides a way for people to think about the behavior of the family that makes sense.  While I’ve presented some tools on how to approach the family gathering, the real work in making a difference is about how one relates to the family.  Using Bowen Theory as a guide can help one think as one navigates the relationship system.  The effort is both simple and complex.  It’s about relating to others, and it’s about managing self.  It’s about being connected, and it’s about being separate.  It’s about being less reactive, and being more thoughtful.
 
Having a coach can be useful to think about one's family  A coach can help guide one’s thinking about the family and how to relate to the family at a higher level of functioning.  To learn more about coaching, click on this link.

Rabbi Ed Friedman was a major figure in introducing the concept of family systems theory to clergy and congregations.  He was one of the first to communicate Dr. Murray Bowen’s ideas of the family to congregational leaders. 
 
Friedman, and Rev. Peter Steinke who studied with Friedman, were my portal into what I would come to know as Bowen Family Systems Theory.  While neither Friedman nor Steinke held close to Bowen’s eight concepts, they did expound on many of Bowen’s observations and ideas and used Bowen’s concept of Differentiation of Self (what Friedman called self-differentiation) as the centerpiece of their efforts.
 
Friedman was an astute observer of congregational life and his ideas about family systems were easily accessible to congregational leaders.  His examples and counter-intuitive approaches to dealing with heightened anxiety and reactivity made leadership less serious and more engaging. 
 
Friedman made attempts to connect human behavior to a biological base.  He saw that all of life was governed by common operating principles; humans were not unique but were part of a larger emotional process.
 
 
Viruses – an analogy of emotional process
 
One of Friedman’s more memorable topics was the functionality of a virus.  His posthumous book, A Failure of Nerve, captures his thinking about emotional process.  He compares the nature of viruses to the challenges of leadership, something he had lectured about for several years.
 
Friedman described a virus as a cell that does not reproduce and is not self-sufficient.  It has no nucleus and no membrane, so it is unable to differentiate like normal, healthy cells.  Most importantly, viruses are completely dependent on a host cell to survive.
 
When viruses enter a host, they take over and run the show.  This, for Friedman, represented a common challenge for leaders in relationship systems.  According to Friedman, some people enter an organization and behave like viruses.  The test of any system, when confronted with a pathogen, is the ability of a leader to regulating their reactivity when faced with heightened anxiety in the system which results from the irresponsible behavior of others.
 
Friedman’s examples included Neville Chamberlain’s leadership against the Germans leading up to World War II.  Chamberlain’s efforts to reason with Germany failed because he lacked self-differentiation.  To the extent leaders can work on differentiation, they create health in the system and ward off any invasion of virus-like behavior.  This was Friedman’s adaptation of Bowen. 
 
As I reflect on Friedman’s ideas, I’m struck by the overarching directive to keep at bay agents of harm and destruction to the emotional system.  When bad behavior is not challenged and welcomed into the system, you end up with an unhealthy relationship system.  Friedman wrestled with what happened in World War II.  For him, the larger issue was how to deal with a horrific (cancerous) attack on a group of people and, ultimately, the rest of the world.  He saw the processes that led to World War II as a systems problem.
 
 
The Application
 
There was something authentic about Freidman’s understanding of the nature of leadership.  He opened the door for many clergy into a world of systems thinking.
 
For myself, I initially latched onto Friedman’s ideas and wanted to replicate his approach.  My early readings of Friedman lead me to a concept of differentiation that was about defining a self over and against the other who was labeled as problematic.  What could I do to get the other to behave better?  Who were the viruses in the congregation? I know am not alone in saying that many people had difficulty implementing his ideas because of the fixation on others. 
 
I remember early on in my ministry teaching a personnel team the importance of being an immune system for clergy and staff.  To the extent the personnel team dealt with unwanted behavior, I argued, clergy and staff could function at a higher level.  If the team failed to address inappropriate behavior directed at staff, it would result in an unhealthy workspace.
 
The first time I used this idea of the personnel team acting as an immune system was when a congregation I was serving hired a new choir director.  It wasn’t long before a couple in the church became vocal about their disapproval of the new choir director’s performance.  The personnel chair and I sat down with them to listen to their concerns.  I stated how I was pleased with the director’s performance and hoped they would come around and give the director more time.  As a result, the couple stopped complaining.  One of them became chair of the worship committee and an advocate for the new director. 
 
I recently watched Ken Burns’ documentary on jazz.  In the third episode, he highlighted the life of Bessie Smith.  He recounted a specific event in her life when she was performing outside, under a tent.  A group from the nearby ku klux klan walked towards the tent.  Bessie was warned as they approached.  From a distance, as she saw them approaching, she started running towards them.  She yelled at them telling them how she was not going to tolerate their behavior.  The story goes that the men turned around and walked away without an incident.
 
 
Rethinking Viruses and Friedman
 
The genesis of this blog comes from an article I came across a few weeks ago.  Researchers have discovered a key component to a healthy immune system.  When a specific receptor AXL, whose purpose is to detect the virus and engage an immunological response, is suppressed, mice were not able to mount an effective immune response when infected.  Why is this?  It turns out that the receptor’s job is to detect the presence of a virus. In a recent study at Yale University, researchers discovered that the receptors permitted the virus to enter the cell in order to understand the nature of the virus.  Once the analysis was complete, the cell could marshal an effective response and wipe out the virus.  “’In an organism, it turns out it's good for some immune system cells to get infected—to 'see' the virus—so you can mount a good immune response,’ said Carla Rothlin associate professor of immunobiology and pharmacology, and senior author on the study.” (site)

What this suggests is that the immune system functions best when a host welcomes in a virus to get to know it better.  Ed Friedman talked about how differentiation is not just about being a responsible self; it is about being a connected self. For Bowen, a hallmark of differentiation is to be able to know the thoughts, feelings and actions of the other while at the same time maintaining one’s own thoughts, feelings, and actions. 
 
For those who read Friedman and Steinke, it’s easy to slip into a diagnostic framework where others are labeled as being healthy or unhealthy.  While I don’t think this is what either intended, when behavior is labeled as unhealthy it is a challenge to separate out the behavior from the person.
 
What we are learning from science is that engagement, not isolationism, is a more helpful approach when working on differentiation.  To the extent one is fully engaged with a congregation, knowing the thoughts, feelings, and actions of the other leaders of a congregation, and at the same time maintain one’s own feelings, thoughts and actions, a congregation can function at a higher level. 
 
The same applies to one’s family.  To the extent one can know the thoughts, feelings, and actions of others in the relationship system, and let one’s feelings, thoughts, and actions be known by others, the system functions better.  This is the result of one operating out of their best thinking and not reacting out of an emotional response.
 
So, for congregational leaders, the effort is not about keeping out “virus-like” behavior.  The effort is towards differentiation of self as one engages others in a way that targets higher level thinking and more responsible behavior on the part of the self. 
 
Because human behavior is predictable (each person responding in predictable ways to anxiety), knowing how others respond to anxiety gives a leader an advantage in thinking about how they want to respond to the reactivity of others.  It’s not about marshaling some kind of immunological attack, but maintaining one’s ability to function at a higher level of thinking when faced with the reactivity of others.  If one can maintain their level of functioning, there is more than a likely chance the other will give up their behavior and take a step up in their level of functioning.  It’s not a guarantee, but in the cases where it works, it is well worth the effort.

The concept of the triangle was one of the first concepts added to Bowen Family Systems Theory in 1955.  Dr. Murray Bowen wrote that the triangle, “a three-person emotional configuration, is the molecule or the basic building block of any emotional system, whether it is in the family or any other group.” (Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, 373)
 
 
Three examples of triangles
 
Let’s say you are the chair of the trustees for your congregation.  You’re about to walk into a worship service and the chair of finance corners you.  They start to tell you how upset they are with the chair of the personnel team.  A triangle has been activated.
 
You are upset about something the pastor said last week in a meeting.  You get together with the chair of the personnel committee to tell them how much you dislike the pastor and how you wish the pastor was removed.  A triangle has been activated.
 
If you have ever been in a meeting where a few vocal members are complaining about someone else in the church and you remain silent, even though you disagree with their views, a triangle has been activated.
 
 
The patterns in triangles
 
One person is always uncomfortable in a triangle.  In relatively calm scenarios, there are two comfortable insiders and one uncomfortable outsider.  Being in the outside position creates anxiety because it can feel like rejection.
 
Patterns in the triangle shift as tension in the triangle increase.  When one of the two insiders become uncomfortable, there is a move by one insider to be closer to the outsider.  This leaves the other insider in the uncomfortable position of being the new outsider.  The new outsider will work to restore the original inside position.
 
With high levels of tension, the desired position is the outside.  An insider makes the move to be the new outsider by attempting to create a conflict between the other two.  As the other two fight it out, the outside position becomes the comfortable position.  At some point, the outsider will make a move to be back in the insider position.
 
In congregations, triangles are the mechanism for conflict.  When two people are in conflict, it is more than likely a third person is involved.  So, an understanding of triangles is the first step in conflict mediation for congregational leaders.
 
They key to Bowen’s concept of the triangle is remembering that triangles are not created in moments of tension.  Triangles exist due to the emotional connections made when we enter a relationship system.  As anxiety rises, it activates reactivity in the triangle.  When one find’s oneself in a triangle, it’s important to think about one’s own need for emotional attachment.  When one is drawn into other people’s problems, think back on the family.  How is this similar to the way people live out triangles in one’s family of origin?
 
Interlocking triangles occur when the original triangle can no longer contain the level of anxiety and reactivity – a reality for people in any relationship system.